Apptitude: Help for getting fit and trim

Instead of sitting around texting and playing games on your phone, why not use it to help you get fit this spring? There are loads of apps for that, and here are a few to make eating right and exercising easier.

MyFitnessPal, from MyFitnessPal.com, is a free calorie counter and exercise-tracking app for most devices, including BlackBerry and Windows phones. It has calorie information on more than a million foods. Who knew there were so many? It will also follow your progress at cardio and strength-training exercises.

When you start the app, enter your weight, your goal weight, and other physical particulars on a series of screens. It told me that with a diet of 1,460 calories a day, I'd lose five pounds over the next five weeks.

After signing up, you start a diary of the food you eat, which adds calories to your daily total as you go, and the exercising you do, which subtracts calories you've burned for the day.

Dieting can be lonely business, but by inviting people you know to sign up with you, or searching for diet buddies on the MyFitnessPal.com website, you'll "diet with your friends," the promotional material says.

A bar-code scanner helps to simplify food entries. And you'll also see nutritional information on the foods and recipes you enter.

Another tool that uses camera phones to read bar codes and help keep a diet healthy is Fooducate, a free application from Fooducate Ltd. available at Google Play and the App Store.

This is an advertising-supported app, with details on hundreds of thousands of food products that go beyond the nutrition label. Among many other things, you can find out about similar products and "better options" and read comments by other app users who've actually eaten the food.

All-in Pedometer, by Arawella Corp., is $1.99 for Apple devices but has a free version for Androids. The app uses the GPS function, if your device has it, or can be calibrated using your height and weight and some other factors to estimate your stride.

Then it counts your steps, logging distance, speed, and calories burned as you go. Some reviewers were disputing the app's accuracy on distance, and the app information guide is very specific on how to set it up and where best to carry it - in a pocket or pouch above the waist. A metronome function can be used to set a pace, and an alarm can be activated to sound when you've reached a calorie, distance, or time goal.

The app keeps a record of your excursions, and it also includes a music player so you can pick a soundtrack for your walks.

Contact Reid Kanaley at 215-854-5114 or rkanaley@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @ReidKan.