The iPhone Mom

Absorb Water is designed to help you track your daily water intake. The app lets you track the glasses of water you drink as well as the water you take in when you eat certain foods. You’re allowed to choose from twelve different water sources – drinks and foods. Entering in the water is as simple as tapping a few buttons. Let’s say you had a glass of skim milk. You would tap on the picture that shows the size of drink you had then tap on the plus sign to add that water amount to your total. Absorb Water wants you to have a total of twelve glasses of water a day and it tracks your progress with a bar on the main screen.

The app also features something called a “Mellow Yellow” chart. This is where you enter in the color of your urine. Yep, you read that right. The idea is to track your output, so to speak, and use that as a guide to make sure you’re getting the right amount of water for your body. There are twenty different shades of yellow to choose from. Tap the one that’s your best match and then store it in the personal data section. This lets you keep track of how things are changing, hopefully for the better!

Absorb Water is easy to use and I like how it allows for the water found in food. I know it’s important to drink water but sometimes the idea of 8-12 glasses a day is daunting, so every little bit helps.  The app is very visual and relies on pictures with a minimal amount of text. Personally I’d like to see just a little more text for clarity sake. For example, I’d like to see the quantity amounts of the food and drinks shown on the buttons. As it is now, you tap on the button and the amount pops up. I’d prefer to have the number right up front so I didn’t have to guess at what I was tapping, but that’s just me.

If you’re concerned about getting enough hydration and you don’t want to limit yourself to tracking glasses of water Absorb Water can keep you on target.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Syndicated Puzzles

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

Piece of Cake is an app that focuses on providing you with the inspiration and motivation you might be looking for in order to lose weight. The app is divided up into three sections – Attitude, Health Tips and Quotes. Attitude has different sayings about keeping a positive outlook while on your weight loss journey. Health Tips provides tips for staying healthy and Quotes has words from others about staying positive and moving forward.

My only suggestion for Piece of Cake is to add in the ability to swipe from screen to screen. Right now you navigate using arrows at the bottom of the screen and I kept instinctively trying to swipe across the screen. This app was developed by someone with personal experience losing weight and she’s compiled a nice selection of inspirational words. Piece of Cake was a nice feel good reading experience.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Dmitri Iarandine

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

FoodEssentials Scanner version 2.0 has been released. There’s a smorgasbord of new features in this new update, all improving an already great app. I didn’t think I could do the update justice so I’m sending you to the FoodEssentials blog to read all the details.

FoodEssentials has also been generous enough to give me five promo codes to give away. I’d love hear from readers who could use some extra help checking food ingredients because of allergy issues. Read my original app review to see if FoodEssentials can help you out. If you think it will then please leave me a comment. The first five comments will receive a code. Thanks FoodEssentials!

Price when Reviewed: $4.99

Seller: FoodEssentials

FoodEssentials Scanner is the best app that I’ve seen for those suffering from food allergies and intolerances. It allows you to scan the barcode of a food product and it will then display all sorts of information about the food. You get your nutrient information (calories, fats, sodium, etc.) but you also get information about allergens and additives. The app will pull up the possible allergens and flag them as not listed, possible and listed. You can tap on the allergen and find out exactly what ingredient is the culprit. The same is true for the additive list. There’s no need to scan the label on your food and then search for the five syllable ingredient or additive on your own. The app does it for you. If you’d rather not use the barcode you can also search by product name. The same label information will be displayed.

When FoodEssentials finds your food it also pulls up products in the same category. I asked the developer how they choose these products and as of right now they’re pulled up in no particular order. They’re working on enabling sorting of these screens so you can see the most popular products first. That will be a nice improvement. You can flick between these screens to compare what’s in each one and this will be very useful when you can narrow the screens down to foods that are really similar. You can also scan in similar products and then shake your phone. Now all the similar products that you’ve scanned will show up on screens that you can access with that sideways swipe. This is a great way to compare what’s in different breads, cereals, ice creams, you get the idea. The app also saves everything you’ve scanned or searched for in a list.

Now here’s the part that I thought was pretty darn fantastic about this app. You have the ability to customize what you see on the labels it pulls up. You can go through each section – nutrients, allergens, additives – and turn on/off what you’d like to see. For example in my house we’ve got some dairy issues and I’d absolutely make sure that was turned on to show up. But we never eat fish and I don’t need to see that allergy so I turned it off. I think it’s terrific that you can expand (or condense) the list of what you see.

According to the FoodEssentials website a big update is coming around March 29th. They’ll be doubling the list of products and will soon be adding additional allergies.  The update should also give you the ability to select an ingredient (from more than 30,000) and make it a custom ingredient that will show up on your labels. I’ve been told that the success rate (accuracy) of the scanning is going to jump with the next update which will be fantastic.

I have a few reasons that this app is going to be a big help for me. First for my baby. I’ve mentioned before that we’ve been dealing with acid reflux and food intolerances pretty much since the day she was born. We’ve got the acid issues handled but the reflux is still out of control some days.  We’ve begun venturing into the world of baby foods but it’s slow going and we’re still on elemental formula and cereal plus a limited number of other foods. We try a new food and then cross our fingers that it’s not going to end up on the intolerant list. She usually lets us know it’s a no go when she has a big reflux flair up the next day. I’m hoping (really hoping!) that the day is coming where we can begin to try regular baby cereal and some other things. But realistically I know we’ll be dealing with her food issues for some time to come. FoodEssentials is going to be a huge help when I get the G.I’s green light to start introducing “normal” food. Especially when the new allergies and ingredients are added to the app. I’ll be able to find out (while I’m in the store) if something is safe for her or not. My second reason is personal. I’m one of those lucky (oh so lucky!) people who get migraines. It seems like I’m constantly learning about my triggers but I know with certainty that several additives/ingredients are guaranteed to make my head explode. I would love to see some sort of migraine trigger list incorporated into the app. At the very least I am hoping that MSG and aspartame make the 30,000+ ingredient list.

Sorry for the lengthy diatribe, I probably just shared much more than you’d want to know about my family’s issues. Especially all that talk about baby spit up. Right now FoodEssentials costs $4.99 and that covers a one year subscription to the app. Personally, I think the ease of use and the straightforward way the information is presented would make the price worth it for me. The updates that I’m hearing about are really going to set this app apart and I’m excited to see where it goes next.

*I really only touched on the allergy prevention potential of the app. If you’re concerned about cholesterol, saturated fat, etc. then there’s plenty of information here for you too.

*Another note – I’ve received word that the developers monitor the searches that return no results and then work on including those foods. For me those empty searches were for some store brand products. It’s good to know that these empty searches are monitored.

Price when Reviewed: $4.99

Seller: Food Essentials

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

My Grocery Master is a shopping app for those on specialty diets. It lets you search for foods falling into Kosher, Kosher for Passover, Gluten Free and Lactose Free diets. First you select a classification (that’s what they call the diets) and then you can choose a category (baking, candy, deli, etc.) or leave it blank. You can also nselect more than one classification and category. Enter in your address or have the app use your GPS location and select how many miles out you want to search. Now enter in a key word and the app will search grocery stores located nearby to find products that fit the classification, category and key word. When you tap on one of these product names you’ll see the store where it’s been located at. Tap on that and you can see a mapped location, get directions or call the store from the app.

It’s also possible to save your searches so you can pull up the information later on. Finally, there is a section that allows you to enter in an OU Kosher ID and verify if the product is certified by the Orthodox Union.  The app features inventory from some big name grocery chains – Albertsons, Safeway, Trader Joes, Whole Foods and Walmart to name a few.  For my area only Walmart and Albertsons apply so the app was somewhat limited in what it could do for me. Those of you who live in an area with more shopping choices will have more success searching for products.

If you’re on a specialty diet and you don’t want to drive from store to store looking for groceries then this app could be a big help. Right now the My Grocery Master database features over 100,000 products, more than 360 of them are name brands. The developers are planning to update the app to include Diabetic, Vegan and Organic diets too. This will give the app an even broader appeal. My only advice before you spend the $4.99 is to check out the store list and make sure you have a few nearby so your searches pull up results.

Price when Reviewed: $4.99

Seller: Nosh Maven, LLC

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

Body & Mind Connection is an app that’s designed to help you make the connection between what your mind thinks and your body does. Did I do a great job describing that or what? It has you rate yourself (on a daily basis) in several areas. Then you can look back and compare the ratings to look for connections. The different areas are diet, energy, exercise, hunger, mood, sleep and stress. You can choose from 1-5 stars to rate how you did in each of those areas. If you had zero energy for the day you’d give yourself a one. If you felt like superwoman and spring cleaned your entire house in two hours then you’d give yourself a five. The app has descriptions for each rating so it’s easy to figure out what’s what. When you’ve tracked things for a few days you can look at your ratings on a graph. Everything is color coded so it’s easy to see what’s where and how it all works together. For example, on a day when I had a 5 star stress day (loads of stress) my diet would probably be a 1 star day. In other words I’m a stress eater. Looking at my patterns over time I’d be able to realize where I needed to make changes in order to get better sleep, change my diet, etc.

Throughout the app there are different tips and FAQs about diet, energy, exercise, etc. The diet information comes from Dr. David Katz, who is the head of the Yale University Prevention Research Center. The exercise information comes from Joe Decker who is “The World’s Fittest Man”.  Finally, the inspiration in the app is from Mitzi Perdue who’s written many articles and talked to thousands of people about their struggles finding healthier lifestyles. There’s an orientation section at the beginning that goes through everything you’ll need to know. Make sure you watch the video as well.  Body & Mind Connection is designed after a university class. You’ve got your orientation and your daily classes (where you record your ratings). After working through the app for fourteen days you’ll graduate. You can then move on to a master’s degree which requires twenty-eight days. Beyond that you can continue to use the app for as long as you need.

This app also asks you to record your weight on a daily basis. It will calculate your BMI and you can watch those changes over time. This is not an app for recording specific details about what you eat and how many calories you consume. It’s not a place to track the specifics of your exercise regime either. Although there is guidance and tips  it  seems to be more about getting yourself to a place where everything is connected and where it should be so you can lose some weight and have a healthier lifestyle. It’s an interesting approach to losing weight and appears to be able to help you get to the core of the real reason you may be struggling. I think that diet and exercise are key but if there’s something else going on then you really won’t fix the problem until you’ve figured that out. So says the woman with oodles of baby weight left to lose who knows what her problem is but can’t seem to find the energy to deal with it.

I can’t personally verify that Body & Mind Connection will actually help you lose weight because I’m only a couple days into the program. I’ve had the app on my phone for a little while but procrastinated trying it out until I was just about out of time. I think I need to make a mind and body connection to work out that time management issue.

Price when Reviewed: $4.99

Seller: B Healthy U, LLC

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

Shop Healthy! lets you look up nutritional information for foods you’ll find in the grocery store. The idea is to use the app to help you make healthy, informed choices about your groceries. At the time that I’m writing this review there are over 100,000 products included in the app’s information.

It’s a good idea to read through all of the information on the “Info” screen when you first use Shop Healthy! When it comes to searching for foods you can look for them by name or see them sorted by grocery store aisle. To look up a specific food tap the “Products” button and then type in the name of what you’re looking for. The app pulls up everything it’s got that fits your search. Next to each name on the list are three apples. The apples are colored green depending on how healthy the food is. Three green apples is the best rating. You can tap on the product’s name to see more information including serving size and calories per serving. There is a button that shows you nutrition facts like those seen on a product’s package. Another button says “view factoid info” and this tells you some basic information about the type of food product you’re viewing. Back on the product’s detail page you are given a list of other products to consider as an alternative to the one you searched for.  So if what you searched for had a dismal 1/2 green apple rating you could browse through the list of suggestions and make a better choice.

You can also view foods based on their aisle in a store. To do this tap on the “aisle” button at the bottom of the screen. Now you’ll see four columns – Fruits & Veggies, Breads & Grains, Beverages and Canned Foods. In each column are different types of foods, represented by a picture. Tap on the picture and you’ll get a list of foods, each with a green apple rating next to it. Tap on the food to see the same detail information that I mentioned above for the products button. I really liked the detailed pages for the fruits and veggies. You pick a fruit or vegetable to look at and the app tells you how to select the best one, how to store it and some fun facts about it. I find that information very useful myself. The only change that I’d suggest here is to add a way to navigate back to the fruits or vegetables list after looking at a detail screen. There’s no arrow to get back to the list, you have to tap “Aisle” and begin again. There are arrows for the other foods, but not for fruits and veggies.

As you’re browsing through foods (and probably learning more about what’s in them than you might like to know) you can mark them as a “favorite”. These items will show up on a list that can be found via the “Favorites” button. The app is easy to move through and the layout is clean and makes the information easy to follow.

I thought that Shop Healthy! was a nice tool for comparing different foods that fall into the same category. It’s not going to do you much good if you want to compare fruit juice to ice cream, but if you’re trying to decide between different types of juice (or in my case, ice cream) it can help you make an informed decision before you load up your grocery cart.  Personally, I always set out for the store determined to make healthy choices and especially to avoid the sweets. But by the time I survive shopping with my kids the sweets have become a mental health necessity. Perhaps Shop Healthy! can help me choose between the lesser of my sweet evils.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: SmartNow.com

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

Don’t Eat That is a comprehensive list of all the harmful (and potentially harmful) things in the food we eat.  There are no frills to this app, it’s just pure information for you to use when making food choice for your family. The information can be viewed in several ways, beginning with a master list and then being broken down into more specific groupings.

All Ingredient Names – This is a list of over 1500 additives and ingredients found in foods. The names in red are things which can cause problems. Tap on a name and you can read more information about the additive/ingredient.

Problem Ingredient – This is a list of all the problem additives/ingredients that can potentially be found in food. These are the same as the red words in the “All Ingredients” list. Again, tap on a name to read more.

Harmful to Kids – A list of the problem ingredients that could be harmful for children.

Banned Ingredients – Ingredients/additives that are banned in some countries.

Carcinogens – Ingredients/additives that some people suspect might be linked to cancer.

Genetically Modified – Ingredients/additives that have been modified in some way.

Allergies – This is a list of those things which are of particular concern to those who have allergies.

Asthma – This list is more specific than the allergy list. It deals with ingredients/additives that can affect asthmatics.

Reading through this app is enough to make me never want to eat again. Don’t Eat That contains an overwhelming amount of information. Personally, I some of this with a grain of salt but that’s just me. We’ve been lucky enough to not have to really worry about what our kids are eating, beyond food allergies. Now our most allergic child to date is still an infant and my attitude could very well change in six months. I also understand that there are plenty of others in more severe situations and  I do appreciate the fact that the list was all inclusive.  Plus, the specific information that’s included for each additive/ingredient is informative.  Don’t Eat That takes those five syllable ingredients on food labels and explains them in easy to understand terms so you can make your food decisions for yourself.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Celldial, Inc.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

Here is an app that’s just in time for my New Year’s resolution. Inner Slim is a program that is designed to help you make the mental changes necessary to lose weight. The idea is to listen to an audio track each day and allow your subconscious to change. There are seven audio tracks, one for each day of the week. Each is also accompanied by a stereogram that you are supposed to look at  before you listen to the audio track. I had to google “stereogram” to find out that it is an optical illusion that’s created from two flat two dimensional images. I have never been good at deciphering that sort of thing so I struggled a bit with the stereograms. The audio tracks in Inner Slim are very soothing. The combination of chimes and the narration relaxed me every time I listened. The audio track repeats a series of questions that are intended to make you more aware of your weight loss effort. 

I tried out Inner Slim over the past week and it probably wasn’t the best of timing. My kids went back to school and we were thrown back into our crazy routine and I was exhausted. When I lay down at night to listen to Inner Slim I kept falling asleep. Now this is actually a compliment to the app’s power of relaxation because it usually takes awhile for my brain to turn off so that I can sleep. The downside of all this relaxation is that I’m not sure how much of Inner Slim’s message actually made it’s way into my subconscious before I sank too deeply into dreamland. I know that I was making better food choices that week up until Friday night when my husband brought home takeout and my diet went downhill from there. What part of my choices were related to this app, I just don’t know. So I can’t provide a testimonial that claims weight loss but I can vouch for the relaxation factor.

Has anyone out there tried a program like this that works with your subconscious? How’d it work for you? Any tips for us newbies?

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Innervision Media, Ltd.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

I purchased Edibles because I was looking for a way to unofficially track Weight Watchers points on my iPhone. Weight Watchers has an official app but you’ve got to be a current online member to fully use it. Since I am not but I still like to track points I did a search for apps that worked with points. My good friend Google led me to Edibles .  Edibles lets you track one thing – calories, carbs or a something you define. In my case that’s points and it does a good job keeping track of those. I personally like the fact that Edibles keeps it simple but I know that might not be enough for some users. It’s hard enough for me to stick to a diet and the less I have to keep track of the better.

The default screen for Edibles is the “Food Log”. This is the screen that will show up every time you open the app. At the top of this screen is a section called “Available for Today”. This shows you how many points, calories, etc. are available for the day; it also tracks your exercise. You can adjust your total available by tapping on one of these buttons and setting up your numbers. Below this section is “Actions for Today”. Here you’ll see a running total of how many calories, points, etc. you’ve used for the day. You’ll see a “Log Food for Today” button and one that says “View Today’s Log”.  Use the “Log Food for Today” button to record what you eat. When you are logging food you can add it manually or search Edibles online database. To manually add a food tap the plus button. Next you’ll enter in the food type, serving size and how many calories, points it was. On this screen there is a button that says “Calc”. If you need to use the calculator to figure out what your food is worth you can do that from here.  Tap “Done” and you’re good to go. After you’ve added foods they’ll show up in the your personal database.  This will only contain the foods that you’ve entered so you won’t have to search through a gigantic list of things you’ll never eat.  As an alternative you can also search Edibles online for a food. Add one from here and it will show up in your personal database from then on.

The “Weight Log” button takes you to a weight chart. You can record your weight for today, another day or set up a password. The Weight Log will show  your statistics: current weight, starting weight, average lost, lost to date, goal and remaining pounds to goal. The lovely BMI is also included. Yippee! If you want to change your goal weight all you have to do is tap on it and make the change.  At the bottom of the screen will be a list of your recent weight entries.

The “Calculator” button is where I set up the formula for calculating points. If I wanted to quickly figure out some points before I entered them in the food log I’d do that here. If you want to calculate points you are going to have to enter a formula on this calculator screen. I found the formula online but I’ve now spent twenty minutes looking for the webpage and cannot find it. So I can’t give credit but I will share the formula.  On the calculator screen tap “Set Formula”. Now enter in (Calories/50) + (Fat/12) –Fiber/5). After you’ve done this your calculator will be set up to figure out the points value of foods.  The last thing I’ve customized is in my iPhone’s settings I turned on the “unused units badge”. This enables Edibles to display my remaining points on the app badge. I like this because I can see what’s left for the day without having to open up the app.

I’ve been pleased with Edibles. It’s easy to use and does a fine job tracking what I need. Now if it would only come with a dose of self control and will power I might be able to actually lose some weight.

Price when Reviewed: $4.99

Seller: Random Ideas, LLC