Just over a week into the New Year and likely your resolve to get fit and shape up is wavering now. After all, there’re only so many days you can snack on energy-boosting nuts before you reach for the pastries. Brilliant news for dieters, though: researchers have found that people using a weight-loss app are more likely to lose more weight than those ‘going it alone’. Here are three of the best.

Noom Weight Loss coach

Highly revered as the go-to weight-loss app for Android, Noom is less about laboriously filling in food diaries and exercise logs and more about introducing small lifestyle changes to encourage healthier living. The ‘coach’ keeps an eye on what you’re up to during the day, and offers corresponding advice – all personalized for the user. Activity suggestions and fun challenges make the app enjoyable to use, no doubt accounting for the 20 million pounds lost by its community to date.

Platform and developer: Android (by Noom Inc.)

Final word: Only available on US Androids, high consumer demand to broaden its user criteria speaks volumes for the success of this app.

My Fitness Pal

Voted best weight-loss app by the readers of Consumer Reports, My Fitness Pal combines easy logging and careful science to help users set – and achieve – their weight-loss goals. With over two million different foods listed in its database this is a helpful app for those looking to simply monitor their calorie consumption and confront the reality of what they really do eat every day.

Platform and developer: Android, Blackberry, iOS, Windows (by MyFitnessPal LLC)

Final word: Fewer bells and whistles than the other apps listed here, but an excellent standard app for those making their first forays into app-guided fitness.

Fooducate Nutrition Scanner

Created by nutritionists and parents, the Fooducate app is not designed to be a simple food and calorie log, but instead the helpful voice of a dietician, guiding users in their food decisions. Simply scan the food product and the app will tell you what’s inside it, what’s beneficial and what’s potentially harmful to your diet, and then suggest other – healthier – products. Its database is comparatively limited with 200,000 products, but it’s expanding constantly.

Platform and developer: Android, iOS (by Fooducate Ltd)

Final word: An excellent app in the pursuit of better food and diet awareness. Apparently Oprah is a big fan, and if it’s good enough for the talk show queen…