Let your smart phone keep you focused on your resolutions—all year long!

It’s common to make stringent resolutions after a long period of indulgence. And after the decadence of the holidays, New Year’s Eve marks a time of celebration, but also a time when we often look back at our most recent activity and make resolutions to be better in the year ahead. Did you set some lofty goals about getting fit in 2012 like many others did? Starting the year with healthy activities and habits—or trying to establish some new ones—is a great start! However, you don’t have to go it all on your own or pay for a pricey personal trainer to whip you into shape either. Smart phone apps are revolutionizing the way we workout, and your iPhone, Android phone, or almost any mobile device you use on a data plan, can be your motivation, your pocket personal trainer, and your willpower when it comes to getting fit this year.

Ensure you’ve started 2012 off on an active foot, by downloading the following tip apps for getting fit and staying healthy this year:

1. Endomondo Sports Tracker (Free)

The Endomondo Sports Tracker is like having a personal trainer by your side every healthy step of the way. Not only is this app free for iPhone, Android, Windows phone, BlackBerry, Nokia, and many more users—it’s beauty lies in its tracking ability. Endomondo is able to track your runs, biking workouts, and speed walking journeys so all you have to do is put all of your effort into getting in shape. Endomondo does the rest, keeping dibs on your workouts according to the time, distance, and speed covered, and it even tracks your heart rate to ensure you’re working within your fat burning zone. The great thing about The Endomondo Sports Tracker App for newbie athletes is that it keeps you motivated by linking you to thousands of other users, active individuals just like you! So you’ll get workout advice, motivational comments, and fitness tips to get your heart pumping so you’ll never abandon your fitness goals ever again!

2. Whole Living Smoothies ($1.99)

One of the easiest ways to ensure you’re getting your daily dose of fruits and veggies in compact form is with smoothies. Working smoothies into your regular diet will cut calories while keeping your energy high. You just need to know what to blend for a balanced breakfast or post-workout snack. Whole Living Smoothies features more than 30 slurp-able recipe rich in all the right nutrients—including Quick and Easy smoothies, Meals-in-a-Glass, blends for the food-sensitive, Detoxifying drinks, Low Calorie, and even Health-Boosting blends.

3. Fooducate (Free)

I can’t say enough good stuff about Fooducate as an Android or iPhone app if you’re trying to lose weight and eat healthy, but are overwhelmed at the thought. Fooducate is an effective food education app that teaches you how to properly translate food labels. Take it to your grocery store or local food market whenever you shop and scan the bar code on any product you want to put in your cart. Fooducate will instantly reveal food’s nutrient value overview—or if you’re really counting calories—it will give you an in-depth nutritional rundown on your chosen product so you’re not consuming extra fat and calories without knowing about it.

4. Daily Butt Workout ($0.99)

The booty, the glutes, the bum, the caboose—you might refer to your butt with these names (or worse) depending on its dimensions. The Daily Butt Workout is a butt-busting app that will have you toned and luscious. It features a brand new 5 to 10 minute daily rump-roasting workout every single day—so you never get bored. So get ready to follow the examples (provided by expert personal trainers) on screen and squat, lunge, and dead lift your butt to new heights.

Author bio: Melanie Gray is a writer for BBGeeks, a popular site that provides BlackBerry news, commentary, reviews and beginner BlackBerry tips for BB newbies.

When you mention the word diet, the first thing that comes to mind is usually sacrifice. You start to think about all the snacks and foods that you’ll have to do without so that you can stick to your diet. The truth is, healthy snacks are an important part of dieting success. Choosing the right foods for snacks will keep you from feeling hungry and help you avoid overdoing it at meal times.

Why Healthy Snacking Is Good for You

Snacking is not bad for you unless you choose snacks with empty calories and high sugar, fat, or sodium content. Eating regular snacks of healthier foods is a good way to avoid hunger and pack in some of the extra nutrients your body needs. If you just grit your teeth and try to push through the mid-afternoon hunger, you are far more likely to overeat when it’s finally time for that evening meal. Your body can only process a certain amount of food at one time. Eating smaller meals more frequently will keep your stomach full and you will take in fewer calories overall.

Healthy Snack Foods

If you’re going to snack healthily, you’ll need to make a plan so that the good snacks are easy to find when you’re ready for a treat. Healthy snacks can include far more than celery or apples. The more creative you are, the less you’ll feel like you’re on a diet. Stock your fridge and pantry with your favorite flavors of low fat cheese and yogurt for starters. Mixed nuts, berries, and seasonal fruits and vegetables are also good choices. Whole grain crackers or bread are good snack options, as well. Many of the snacks that are good for you also happen to be high in energy density, which means they fill you up faster without costing you as many calories.

Food Density Relates to Feeling Full

High density foods pack more energy into fewer calories. These powerful snacks keep you feeling full for longer than lighter fare because they take more time for the body to process. You’ll never feel deprived while you’re dieting because you’ll be able to stay full without taking in as many calories. The idea of using food density as part of your diet plan is that you can eat a larger quantity of high density foods without eating very many calories. You can eat these foods until you feel full, and you’ll continue to feel full for hours because the foods will remain in your digestive system longer.

Plenty of High Density Snacks to Choose From

Good snack choices include fresh fruits and vegetables and moderate portions of whole grains or dairy products. Nuts and pasta are extremely high density foods, but they are also high in fat content. Since high fat foods can lead to other health problems, like cardiovascular disease, it is a good idea to eat a wide range of snacks from the high density list rather than choose the same snacks over and over again.

Varying your snacks will also help break up the monotony of a diet so that you don’t feel like you’re suffering while you try to eat more healthily. Stop by LowFatDietPlan.org for more low fat diet tips.

If you are serious about your training, then you already know the importance of Whey Protein, Branched Chain Amino Acids, Fish Oil, and Creatine. However, there are also some supplements that are often over looked that necessarily shouldn’t be. Just because these supplements may not be attributed with directly building muscle, does not mean that they do not work behind the scenes just as hard as the others to help benefit your body. These supplements are: D-Aspartic Acid (DAA), R-Alpha Lipoic Acid (R-ALA), and Vitamin D.

D-Aspartic Acid (DAA): Recent studies on this naturally occurring amino acid were discovered to increase testosterone in men. The studies showed that supplementation of about 3 grams per day for two weeks, resulted in about a 40% increase in testosterone. While this is not a huge increase, it can be beneficial. This is often supplemented at 3-6 grams per day for two weeks, while cycling off a week. Many bodybuilders add this to their Post Cycle Therapy from a steroid cycle to help boost their testosterone levels from suppression. DAA is relatively cheap, so it is a good addition to any supplementation regimen.

R-Alpha Lipoic Acid (R-ALA): This powerful antioxidant has been used with success as a Glucose Disposal Agent (GDA), by controlling blood sugar levels. In other words, the body can handle carbohydrates more efficiently, and muscles become filled with glycogen, and attain a fuller look. This Glucose Disposal process from R-ALA is thought to have nutrient repartitioning effects, since glucose is being channeled to lean muscle tissue and away from fat tissue. R-ALA also helps increase the efficacy of other supplements such as Creatine and other antioxidants. Many bodybuilders use R-ALA on a bulk phase to help limit the accumulation of fat gain, while still eating copious amounts of carbohydrates. It can also benefit those who are on a cutting phase as well, for the same reasons.

Vitamin D: If you are in the sun a lot, then you probably do not need to supplement Vitamin D. However, many people are actually Vitamin D deficient. Besides immune and bone health, Vitamin D has also been proven to help aid in fat loss when used in optimal amounts. In a recent study, there is evidence that Vitamin D may play also play a role in the increase of testosterone in men. Even though the RDA of Vitamin D is lower, the recommended dosage based on recent studies has been about 4000 iu/day. Consult with a doctor and have a blood test to determine if your levels are low, and to monitor these levels when supplementing Vitamin D.

There are a few other supplements that could have easily made this list, but these three supplements seem to be gaining popularity, and for good reason. If your budget allows, these three supplements are great additions to any regimen.

There is more to a physique than just the mirror muscles. Mirror muscles are those that you can easily see in the mirror; the chest, delts, biceps, etc. Many so-called serious lifters place too much emphasis on these muscles, and neglect a very important aspect of upper body training; the back. While lower body training is just as important, the focus on this article is taking a look in the rearview mirror; the back muscles.

Many people hate back training for a variety of reasons. It may be due to the fact that you can’t see it easily in the mirror, you can’t really isolate it like say a bicep or tricep muscle, and it’s boring. There may be a host of other reasons, but those seem to be the most common amongst lifters.

Why should you train your back? There are a myriad of reasons why, but here are three reasons why back training should be a focus in your routine.

1. Lower Back/Spinal health.
Many back injuries could be easily be avoided if more attention was given to the lower back muscles. A strong lower back is essential to protect the spine and discs. A lot of injuries occur on lifts such as the squat and deadlift simply due to the fact that the lower back was not properly conditioned and/or not strong enough. A good way to remedy that is to make exercises such as Good Mornings, Reverse Hypers, and other lower back exercises a staple in your routine.

2. Muscle balance.
As with the lower back, many injuries occur to the chest, shoulders, and even back muscles due to the fact that there is a muscle imbalance. Many lifters tend to worship lifts such as the bench press, shoulder press, etc. and neglect the rows, lat pull downs, pull ups, etc., resulting in a muscle imbalance. This muscle imbalance can create a host of problems such as lower back and posture issues as well as shoulder problems. A good rule of thumb is to focus on rowing movements as much as you do on pressing movements; if not more! Compare your row strength to your pressing strength. If you can bench press way more than you can row, then more than likely you need to reassess your training. In other words, make rows, lat pull downs, pull-ups, etc. a normality.

3. The illusion of a small waist.
Not only can a strong back reduce the risk of injury, but it can also benefit the aesthetics of a physique as well, by creating the illusion of a smaller waist. Wide lats create what is known as the V-taper. A nice V-taper can create a wide, pronounced appearance, and make the waist appear much smaller. A thick and developed upper, middle, and lower back help create this strong, powerful look. Nothing completes the upper physique like a strong, developed back.

As you can see, back training is a necessity in any lifting routine. Many people neglect back training, but hopefully after reading this article, they will make a habit of looking in the “rearview mirror.”

Golf is seen as a sedate, leisurely sport which requires little exercise, but, as the slender physiques of the likes of Rory McIlroy, Luke Donald and their peers show, playing 18 holes on a regular basis can help aid fitness. For players on all golf tours, from the European and PGA tours to the Champions Tour and development tours for semi-professional players, to travel around the world and play four-day tournaments for at least 40 weeks a year, you need to be in top condition to commit to that.

The cumulative length of an average 18-hole course is over 5000 yards, which is the equivalent of around three miles. Walking three miles around a golf course with numerous slopes helps to strengthen your calves and thighs, while simultaneously improving your stamina. Doing this on a regular basis will eventually have the desired effect of being able to walk long distances without tiring.

In addition to walking, swinging and putting will help to improve your upper body strength. It doesn’t have the same effect as walking across a course, but doing it in tandem with playing in excess of a hundred rounds a year will help you live a little longer.

In the professional game, older players on the main tour are trying to keep pace with the younger players by improving their health. With younger players like McIlroy, Charl Schwartzel and Martin Kaymer leading the game, their more experienced rivals are committing to losing weight, exercising daily and eating more healthily.

If you’re looking for a way to improve your fitness, and want to take up a sport to help you on your way, then taking up golf is a great way to reach your goal. To take it up without spending a fortune, there are ways to get a round for next to nothing. Look around the internet for golf offers such as two-for-one deals. If you’re lucky, you can get a round for as little as £3 at a local club. Shopping around for a set of clubs can also net you a bargain too.