Slim and fit in 2023 with the Samsung Health app

After the holidays, you look down at yourself and think: that looked better once. If you want to take care of nutrition, activity, and sleep in 2023, you’ll find many tools for it in the Samsung Health app. I’m showing them on my Galaxy Z Flip 4 in combination with the Galaxy Watch 5. The app is free and can also be installed on other Android devices from the Play Store.

The Samsung Health app interface

The home page has tiles for sleep, food, daily activity (steps, active time, activity calories), and heart rate. There are also overviews for steps, blood oxygen, and body composition, the workout app, a water tracker, and a stress barometer. Heart rate, blood oxygen, and body composition are only available with a Galaxy Watch.

Nutrition: set a calorie goal and log food

1. Enter basic data: At the bottom right, tap the profile, then Edit. You enter gender, height, weight, date of birth, and activity level.
2. Set a goal: In the Food section, tap “Set goal” at the top right. From that, the app calculates the recommended daily calorie intake for maintaining your weight. For me, that is 1,775 kilocalories.
3. Choose a calorie deficit: To lose weight, a deficit is what counts. I recommend 200 to 500 kilocalories. In my experience, a bigger deficit leads to constantly thinking about food and getting a craving attack after a few days. I choose 300 kilocalories, so 1,450 kilocalories a day.
4. Log everything: Choose the meal type, enter the food and the amount. The macronutrients are stored. You really log everything, including the piece of chocolate in passing and the milk in your coffee. Frequently eaten meals can be saved.

For orientation: losing one kilogram of pure fat means a deficit of 7,000 kilocalories. At 300 kilocalories a day, that takes three weeks. If you move more, you lose weight faster.

Protein, carbohydrates, and fat

The body needs different amounts of energy to digest nutrients. For fat, it is about 0 to 5%, for carbohydrates 5 to 10%, and for protein 25 to 30% of the basal metabolic rate. So protein-rich food helps with weight loss. The app shows how many carbohydrates, fat, and protein I have eaten. My advice: the bar for carbohydrates should be small, without giving them up completely. Protein should have the biggest share.

You shouldn’t give up fat. According to my sources, women need at least 50 to 60 grams a day, because fat influences hormone balance, well-being, and the mind. This means good fats like olive oil, seeds, nuts, and salmon.

I also looked at other apps like MyFitnessPal, Lifesum, or Yazio. The Samsung Health app’s database is very extensive, accurate, and well maintained. You can create missing foods yourself.

Activity: 7,000 steps as a goal

There are several studies showing that at least 7,000 steps a day make a significant contribution to preventing cardiovascular disease. Walking is enough for that. Below that, you don’t get the effect, and more doesn’t add anything in this respect. So set your goal to 7,000 steps. The “Daily activity” overview shows steps, active time, and activity calories burned.

Depending on intensity, a workout burns 300 to 400 kilocalories, which is not much. It is more important to increase everyday movement. I wouldn’t add the calories burned to the calorie goal: you never hit the number exactly and quickly wipe out the deficit again.

Sleep: stages, blood oxygen, and sleep coaching

For sleep tracking, you need a Galaxy Watch. According to the guidelines, deep sleep should be about one hour each night, and I make sure to get seven to eight hours of sleep. The app shows the individual sleep stages and blood oxygen. It alerts you when it falls below 90%. That helps if you wake up more tired in the morning than when you went to bed.

Measures I have tried:

• no heavy meals in the evening
• no blue light before sleep, in my case with blue light filter glasses
• a dark and quiet bedroom

With the tracking, you can check whether your sleep stages improve. There is also sleep coaching. It assigns you to an animal group based on your data and gives tips. At the beginning of 2022, I was a “bad penguin”, and by now I’m a “carefree lion”.

More features

• Fitness: Mindfulness exercises and fitness classes, including one-week classes to download. It is not as polished as Apple Fitness, but it is free.
• Period calendar: Here you log your period, and the fertile days are calculated from the cycle length.
• Temperature measurement: The sensors are built into the Galaxy Watch 5, but after a good four months on the market, the feature was still not enabled. I hope it is coming.

Verdict

The Samsung Health app is a very good companion for weight loss, activity, and sleep, and it is free. I think Samsung is far ahead of Apple on these topics. I miss the app most when I use an iPhone. For me, it is also the way to get rid of my winter weight.