What is best app for weight loss
Doctor reviews WEIGHT LOSS APPS 2019
hey guys welcome back to my channel dr.
Austin chain here in today's video I'm
gonna be talking about mobile health
apps related to weight loss to help you
on your weight loss journey and I'm
really excited to be doing this video
today because I was actually recently
invited to give a talk specifically on
this subject in Miami at a conference
and it was really well received plus I
had a lot of fun putting this together
and learning about this myself because
obviously a lot of people are using apps
for all sorts of reasons these days and
weight loss is no exception so I had a
lot of fun looking through the internet
for you so you don't have to I'm gonna
be sharing all that with you today so if
you're interested please keep watching
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now before we get started please don't
forget to subscribe by clicking the red
subscribe button below and let me know
in the comments section if you've used
any mobile health apps in your weight
loss journey and what's worked for you
and what your thoughts are please sound
off the level so before we get started
on the specific apps themselves I just
want to go over the general landscape of
mobile health apps and a weight loss so
a study in the International Journal of
obesity in 2016 actually showed that
there were over 100,000 mobile health
apps of which over 28,000 were weight
management related and this was coming
from the five top app stores at the time
now the study mentioned that there were
about a third that were related to
physical activity a third relation diet
and a third related to monitoring of
calories and other types of monitoring
like sleep monitoring as well
one key statistic that I want to mention
from this study was that only 0.05
percent of these apps only 17 of the
28,000 apps out there actually had
professional input so that's a major
thing to keep in mind and a quick note
from the FDA the last I read from 2015
the FDA only regulates certain types of
mobile health apps that are directly
linked to medical devices
such as
scops blood pressure cuffs insulin pumps
things of that nature and not
necessarily these other health apps that
are tracking your fitness tracking your
food intake etc so another thing to keep
in mind when thinking about the vetting
process of these apps and how they're
actually being evaluated so in other
words there are no standards no best
practices and a high risk of
inaccuracies with these mobile health
apps but I think a lot of people still
find benefit in these apps so if you
like to judge for yourself please keep
watching just a quick note before we do
anything else and nothing in this video
is being sponsored this is purely from
looking through the internet myself and
what I found now there have been some
studies out there comparing the use of
an app versus not using enough and how
that compares with regards to weight
loss outcomes and there was one study
from the obesity research and clinical
practice journal earlier this year in
both at the one-year mark and at the
two-year mark as well there was another
study however also from this year 2019
that looked at 20 different studies
related to mobile health apps and weight
loss that there was a significant
benefit at the six-month mark but not at
the 12 month mark so so the authors of
this study actually said you know there
might be a short-term benefit but mmm
long term maybe not so clearly there are
some differing opinions out there about
how well these mobile health apps work
now there are other studies out there
I'm not going to get into them let's go
straight to the apps themselves now
categorizing things was very difficult
because there's a lot of overlap and the
functionality of these apps and these
eight categories include calorie and
fitness tracking apps food education
apps food suggestion apps fitness
tracking apps specifically apps that are
geared more towards the professional
guidance diet specific apps weight
tracking apps and community and image
sharing apps as well so the first scoop
of apps are the calorie and fitness
tracking apps which is the broadest
category out there and there are a lot
of very popular apps in this category
including lose it My Fitness Pal also
the Fitbit app
Noom and other health apps as well now
many of these apps have common functions
such as the ability to calculate your
daily caloric requirement food logging
barcode scanning for when you're going
to the grocery store it and you want to
actually scan the barcode on some of
these items that you're buying progress
tracking of some of these apps have
exclusive functions like some can
actually take pictures of your food and
calculate how many calories are in it
and what other nutritional facts are
with your food directly also vitamin and
mineral logging syncing with other apps
or also the ability to communicate in
community forums and share your ideas so
let's go into these apps right now so
this is my Fitness Pal and based off of
my height in way they're actually taking
in 1,700 calories a day
there is looks like a newsfeed here
where I might be able to read some
stories read some tips I can see my
progress and there are different fit
premium features like fitness gear goals
challenges things like that reminders
recipes oh and it looks like you can
even post your status how much water
you're drinking the food you're taking
what exercises you're doing and your
weight for the day so really interesting
features in my Fitness Pal I know this
is a very popular app lose it is the
other app in this category that I'm
gonna go over there are different
sections for breakfast lunch dinner and
snacks also water sleep let's see my day
this app calculates that my calorie
budget is seventeen ninety and if I were
to log what I'm eating I'm sure it will
tell me how I'm doing every day it looks
like it also has a newsfeed and
different helpful tips it breaks things
down into nutrients and let's see what
else do they have here it has a section
for my logging okay
social looks like a key message friends
within this group of apps are some of
the apps that are bariatric procedures
specific including Vera tastic bariatric
Pal or bear coach and these apps are
really helpful for patients who have
under
bariatric surgery or are preparing to
undergo bariatric surgery because they
may have some pre and post surgery
recommendations that are specific to
this population as well as the ability
to link to your practice to your doctor
so that there may be some communication
there also support groups that are
specific to this population which may be
really helpful and also podcasts and
other types of resources specific to
people who have undergone bariatric
surgery or are planning to undergo very
Ettrick surgery or barrett coach just so
you know is the app specific for the
entry gastric balloon which is an
endoscopic procedure that I perform now
the second category is food education
apps and the main app in this category
is food UK which is one of my favorite
apps and I'll tell you why even though
it has the barcode scanner that allows
you to scan products in the supermarket
it also gives the product a grade in
comparison to other products in the same
categories alright so as I mentioned
food you case of one of my favorites now
this app is calculating twenty one
thirty calories got the food scanner and
I'm just gonna show you let's see if I
can grab it okay so I've got the food
scanner right here if it will actually
scan this barcode okay okay so it's
showing me that this coffee made coffee
creamer is a grade C there are a lot of
comments from other people on here and
the reason why it's a great C is it
because it contains trans fat and it
also contains controversial artificial
colors it's highly processed okay no
surprises here it also shows the
nutrition facts what's really great in
my opinion is this alternative section
so remember this product got the grade C
but it's showing me that a minus is
showing me that B pluses in this
category as well so other options that
potentially might be a little more
healthy than this particular brand of
coffee
now this app also has a different
recipes looks like I can favorite
different trending recipes here again
another type of newsfeed blog that may
be helpful for people who potentially
want to read up so the third category is
food suggestion apps and the main app in
this category that I was referring to is
healthy out and this is basically for
those of you who enjoy eating out
healthy out can help you narrow down
your choices if you are looking for a
specific diet like keto low-carb
gluten-free it can narrow down the
choices for you and even tell you which
restaurants provide those options and
what those options are in those
restaurants so it'll say and a specific
restaurant that there are nine
gluten-free options at this restaurant
five vegan options etc which is really
helpful if you have certain dietary
restrictions now the fourth category is
fitness tracking apps specifically and
two of my favorite apps in this category
are step at and Sweatt point because I
think they're really innovative
approaches to fitness tracking step F
actually allows you to place a bet and
put money in to a pot with thousands of
other people and if you reach your own
personal fitness goals you can get your
money back plus a chunk of the pot as
well now from what I've seen on YouTube
and elsewhere it usually comes down a
couple extra dollars if you do meet your
fitness goals but nonetheless I think
it's a great motivator to help you
achieve and complete your fitness goals
the other app that I mentioned is sweat
coin there are certain rewards that are
associated with sweat coins so if you
meet your fitness goals over time you
can rack up points and use those points
to buy certain things what however long
it takes you to get twenty thousand
sweat coins that can give you a new
iPhone which
pretty cool and so the way the app makes
money from what I understand is that it
runs ads which allows it to provide some
of these perks now there were some
studies looking at this and yes it
seemed to reduce the amount of time that
people were being sedentary and now back
when Pokemon go just came out and took
over the world now there were some
studies looking at this and yes it
seemed to reduce the amount of time that
people were being sedentary now there
are other really cool apps out there
like all trills that actually suggest
hiking trails for you
active studios some of these other apps
have audio based workouts and other
creative ways of keeping you active now
in the professional guidance category
there is rise up noon and or Barratt
coach as well these are specific people
on the other line of the app that are
giving you a person of person guidance
so that may be really helpful now these
might be helpful not only for the
guidance they're giving but also to keep
you accountable with your progress
now the diet specific apps out there I'm
not going to go into too much detail but
some of them are specific to a certain
diet like the whole xxx diet like the
keto diet I'm not endorsing any of these
diets but just to say that there are
apps out there specific to those diets
if that is the approach that you are
taking now weight tracking apps are also
very helpful there there are plenty of
scales out there that sync up to your
mobile phone where it can track your
progress over time now the main app that
I see time and time again recommended is
happy scale now a happy scale allows you
to track your weight but it sort of
smooths out the curve over time because
you're gonna have ups and downs and
that's okay and that's normal but it
smooths things out for you so that you
know just because you're going up one
day and down one day that you aren't too
distracted by those little fluctuations
you can actually see that everything is
going in the right direction
and lastly community and image sharing
apps there are really fun apps out there
like you ate or see how you eat these
apps sort of are like the Instagram of
weight loss you take pictures of your
food
it keeps you accountable it shows up in
other people's feeds and you can also
provide feedback about how you felt when
you took these pictures of what you ate
like were you hungry where you stressed
out things like that so it can really
help advise you on what the triggers are
for your eating habits in a sense
Instagram and YouTube also serves this
function so I can definitely not
discount the importance of those more
common popular apps so all in all I
think that these apps can be very
helpful for people who are looking to
lose weight again keep in mind that not
a lot of these apps are regulated and
there is questionable effectiveness at
least based on the studies but I know
different people are looking for
different things maybe you need help
with your fitness tracking maybe you
need help with eating out better or
choosing certain products when you're
grocery shopping so I think that maybe
you'll find one of these apps helpful
now a final note no matter what app you
use especially those on social media on
YouTube and Instagram not all
information is accurate not all
information is tested and evidence-based
so be sure to verify whether or not they
are trained to talk about what they're
talking about whether or not they have
the credentials to back up what they are
saying because you really should be
getting your medical information from
trusted sources so that's it for today's
video hopefully you can pause through
some of the sections and look at the
different apps that I've listed if you
have any questions or comments please
leave them in the comments section below
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of course please stay healthy and until
the next video bye guys
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