Fitness for the Mind and Body. Podcast hosts: Jason Tucker and Steven Klassen discuss weight loss for geeks.
5 Nov
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4 Sep
I’ve been using the Backpack service from 37 Signals, Inc. for the last few years as a journal to track my food & exercise each day. I’ve even given it a geeky title of I/O (shorthand for for Input/Output). Their interface is easy to use and they offer a free account for the basic service, so there isn’t any commitment to start playing around with it although you can’t go wrong for $5/month for their upgraded version.
And now, on to the second part of the subject: goals. They say the best way to stick to something is to make a public declaration of your goal so you won’t be able to squirm out of it. Here we go: I’m going to lose 40+ pounds by January 1st, 2008. That means clean intake, consistent output, and putting out a new podcast on a regular basis.
This is a public link to my backpack page that gets updated throughout the day as I eat and exercise: http://xinu.backpackit.com/pub/1218865. If you create a food log of your own, post it here in a comment and we’ll mention your name on each new show, encouraging you to keep kicking butt & and taking names. Let’s do it!
Jason’s public backpack page is: http://abstrakone.backpackit.com/pub/1229049
30 Aug

Category: Tool / service
Topic: Website Review - Gimme20
Gimme20.com was developed by WC, Inc. in beautiful and health-conscious Vancouver, Canada.
Steve:
I created an account on this site and looked around a bit yesterday. Communities? Check. Groups? Check. Mobile access? Double check. Ease of use? That’s where I got tripped up.
You’re able to find workouts that other users have created. They have a title, some description or instructions, and then they’re each set up to track in a specific way (time, distance, etc.). I searched for ‘elliptical’ and got an exercise that had “30 minutes” in the title and would only let me track distance. I’ve done a lot of time on that thing and I don’t remember it ever giving me the distance. I’ll have to check next time, but what I would have preferred was time tracking.
No problem, it lets you create workouts. Although when you go in to create a new entry there’s a banner that comes up that warns of not creating duplicate entries. At this point I’m stuck with either ignoring the message or creating yet another duplicate.
I’d give this site 3 out of 5 stars.
Jason:
I was able to create an account quite easily, lots of AJAX to be had on this site. At the time of writing there is 4000+ subscribers on the site many of which are participating in their forums. A website like this requires lots of forum participation and it seems that the majority of the users are participating. The interface of the site is easy on the eyes but doesnt have that new fangled Web 2.0 look to it. This isn’t bad but it does stand out a bit from the crowd. Another thing about the forums is that they allow for all sorts of multimedia to get your point across. Pictures, youtube videos and such really added to the experience.
I too had the same problem as my co-host, creating a new workout or rather being pushed to use an already created workout was a bit odd. Other websites allow you to create workouts without this warning. I’m not sure what the devs were thinking about on this one.
The ability to input constantly changing stats (weight, workouts) over their mobile site work splendidly. I think more sites should go about it this way. I’d like to see a way to display this data on my own website like some other places do. They really did a good job of getting data into the site but I think they need to allow you to use that collected data elsewhere.
I give this site 4 out of 5 stars.
28 Mar

Category: Tool / service
GMap Pedometer is a Google maps mashup that combines the ability to find locations to run, walk, jog, and cycle with the power of Google maps. This site allows you to plot your trip before you leave and figure out how far in miles the trip will be. It also will calculate how many calories you will burn based on your weight.
The creator of the site was looking for a way to track his marathon runs and to know the exact distance each leg of the race is. He was looking for a way to do this without taking a GPS or a pedometer with him on his runs. This website solves this problem by allowing you to take control of Google Maps and overlay your own info onto it.
So what makes this different from the original site? Can’t you just make driving directions using Google maps and then use that for your runs or walks? You could if point A and B didn’t involve a freeway (since you cant ride a bike or walk on a freeway legally). What this does that is different from “driving directions” is that you can “plot” your trip, take small side streets, cut through a park, or even map your trip around a park. This is something that Google map’s driving directions cannot do.
So how easy is it to use? Very easy, you start by searching for the area you want to work with using the input boxes on the top of the site, just like you would Google Maps. After that you move the map until you find your starting position and double click. Since the site allows you to go anywhere (even through buildings since it doesn’t know any better) you can move the map a bit and make another plot on the map by double clicking again. Once you plot all the legs of the trip you can save the route, print the route export to a GPX file for later use in a GPS or calculate the calories burned during your trip.
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/
Tags: google maps running biking jogging