Tracking your nutrition is a helpful tool after bariatric surgery, especially with staying on track and seeing progress made towards your personal health goals. However, it can feel overwhelming at times to stay organized and track your calories, protein, and even fitness effectively and all in one place. 

This is where cell phone apps can come in handy. There are several free resources that work great for tracking nutrition and incorporating fitness programs into your daily routine. Take a look at the options below to learn more about a few popular apps. 

Nutrition Apps

Baritastic 

This is our favorite, Bariatric friendly, food tracking app. It is tailored to your needs as a bariatric surgery patient and helps you track the most important aspects of your diet. 

It is very user friendly, and best yet, 100% free! There are no monthly subscriptions, and no upgraded features that you won’t have access to. 

Track your total calories, total and net carbohydrates, protein, sugar, water and set reminders to take your vitamins! When tracking what you eat every day, you can scan the barcode for food products, search their nutrition database, and also add recipes that you create at home. 

This company works closely with bariatric surgical centers like ours, and provides each company with a unique code to share with their patients. This will give you unique access to our nutrition information and push notification to help remind you about your goals. This is really helpful in the early stages after your surgery. The dietitians at Central California Surgery can also access what you log and provide recommendations upon your request. We do recommend setting up a nutrition follow up visit to provide time to discuss your concerns and options for improving your nutrition.

Our program code for you is 87168

They also have a Blog that provides information and video tutorials on how to use the app. For a closer look, go to www.baritastic.com/blog for more information.

My Fitness Pal

This is another helpful food tracking app. It used to be an amazing free option, however it does have more advertisements now and a premium subscription. 

Ultimately, this app offers a count down approach to counting calories. You can adjust how many calories you would like to stay under during the day, for example 1200 calories, and as you log foods, it will let you know how many calories you have left in the day.

At the bottom of your daily log, you can view the breakdown of carbohydrates, fat, protein and sugar. However, it does require a bit more effort to view. 

Fitness Apps

Nike Training Club

The Nike Training Club app offers 500+ free workouts, and 225 beginner friendly workouts. This app provides workout categories that focus on muscle groups, the goal of the workout, and what equipment you have available at home.

You can also search for a specific workout style and if you have a favorite trainer, can see what classes they teach.

There are a variety of free programs available to join as well. This is helpful for those wanting structured weekly workouts, and many workouts are body weight oriented! This is great for people that don't have access to a home gym.

Tone It Up

This is a women led fitness program with workouts for every fitness level and a variety of programs with different goals in mind. Unfortunately, this subscription is not free, however they do offer a 7-day free trial which gives you the time to see if it is the best option for you. 

The subscription is about $100 for a 1 year subscription ($8.33/month), $38 for a 4 month subscription ($12.66/month) which is billed quarterly, or $15 per month if you prefer to sign up on a month to month basis. Sometimes they have discounts for their yearly subscription, I’ve seen it as low as 50% off. 

The subscription includes unlimited access to workout videos and recipes (some not bariatric friendly).

For more information, visit www.toneitup.com

Daily Burn

This is another subscription based program that can be streamed to your smart TV, tablets, and smartphones. 

Daily Burn does offer a lengthy 30 day free trial, however after 30 days you will begin to be billed for the subscription cost of $14.99/month plus applicable taxes. There are additional upgrades within the app as well, so you may be spending more per month depending on how you would like to use the app. 

This program does have a fantastic variety of trainers and classes with thousands of workouts available. The workouts are organized by time, workout type, intensity level, and general fitness level as well.

I would consider this program similar to a gym membership fee, and may be an ideal option for individuals that have some resistance bands, light weights, or workout equipment at home.