How to Track Calories Burned During Exercise on an iPhone

There are a lot of fitness apps to help you track your calories burned while exercising.

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There are several calorie burn apps that you can download on your iPhone to help you with your fitness goals. Here's how to go about using them.

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You can use a fitness app on your iPhone to track how many calories you burn when you exercise. You can sync the app with a wearable fitness tracker, if you use one.

Benefits of Calorie Burn Apps

The National Institute for Fitness and Sport (NIFS) says that technology has made it much easier to set goals and log your workouts. Instead of recording your progress in a journal, you can use a calorie burn application instead.

According to the NIFS, using a calorie burn app has several benefits. Most apps are fairly easy to use and many are free, making them easily accessible. Setting fitness goals within the app can create a feeling of personal accountability that motivates you to get moving every day. There's nothing like the sense of accomplishment you feel when you've achieved a goal you've set for yourself, no matter how big or small.

In fact, using a fitness app can help make you a more active person. An August 2015 study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research found that people who frequently used fitness apps were more active and more likely to exercise than those who didn't.

Harvard Health Publishing notes that another benefit of fitness apps is that many of them sync automatically with wearable fitness trackers. Typically worn on the belt or wrist, these tracking devices are equipped with accelerometers that detect your movements and translate them into data.

All wearable devices are able to count the number of steps you take. Many are able to track the intensity and duration of your exercise as well, and can estimate how many calories you've burned. The more expensive devices come with heart rate monitors that can record your pulse and altimeters that can gauge your elevation. Some wearable devices also monitor your sleep and have alarms that remind you to get up and move around if you've been seated too long.

Using a Calorie Burn App

While there are thousands of fitness apps, choosing the right one is important. A study published in the April 2019 issue of Sports Medicine found that many of the fitness apps out there are not very reliable.

If you need help picking an app or a wearable device, the University of Washington has a few recommendations. If you have a workout routine you're happy with and simply need an app to track activity, you can use the Apple Health app.

The Apple Health app can track your steps taken, stairs climbed and distance covered. You can enter additional information like details about your sleep, nutrition, meditation and any other activity you do that the app cannot measure. The app syncs with wearable devices and provides daily, weekly and monthly trends that you can track.

If you need an app that also recommends workout routines, the University of Washington suggests Fittbe, Sworkit, Kineticoach and Fitbod, among others. In terms of wearable devices, Fitbit and Garmin are among the most popular.

Once you choose an app and download it, you may have to enter certain details like your age, gender, height and weight. Apps that are equipped with calorie burn calculators require these details to more accurately estimate how many calories you burn when you do a certain activity. The app may also guide you through a one-time setup process that helps you choose your preferences and set goals. If using a wearable tracking device, you will also need to sync your device to the app.

After that, you're all set! Your devices will be able to detect some of your movements and you might have to manually log other details or activities. Your app will keep track of how many calories you've burned each day and how you're progressing in terms of your fitness goals.