A prediabetes diagnosis is just the tip of the iceberg.
If you recently received your higher-than-normal blood sugar results, then you know that the amount of changes you need to apply to your lifestyle is nothing short of demanding.
You have a long and arduous road ahead of you, but the good news is that prediabetes can be reversed. That is, if you are willing to change plenty of things in your life.
Tracking Your Meals
A 2013 study by John Hopkins scientists shows that prediabetics who dropped around 10 percent of their body weight in the six months following their diagnosis reduced their risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
This means that the sooner your lifestyle changes, the better. However, losing weight is not the easiest thing to do. You have to be more active, cut back on a lot of food and drinks, and maintain that habit until your sugar level goes back to normal.
One of the best ways to help you lose weight is to keep track of your meals. According to research, regularly updating a food diary can actually double your weight loss.
Listing down everything that you eat would encourage you to cut back on your calories. The good thing is that technology has advanced enough to provide you with the tools that you need.
Here are five free calorie-tracking apps you can use:
1. Fooducate
A portmanteau of food and educate, Fooducate is especially made for people who wish to get into the nitty gritty of the food they are eating.
It does what usual calorie-tracking apps do—counting calories and tracking your weight loss either by exercise or diet. What sets it apart is that it gives you more information about your food.
Simply scan the barcode of a product and the app would list down details you would usually miss, such as tricky trans fats, MSG, additives and preservatives, etc. It also informs you of any possible allergy-inducing ingredients.
Available on the App Store and Play Store.
2. Carb Counting with Lenny
Although children are rarely diagnosed of prediabetes, scientists have seen a rise in pediatric cases due to childhood obesity.
Carb Counting With Lenny, an app especially designed for children with full-blown diabetes, has a fun interface that the young ones would enjoy. It aims to teach children which food contains carbohydrates, as well as the right amount to eat or drink—all done through interactive games and visually-appealing interface.
Available on the App Store and Play Store.
3. My Diet Diary
My Diet Diary’s interface definitely stands out, with its visually-appealing color theme and background images.
The best part about this is it keeps track of how much carbs you have consumed for the day and how much you have left. It can be linked to your other fitness apps and has a feature that would constantly remind you when it’s time to eat or exercise. It also has an in-app forum, where you can get support from others in the same boat as you are.
Available on the App Store and Play Store.
4. SparkPeople Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker
SparkPeople’s calorie tracker is one of the most popular nutrition apps out there.
It boasts of more than 4 million foods in their database, giving you an extensive library so you can properly count your calories. You’ll have access to articles written by their team of nutritionists and fitness experts. To further motivate you, they also have a gamified aspect to the app, giving you more impetus to stay fit.
Available on the App Store and Play Store.
5. Noom Coach
Noom Coach adds a built-in pedometer on top of its food diary and exercise tracking features. It has a range of coached programs, all designed by physicians to help those with chronic conditions (e.g. diabetes).
If you need help with motivating yourself, this app is for you. The courses are structured to ease habit forming—something that prediabetics would greatly benefit from. The interface uses color coding to better remind you of whether a food has low or high calorie content.
Available on the App Store and Play Store.
Tools to help you
While technology could be partly blamed for the growing obesity in the developed and the developing world, it could also be praised for the numerous ways in which it makes every day life convenient. Like these calorie tracking apps. Who would have thought of such a thing even just twenty years ago?
Losing weight is easier said than done, true. However, there are tools out there that can help ease the burden for you. Enlist the help of your friends or family or start taking food supplements for diabetes if need be. Remember that you don’t have to deal with prediabetes alone.
Would you like to add more free apps to this list? Let us know in the comments.
