Yes. For tracking exercise and nutrition habits, my go-to apps are by Trimble Outdoors and Microsoft.
The Allsport GPS Pro app ($4; trimbleoutdoors.com) is slick. Before it launched in April, roughly 350 athletes tested it, recording 1,800 activities, 17,000 miles, and 9,000,000 burned calories.To use, all you need to do is turn your phone on, pick your sport from a menu, press “start” and the GPS-enabled app will track everything, whether you run, walk, hike, mountain bike, parkour, surf, skateboard, or cycle. In addition to tracking mileage, it tracks 24 other stats, including calories, speed, laps, elevation, plus your route anywhere—in street, topographic, or aerial view.
To stay motivated you can upload all your data for free to the trimbleoutdoors.com site, share your stats on Twitter or Facebook, or even shoot video along your route. The app works best on an Android platform, but is also available for iPhone and Blackberry. A caveat: Be sure to download it to a phone with plenty of battery life. I tested it daily and found that after even an hour-long run I needed to recharge my phone or it wouldn’t last through the next workout.
If you’re a nutrition fanatic, FitTracker ($2; Microsoft.com) is a good investment: It will track every last gram of protein, fat, carbs, fiber, sugar, saturated fat, transfat, calcium, sodium, and cholesterol that enters your mouth. The beauty of micromanaging your diet with FitTracker is that it allows you to set goals, then watch your progress over the course of weeks or months. It operates on most platforms, but the Windows Phone 7 version is especially easy to use with sharp, intuitive graphics.