APPS FOR SELF IMPROVEMENT (PART 2)

INTRODUCTION

Personal improvement is a continuous process. As humans, we always seek to get the best, to get ahead, and basically to keep on growing in whatever phase we find ourselves. That’s the one thing that’s so exciting about one who is always willing to grow.
In part one of this series, I reviewed the finance manager app. Revised it features and talked about how it could help in making calculated financial decisions that can impact one's life. The link to part one of this series can be accessed through the links session at the end of this post review.

Today, I’ll be reviewing an app that addresses one of the most pressing issues in the world today, regarding personal improvement. The issue is none other than the weight problem. Personally, for me, I do think that the issues regarding weight-loss or weight gain are according to individual preferences and there’s no particular standard as to what the perfect human is supposed to look like. That’s why I advocate for people to always go for what they’ll feel more comfortable with because that’s where personal perfection lies.
Sometimes, I find myself wanting to lose weight or add weight, being a slim guy has its perks but whenever I get my target, I get to feel a sense of joy whether am adding or losing weight personal standards should supersede all. That’s the mindset I advocate for anyone in this path.

To be in this path, you have to develop a sense of discipline, no matter what method you are using to achieve your set goals of weight loss or weight gain. It could be through exercises or dietary plans. The app to be reviewed today, focus on the use of the former. The app is called WAISTLINE. Without further delay, let’s get to the review.

Github repository; https://github.com/davidhealey/waistline

WAISTLINE

According to the developers,

Waistline is a calorie counter and weight tracker that allows the user to keep a diary of the food they eat and variations in their weight.

It’s actually more than that, when I first saw the app, I thought it was just another app about how to lose weight. Trust me I’m not trying to lose any weight considering my current stature. Using the app, I got to discover the app helps you to monitor the calories you take in for every meal you eat.
Another fascinating aspect is it can also help you monitor your progress if you want to gain some pounds. This got me a bit excited because I’ve been looking to adding a few pounds and it seems like the app just found me. In this review, I’m going to be talking about the features of the app and how helpful it could be for everyone. Whether you trying to lose, gain or maintain your current weight.

FEATURES

The app first welcomes you by showing you tips on how to effectively use its features. At first, I didn’t really understand the information as I was too eager to jump on the information that’s finally going to help me add up some weight. But then, just like an examination comprehension passage, I calmed my nerves and read it all again. Found out it was really simple to use, as you will find out in this review. At the end of this review, you will be able to use the app with ease and watch your body achieve the perfect weight you want. As usual, I will be splitting the review into two parts;

• Features

• User Interface

Here are some of the app's features

• Homepage

• Statistics

• Diary

• Food list

• Goals

Homepage

This is the startup page of the app. It shows the user guide information as to its default setup. Although one can change the startup homepage to be any other feature from the app's settings. But I really found it to be a great idea making the user guide the default startup page. Because as stated earlier, I was confused when I first opened the app. But after reading the user guide, I got a better understanding of the app’s features.

Statistics

This is actually a feature in the app that tells exactly what amount of nutrients you have ingested and it’s corresponding weight implications. With this, I can actually see my progress on a day to day basis. Anytime I fall short of the needed calories, I can easily see it here and quickly eat up to meet my target. It also works vice versa if you trying to lose weight

Diary

The diary is where you add the food you ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It usually shows you a daily target amount of calories you are to take for that day. In my case, am still short of 120 calories for today. I better go eat that burger!

Food List

The feature is basically where you input information on all the types of food you usually eat. So, on any given day, you can select from the list combination to the app's diary as your breakfast, lunch or dinner.
I added a lot of my local delicacies on the list. So it’s quite easy for me to choose my meals every day in the app's diary.

How to add a Food

There are 3 ways you can add to the food list
• You can search the online database for the food information by clicking the search box and inputting the food details

• You can search for food information by scanning a bar code on the food item. This can be achieved by clicking the bar code icon on the top right corner of the food list page

• Thirdly, you can manually add your food information in cases where the search and bar code option produces no results. In such a case, you provide food details such as calories, fat content, sodium content, proteins, sugars, etc. This is really helpful for me because most of my Nigerian delicacies were not found on the database.

Goals

This is where you indicate the weight you want to achieve. You can set a weight goal and indicate if you would like to lose weight or gain weight. In my case, I gladly chose the gain weight option because I want to add weight. Mother had complained I’m over-stressing myself lately when she saw a picture of me recently.

USER INTERFACE

The app has a friendly user interface which I find somewhat calming (could be the cold weather though lol). The app also comes with a light and dark theme option for day and night. Personally, I don’t like bright lights at night, so it’s always the dark theme whenever I’m inputting dinner information.
I do wish there were some other theme color options as I am a lover for colorful things, maybe the developers might see my review and add it in future updates.

SUMMARY

There you have it! a review of another awesome personal improvement app. I think the app is really great, the initiative with which it was created is really superb. One can literally just watch the amount of weight and nutritional gain with every food ingested.
The features of the apps are so simple yet effective. I forget to mention the fact that one can import or export data of one’s progress in the case where one changes his/her mobile device. This is where I call it a day on part 2 of this series. You can access part one using the links section.
Thanks for reading.

Links Section

Github repository; https://github.com/davidhealey/waistline

• Download link: https://f-droid.org/repo/com.waist.line_20402.apk

Resources

The contents of this post were created based on my knowledge of the project and my experiences while using the app. The images used for the review are screenshots taken from my device.

Series Backlinks

• Apps for self improvement Part 1