Tuesday 20 May 2014

Off-topic: Apps and accessories for diet and exercise

Some people asked me about it on Facebook, so I thought I'd run down exactly what I use and why.

Fitbit One; Fitbit Aria; Wahoo Blue HR; Smartphone.



I was getting some trouble with my knee so I decided it was about time I shifted some weight as I thought it might help. Seems the main problem there was an overly tight iliotibial band (which runs down the outside of the leg) and a weak muscles above the knee (in the middle and the inside) that allowed the patella of the knee to track to the left and cause irritation where it rubbed (this is according to my Physio by the way - I'm not a doctor). I'm confident the weight loss will be of more benefit as I get older at least.

Anyway, I use the following sites, apps and equipment for effective dieting:

  1. A modern smartphone (iPhone 5 in my case)
  2. Fitbit website & app - a fitness tracking and community website that sells activity tracking accessories.
  3. Fitbit One activity tracker - I use this to track steps (what I call background exercise) and sleep.
  4. Fitbit Aria body fat scale - I use this every day to keep fitbit updated with my weight and body fat percentage.
  5. MyFitnessPal website & app - This is similar to fitbit, but their website and app have a much more comprehensive food database for logging what I eat.
  6. Wahoo fitness app - This is a dedicated fitness app that supports various useful accessories and training methods. I use it to track runs and bike rides.
  7. Wahoo fitness Blue HR heart rate monitor - This gives me more accurate information about how I'm exercising and how much energy I've used.
It sounds like a bit of a pain to use all this, but it's actually simple to set up and use. While the equipment is expensive, the apps and sites are all free. The equipment just makes things more accurate and useful.


Firstly I mainly use Fitbit as a dashboard, to set my goals, track their progress and bring all the information from the other apps together. That's mainly out of habit as I started using fitbit first and I think MyFitnessPal could do the same job. I add the food I eat to MFP regularly throughout the day, except for negligible things like espresso or other low calorie drinks.

MFP makes it pretty easy to add your own recipes as well. I often make a chilli or a curry and freeze the leftovers. Adding the ingredients to a recipe in MFP and adding the number of portions makes it very easy to quickly log them later in the week when I eat them.

Accounts on Fitbit and MyFitnessPal can be easily linked to share information (so MFP gets steps and weight from Fitbit accessories and Fitbit gets food intake and other information from MFP).

Wahoo fitness doesn't link with Fitbit, but can send exercise information to MFP (and also to Strava - which I use but isn't part of this system) after you've saved a workout. Using a heart rate monitor during exercise is a good way of making your exertion measurements (and calorie counts) much more accurate and can also improve your training. Don't use me as an example of improved performance though, I'm still a lot slower than most of my exercise buddies! I have lost nearly 20kg though, so maybe I'll catch up.

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