the lumbering wildebeest » apps

Food tracking / application integration awesomeness

Mary — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 13:58:03 +0000

I have mentioned in past posts that for food tracking, I use Spark People. I am still technically a sparker – I track my measurements and weight progress in there. My history is with spark people and until there is a way to migrate information from SP to somewhere else, I reckon spark people owns my ass. However, I have begun using My Fitness Pal to track food.

Its just about the same as spark people. The difference is the technology. My fitness pal (MFP), bless their little hearts, has made it so information from other applications can be utilized within MFP. Example: Endomondo is my fitness tracker. It’s also one of the apps compatible with MFP. Soooo, this means that when I go for my morning walk, the information from the Endomondo applications is automatically sent to MFP and my calories are adjusted to fit the calories burned during my morning walk! Friggin’ amazing and exciting if you ask me. It’s a pain in the ass to plug in all of your food as it is, and then to have to manually enter your exercises is just more than I have ever bothered to do. With this Endomondo/MFP integration, it does it for me. Magfrickenificent!

For whatever reason, the Endomondo app totally over estimates my calories burned but I can mentally adjust it in my head. Oh and in addition to my fitness app being connected to my food tracking app, Endomondo is also connected to earndit – each minute of activity is worth points which accrue so you can buy stuff.

Amazing technology. I’m so loving it.

Music choices for pace

Mary — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 14:38:38 +0000

Lets see if this works. I am going to try to share my morning mix with you. http://www.fitradio.com/ogmix/839 I think you have to log into fit radio to hear it.

Anyhow… this mix took me from walking mid 14 minute miles to (depending on my stride) 13 minute miles. From time to time, I like to go through the mixes on fitradio.com and add some new ones to my favorites. Then, from my phone I can pick what I want in the morning. I tend to stick with whatever one makes me go fastest until I get totally sick of the songs.

I absolutely cannot imagine walking without music. Not just any ole’ music; pace setting music. The best thing that happened to me during my weight-loss adventure was my damn smart phone. Since March, my pace has gone from 16-17 minutes to 13 & 14 minutes. I blame it on the Fit Radio app. Back in the old days (before March 2012) I used my mp3 player for music. That was great and kept me interested but it became a pain in the ass to try and keep any sort of constant pace. The beats just aren’t the same when they’re switching from (for example) Living After Midnight by Judas Priest, to Dancing Queen by Abba to Poker Face by Lady Gaga…etc…

Seriously… if you’re going to spend any amount of time out there walking…get friggin’ fit radio. You might not know or even like half the songs in the mixes but they are pretty damn consistent in the beats per minute. The above link to my morning mix is over an hour long. I’ve not even heard the last songs on it.

<–LoL