The best Android health apps

So you’ve eaten a bit too much Christmas dinner and you need to shed some pounds. Luckily for you Android phone owners, there are plenty of free apps on the Android Market that can help you on your way to post-Christmas fitness.

All the apps below were tested on a HTC Desire running Android 2.2 (Froyo). Please note, different Android-based phones have different specs, which can sometimes cause compatibility issues.

Endomondo Sports Tracker

Price: free

Endomondo Sports Tracker is a great app for walkers, runners and cyclists. It integrates with Google Maps to show you your exact route, the distance you’ve travelled, the time it took, your average speed and the calories you’ve burned.

Workouts and routes are saved and you can upload your stats to the Endomondo website to see how you match up to other fitness enthusiasts. Endomondo even provides a robotic female voice shouting motivational slogans at you once you hit certain milestones (distance travelled, calories burned etc) – which thankfully can be easily turned off.

Cardio Trainer Resolutions

Price: free

Cardio Trainer Resolutions looks and operates very similar to Endomondo, but also lets you set exercise related resolutions for the New Year, giving you handy reminders about how little self-discipline you really have. You can even make these resolutions ‘interesting’, by pledging to donate money to a charity if you don’t stick to them.

A handy feature of Cardio Trainer Resolution is that you can download a free widget so you can keep track of your 7-day calorie burn total right on your homescreen, without having to open the app.

Calorie Counter by FatSecret

Price: Free

Calorie counter is a great way of counting calories, so you can empirically measure your greediness (thereby motivating yourself into action, of course). Calorie Counter fetches nutritional information by letting you scan product barcodes and then searches for the data online, it also has a database of nutritional information from most of the major fast food chains (though its selection is rather US-centric).

Healthy Recipes

Price: Free

Healthy Recipes is really useful if you’re one of those people who wants to eat healthily but lacks inspiration for recipe ideas. The app pulls content from the Spark Recipes website, which is mainly comprised of user submitted recipes. You can then sort the recipes by dietary needs (for example, low fat, low carb, gluten-free), calorific content, or cuisine type.

Personal Dietitian

Price: Free

While Healthy Recipes is great if you want some quick recipe ideas, Personal Dietitian will literally tell you what to eat on every day of the week. You start by inputting your height, weight, age and desired weight. You’re then given you a number of diets to choose from, once you pick one an entire week’s-worth of meals is scheduled for you in a handy calendar.