6 apps to help you fight off the holiday weight gain

The holidays and their endless stream of delicious and utterly unhealthy food are upon us.

While you’ll likely end up stuffing your face with way too many carbs, covered in sugar and salt, and sitting on a couch without burning calories for much too long, you don’t have to gain weight this holiday.

In fact, with a number of apps out there, we’re sure you can keep yourself on track. And maybe you can even get an early start on your New Year’s resolution. Here are a few apps that can help you:

Lift

Lift helps you achieve your goals, including weight loss or staying on top of your diet, making it the perfect way to stay on track for the season. Lift provides access to experts via video, pre-made plans from coaches, and support from the community.

Once you’ve picked a goal — such as increasing your push-up sets from 20 to 30 reps — Lift will generate daily tasks to help you get there, which you cross off as you do them throughout the day. Some of Lift’s programs even come with coaches to help you. You can easily track your progress and celebrate your accomplishments with others in the community. You can (and Lift recommends) work on multiple goals at the same time to build or change habits.

Available on iOS and Android.

Human

It’s commonly recommended that people do at least 30 minutes of physical activity everyday, and Human helps you make sure you do it. This will come in handy, considering all of the eating you’ll be doing this time of year.

The app uses your iPhone’s sensors to track your physical activity, automatically detecting when you’re walking, running, and cycling; it classifies other activities (like doing jumping-jacks in your kitchen) as “Active.” Human then uses research from Harvard’s Medical School to estimate the calories you’re burning. Human is also compatible with MyFitnessPal and the iOS Health app, letting you share your Human data with both.

Available on iOS only.

Fitocracy

Community support is a great way to stay motivated, especially when it comes to exercise. Not only is Fitocracy a community, but also it gives you your workouts right in the app, so you can stay active even when you’re away from your local gym.

The social network for fitness lets you connect with fitness and nutrition experts and other community members with similar interests. From your feed, you can stay updated on community members’ posts and tips and keep each other motivated. Fitocracy’s Team Fitness feature lets users join small groups with the same fitness goals. Fitness trainers lead the teams, giving personalized plans and workouts that participants can do whenever is most convenient.

Available on iOS and Android for free.

Gymsurfing

Visiting family for the holidays can often mean being away from your gym, and that can be a problem if you’re eating carbs and salt all day.

Luckily, Gymsurfing helps you grab cheap day passes for gyms nearby. You can use the app to find nearby participating gyms and book a day pass — for as low as $5 — to get a workout near your family’s home. Currently, Gymsurfing is available in more than 18 cities in the U.S. and a few in Canada.

Available on iOS and Android.

MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal tracks both diet and physical activity, helping you stay on top of your entire input and output of calories. This will be particularly helpful as you start stuffing yourself with endless holiday meals.

To track your calories in your food diary, simply add what you ate and the quantity from MyFitnessPal’s database of more than 4 million food items. You can also scan an item’s barcode with your phone and even compute a cooking recipe calories. On the fitness side, you can log the physical activities you do, even individual conditioning exercises like ab crunches, to monitor the calories you burn. The app is also compatible with iOS’s Health app.

Available on iOS and Android for free.

The Whole Pantry

If you’re in charge of the cooking for the festivities this year, The Whole Pantry’s app might help you make a healthy holiday meal.

The Whole Pantry is all about “going back to basics,” suggesting you eat more fruit and veggies instead of sugar- and gluten-laden foods, with minimal dairy and allergens. With recipes, lifestyle tips, various tools like shopping lists, unit conversions, and even holiday content, The Whole Pantry’s app helps you save your diet. Just make sure that the friends and family you’re cooking for are just as committed to your diet choices.

Available on iOS and Android for $2.99.