In a world dominated by technology, smartphones have become more than just tools of communication. They house our most cherished pictures, conversations, entertainment, and even financial data. So It's no surprise that they can also contribute to achieving a healthier lifestyle. Let's explore how you can utilize your phone to reach your fitness goals.

In this article we will cover the main useful features for the following smartphone applications:

Samsung Health

Google Fit
Health (by Apple)

Step tracking

For those that work in an office setting, incorporating physical activity during the workday can be challenging. Enter step tracking – a convenient way to maintain a consistent level of fitness even when the gym seems distant.

Apple
The Apple Health app facilitates easy step monitoring. Just make sure you have set it up, and the app will do the rest. All you have to do is make sure your phone is always with you. With each step movement that you take, your phone will pick this up through something called the Accelerometer, and automatically count each step for you in the app.

Google
The Google Fit app tracks your steps as you go. Just set the app up and keep your phone with you while you walk.

Samsung
Samsung Health tracks daily steps and estimates calories burned during your activity. It sets goals for average daily steps you should take, overall activity time, and an amount of calories to burn. Once you've set up the app, just slip your phone into your pocket, and start moving!

Body measurements

Tracking muscle gains or losses and the elusive dance with body fat becomes a breeze with the magic of logging measurements in your fitness app. If you can keep up with logging your measurements on a regular basis, you'll soon have a digital map of your progress.

Apple, Google and Samsung
All three apps have a section that allows you to log your data so you can easily keep track of your progress. Just make sure you enter your measurements correctly and regularly, as they all require you to enter this information manually.

Sleep

It might be a surprise, but your sleep can really impact your overall health. Having a good night’s sleep can provide so many benefits. So if you can, it's useful to keep track.

Apple
As long as you set up the sleep feature in the Health app, your phone will use movement monitoring and pattern matching to detect when you might be sleeping. After a night’s sleep, you can check back into the app to see how long you slept for. If you also happen to have an Apple Watch, you may find your sleep tracking to be more accurate. The Apple Watch is able to monitor your heartbeat as you sleep, and as a result is able to log how deeply you slept.

Android 
The Google Fit app is a little more manual with monitoring sleep unfortunately, and requires you to manually log the amount of hours that you sleep per night, which could be a little tricky to keep on top of.

Samsung 
Unfortunately you will need a Samsung Galaxy Watch in order to use this feature on a Samsung phone. But if you do happen to have a compatible watch, the Samsung sleep monitoring function has some interesting features. One of them even assigns you a specific animal based on your sleep stye and gives you more information based around this.