Many of us are on a never ending quest to stay in shape. Some of us try dieting while other might join the gym. Another option is to explore the many exercise and weight loss mobile apps available. These can be effective in helping us maintain an ideal weight and healthy lifestyle. If you have an Android, you are lucky enough to have access to the following highly recommended exercise and weight loss apps.

Lose It: This is a free app that lets you look up food to track calories. It tracks your exercise as well. You start working with the app by putting in your current weight and goal weight. From there, Lose It will give you a fairly accurate estimate of how many calories you are eating a day and how long it will take for you to reach your goal weight. You can scan barcodes of almost any food item to get calorie and nutritional information. The app also provides the support of an online community who encourage members to lose weight.

Fooducate: Fooducate is one of the highly recommended exercise and weight loss mobile apps. It helps you eliminate unhealthy food items from your diet. You just scan the item’s barcode and it will give you a rating based on calorie counts, sugar content and processing techniques. It will help save you the time you may have spent researching which food items are healthiest. This app is also free.

Endomondo: This app provides motivation to those who bike, run or walk for exercise. You can track your route through Google Maps to compare your progress to your other workouts. Options are available to help you get motivated by friends every time you break a mile. Upgrade the app to work with Polar heart rate monitors.

My Fitness Pal: Work with this app by entering your height, weight, goal weight and lifestyle. My Fitness Pal will give you recommendations, setting small goals to help you achieve your bigger goals. It also provides calorie counts and nutritional information from local restaurants making it easier to eat out without ruining your progress.

Eat This Not That! The Game: This app will help you to make the best possible food choices and educates you so that you can make wiser choices in the future.

Couch to 5K: This is a great app for those starting out on their diets. The goal is to get you from being a coach potato to being in good enough shape to run a 5K marathon. It does this in steps, allowing you to reach your goal in about 9 weeks. You can also customize the app to set a goal for marathons varying from zero to 5K, half marathons and more.

Google Fit: Conveniently, this app comes preloaded on most Androids. It’s completely free; all you have to do is turn it on. It also has the ability to track fitness from wearables like Android Wear and Xiaomi Mi bands and apps like Runkeeper, Strave, My Fitness Pal and others. While this app could still use minor improvements, its smart phone built in features make it a great choice for beginners.

My Plate: This calorie counting app can help you manage your diet and check out what you’re eating. It has a huge data base ensuring that it will be able to detect the calorie count in almost any dish you’re eating. It also tracks water intake. The idea is that it will tweak your diet over time so that you can eat healthier items and lose weight. The app offers a free trial but a paid subscription will get you added features included advanced stats, private forums and priority customer support.

Pokemon Go and Ingress: I know what you’re thinking…Pokemon? A weight loss app? However, the games encourage players to go outside and walk around. Even though the app might not provide an intense workout, just getting out and moving around is a good start. It also encourages social interaction.

Strong Lifts: Strong Lifts is one of the top exercise and weight loss mobile apps. This app offers a workout routine of 45 minute sessions 3 times a week. The workouts include various lifts with the goal of burning fat and building muscle. It also includes Android Wear support, workout videos, a built in timer and it gives you the ability to record your workout progress. It starts at a beginner level allowing you to increase difficulty as you go.

With the age of technology upon us, having resources to lose weight on hand at all times is quite convenient. These are examples of some top rated exercise and weight loss mobile apps that you can use on your Android to help you reach your fitness goals. Good luck maintaining a healthy diet and exercise routine!