Staying fit is incredibly important for mental and physical well-being, but many people find it challenging to prioritize health with their hectic schedules. Fitness often takes a backseat between work, family, friends, hobbies, and other commitments.
Few people have the time, money, and patience to commit to gym memberships, fitness classes, or personal training packages. Although there are many fitness options available, most simply aren’t practical for the average person.
Thankfully, getting fit doesn’t have to be as complex as the fitness industry makes it out to be. You can get toned and fit just by doing the single most accessible form of exercise: walking.
Walking is very straightforward, but you’ll still need a plan to use it as a form of exercise. Thankfully, there are plenty of apps available that make walking for fitness easy. You can find step trackers, online walking coaches, workout trackers, and much more.
Why Walking is an Excellent Way To Get Fit
Walking has been a popular health practice for as long as humans have been alive. You could even call it the oldest form of exercise. It’s a great way to burn calories and lean up without putting excessive stress on the body.
It can effectively tone legs, glutes, and core muscles to give a lean and sculpted appearance over time. The incidences of injury are extremely low, and it’s an enjoyable pastime that you can easily make a social activity.
This is one of its most underrated advantages over other forms of exercise. Many other types of exercise are strenuous and difficult to commit to when life gets busy or stressful. Walking on the other hand is a relaxing escape that you may even find yourself craving.
The Best Walking Apps
Walkfit
Without a doubt, Walkfit is one of the best apps to help you use walking for weight loss. The Walkfit app is available on either Google Play or the Apple store where it has millions of downloads and tens of thousands of glowing reviews.
It’s one of the most popular walking fitness apps available, and it has countless positive user experiences available to back up its value.
The Main Features of the App:
- A comprehensive library of walking workouts
- A personalized walking plan catered to your specific needs and goals
- A built-in step counter
- A workout tracker
- Regular reminders to help you stick to your schedule
- A GPS to map your walks
- Progress data to motivate you
The app essentially functions as a motivational walking coach with strategies to help you get fit, stay on track, and easily see your progress.
The walking workouts themselves vary in difficulty so there’s something suitable for every level of fitness. Beginners can start with shorter or milder walk workouts, and more experienced users can enjoy longer walks, interval training, or perhaps even multiple walks in a day.
The workouts include options for both outdoor walk workouts as well as indoor ones (with or without a treadmill). Not everyone lives in areas suitable for walking, perhaps because of cold weather or a lack of walking infrastructure, so this makes the app helpful for anyone no matter their circumstances.
When you’re doing a workout on Walkfit, you’ll be led by voice instructions to follow along. They’ll notify you of when to speed up or slow down and offer encouragement and advice along the way.
Overall, the main perks of this app are its personalization and motivational approach that helps users stay on track with their fitness goals.
StepsApp
Another free and minimalist walking app is StepsApp. This app is sleek and aesthetically pleasing. It functions as a pedometer to track steps, walk duration, and distance covered throughout your day.
While this app doesn’t offer coaching, it does have virtual awards for reaching certain milestones and activity history data to help users keep track of their progress.
There are awards for reaching certain step counts, streaks, and more. This adds a bit more fun to the experience and motivates users to check off as many of these milestones as they can.
Overall, this app has high ratings and delivers well on its simple features.
Pacer
Pacer is another straightforward walking app. It has plain graphics, accurate activity tracking, as well as personalized weight loss plans. The step tracker runs in the background all day, so you’ll see your total step count for the whole day in addition to any walks or runs you may have completed.
A few features that make Pacer unique are its community board, its adventure walk challenges, and its educational lessons. You can interact with other users and join communities to share results. The challenges are also a fun addition.
They’re pre-set routes in real-life locations. Lastly, the app includes helpful daily mini-lessons on topics within exercise, nutrition, and psychology to help users find success in their fitness journeys.
Summary
No matter your current fitness level, your fitness goals, or your budget, there’s a walking app out there for you. Walking can transform your health and confidence while seamlessly fitting into your already busy life.
Whether you add walking on a walking pad during your nightly TV show, heading out for weekend coffee walks with a friend, or enjoying some alone time on a walk during your lunch break, there are fun and easy ways to boost your regular activity.
No walk is too small to count and the only way to get better is to start.
