Liposuction is a great way to lose or redistribute undesired pockets of fat in the short term. But studies have shown that the fat tends to return over time, though it may return in a different form in different places.
There’s no trick to maintaining your weight after liposuction. It takes diet, exercise and a strong support system to keep you on track. But with a little help from these apps, it might just be a little easier to make a plan and stick to it.
Diet
There are tons of diet apps out there, but not many as popular, useful (and free) as MyFitnessPal. The basic function of the app for dieting is simple: you make an account, log the foods you eat, and MyFitnessPal tracks your calories for you. What MyFitnessPal has that others apps might not is scale: with a huge database of foods and the ability to easily pull in recipes from the internet, MyFitnessPal is likely to recognize the meals that you input and accurately list them in your food diary. That makes tracking your calories easier, which in turn makes it easier to stick with the app over a longer period of time.
Exercise
Fitness trackers like the FitBit are increasing in popularity. But if you’re not ready to spend a ton of money on a tracker of your own, there are a few apps that might work for you instead.
Argus tracks your activity as you go through your day, as does Moves. Tracking is useful not only for logging your exercise routine, but for getting a grip on how much energy you expend when you aren’t exercising. If you’ve ever come home from work with tired feet from rushing around all day, then Argus and Moves can give you an idea of how many calories you burned while busting your hump.
Not sure where to start with your exercise plan? Apps like Fitstar help to motivate you to exercise by providing you with workouts. If you want to specialize past basic workouts, you may have to pay for a Premium plan, but you’ll likely be able to do all of the workouts without any special equipment.
And if you like to pair your exercise with action, stories and a sense of humor, you might like Zombies, Run! The app tracks your run like many other apps, but it pairs your workout with a post-apocalyptic zombie story, which plays through your headphones, interspersed with your own exercise playlist. Runners find items, build up their bases and learn more about the post-apocalyptic zombie world they live in as they get fit.
Support
There’s no substitute for making a workout plan with a friend or family member that you can trust to keep you motivated and keep you honest. Chances are, you have a friend who is also interested in losing weight, and working with him/her can increase your likelihood of building an effective workout plan and sticking to it.
That said, there are some apps that help. Coach Alba, for instance, is a bot that will text you during “crucial moments” of your diet plan with a series of questions? Are you hungry for an unhealthy snack? At a social event where food is being served? Coach Alba can help you to see that these situations are risks to your diet and encourage you to resist temptation.
Other apps, like Fitocracy, connect you with others who are also trying to lose weight. The free version connects you with what the app’s creators call “the most supportive fitness community online,” among other resources, so that you can find encouragement and encourage others striving to be fit. Many exercise apps have social components like this. If one community doesn’t seem right for you, there are dozens of others out there that might be better fits.
So if you’re interested in keeping the weight off after liposuction, do yourself a favor and take advantage of all of the options at your fingertips. Make a diet and exercise plan that works for you. Find the support you need to stick to it. And, if you’re feeling tech savvy, take advantage of the apps that might make your health and wellness goals a little easier to achieve.