Health & Fitness Tracking - Smart choices for positive results!

Look, I’m new to this like you are. You use to do the sedentary lifestyle like a champ and now the only prize you have for it is some extra weight. Me too, I’m starting to call it the “Participation Badge for Life” because it seems like just doing nothing gets you exactly that, nothing. Now that I’m starting to get more motivated with this I want to give back that participation badge and work up to the bronze, silver and finally gold. It won’t be easy, if you are anything like me you are LAZY and lazy folks get participation badges. We’re smart, we like tech and we wanna use as much tech as we can, let’s get to it shall we?

Making Smart Decisions

One thing I’ve learned when working with technology is that making smart decisions and not fast decisions tend to lead to better outcomes. That can be said for most anything but when it comes to making a smart decisions in tech you need to do you homework. Since you found my website I’d imagine you were searching for one of the products or services I’m talking about below (because that’s how search engines work, I talk about it you search it and you find it here!) so let me be your guide to finding the perfect combo of apps to get the job done. All of these talk to one another in some way, typically with an API or wifi or even bluetooth, let’s see how each of them work.

Withings WiFi Enabled Scale

One of my absolute favorite things about technology is how you can take one device or software and tie it in with another and combine the data from each. This is something that could be done with this Withings WS-50 Smart Body Analyzer they come in both black and white and are wifi enabled. If you are like me you love playing with new technology, this has a slew of cool tech under the hood. A few years back I was looking at the Withings Wireless Scale WS-30, the older model and I wasn’t 100% sold on it. There was a model before that had the same technology but I wasn’t ready to pull the trigger and buy it yet. This Withings WS-50 Smart Body Analyzer the newer model comes with some of the same features as the WS-30 but with a few added bonuses such as body fat, heart rate and air quality to name a few. Both scales can connect to LoseIt.com to help you track your daily weight change. If you don’t use LoseIt.com it also works with RunKeeper.com directly.

LoseIt.com

I spoke about them in a previous blog post. LoseIt.com is my go to app for inputting everything I put into my body and everything I do to spend that energy I just ingested. Speaking of spending, LoseIt.com is free, free as in lite beer but once you want to start tracking that lite beer, the food you eat and the things you do, thats when the $39.99 a year plan kicks in. With this you can connect that Withings WS-50 Smart Body Analyzer to LoseIt.com and it can rat you out… I mean be kept up to date on your weight loss and gains in real-time. If you have a Nike Fuel Band you can connect that to LoseIt and not have to upgrade, you can read about what you can and can’t do with LoseIt over at the LoseIt.com Premium comparison page.

RunKeeper.com

RunKeeper.com is a website and iPhone / Android app that will keep track of your walking and running. It uses the device’s GPS to keep track of where you are, how fast you are doing. From there you can have RunKeeper connect to LoseIt.com and keep it’s database up to date with all the runs, walks and other activities you do. The application is very easy to use, works well with my iPhone and talks to you as you are walking.

Using the right tool for the job

Back when Steve and I were doing GeekFit we reviewed a lot of these product above and back them they were just in their infancy. When I started this recent resurgence into health and fitness I got to thinking about the various apps I tested back then and started to revisit them. A few of them, mainly iPhone apps have died off but the ones above have stuck around and for good reason, they work! I’m not fond of unitaskers, a device that only works for one purpose but sometimes a unitasker is a good thing. With these apps and services above you are getting to benefit from strengths from each instead of being stuck with one app that claims to do it all. Are you going walking or running? Use RunKeeper. Eating? Track it with LoseIt.com. Wanna check your weight and not spend time documenting it? Use the Withings scale.

Soon this list will only expand as I go about testing more products and weeding out the good from the bad. I’ll be sure to update this post as my weight loss progresses.