TechyDad, Author at TechyDad

Counting Calories With MyFitnessPal

May 31, 2013 TechyDad Fitness, Smartphone/Tablet Apps, Weight Loss

In the beginning of May, my in-laws went to Disney World. They happened to be there during the May the 4th, also known as Star Wars Day. Disney, of course, had some wonderful shirts available for May the 4th. My in-laws asked if I’d like one and I told them to get me a size large. When they brought it back and I tried it on, though, it didn’t fit.

A couple of weeks later, thanks to warmer weather, I took out my short sleeve shirts. I put one on but it was too snug. So I put another one on and another and another. All too tight. Clearly, it was time to lose some weight.

Previously, I had success with writing down my food intake. It forces me to really examine what I’m eating and not just shove food into my mouth on a whim. However, writing food items down in a paper notebook is so pre-smartphone. I did some searching in the Google Play store and found the MyFitnessPal Calorie Counter.

After entering in my details (height, weight, etc.), MyFitnessPal told me how many calories I had every day. Then, it was a simple matter of entering what I ate into my food diary.

You can search for food.

You can enter your own food.

You can select food you’ve eaten before.

And, in my favorite feature of all, you can scan a barcode to find and enter food items.

The database of food is very extensive. I had a new variety FiberOne snack cakes and the app found them quickly and easily.

As you enter in food, the app tallies up how much you have consumed and displays how many calories you have left for the day.

You can also see a detailed analysis of your nutritional intake.

To get more calories to consume, you can exercise. Exercise is entered just like food only it adds to the calories you have available to you instead of subtracting them.

All of your data is synced to MyFitnessPal’s servers so you can enter information in multiple devices. (There are iOS, Blackberry, and Windows Phone apps as well.) There’s a lot more to the app including weight charts, but as I’ve been using this for less than a week, I haven’t used these yet.

Overall, I’m loving this app. It’s so much easier to keep track of what I’m eating than a notebook. I at first found the calorie count too low, but quickly found that my desire to eat bigger portions was more out of momentum than appetite. In fact, I’ve found that I typically end days with a few hundred calories to spare. Finally, while I can’t claim any "official" weight loss due to this being my first week of use, I checked on the scale and definitely seem to have lost two or three pounds. In any event, MyFitnessPal can be an invaluable aid in a weight loss plan.

Nana The Dandelion

May 29, 2013 TechyDad Museum, Photos

We visited the Museum of Innovation and Science (aka MiSci) this past weekend. While I’ll write more about that another day, I wanted to focus on their Bridge-Of-Fire electrostatic exhibit.

You walk onto the platform, put your hands over the metal tube, and wait. Of course, DON’T TOUCH THE TUBE!

I did this without reading the instructions. (ALWAYS READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!) If you do touch the tube, you’ll get a very painful shock.

Anyway, while you are standing on the platform, the electrical charge will build inside you and eventually make your hair stand on end.

Ok, maybe not my hair. How about B’s hair.

A little better. JSL’s hair?

Now we’re talking, but for a real hair-on-end photo, we need to turn to B’s mother whom the boys call Nana.

Or who will, from now on, be known as Nana Dandelion.

See the resemblance?

Age Appropriate TV

May 28, 2013 TechyDad NHL, Television

Recently, NHL took a liking to watching The Pink Panther on Netflix. He loves the comedy of the classic cartoons. Unfortunately, his peers don’t seem to share his enthusiasm. In fact, one of them recently made fun of him for it.

First of all, I took NHL aside and gave him a bit of advice. I told him that he is NOT to stop watching or enjoying something just because someone else doesn’t like it and especially not because someone made fun of him for it.

Beyond that, however, B and I decided that we should introduce him to some age appropriate television shows. It’s all well and good that JSL loves Jake and the Never Land Pirates, Doc McStuffins, and other Disney Jr. shows. NHL, however, is too old for those programs.

We began to brainstorm what kinds of shows a 9 year old would watch. Unfortunately, all the shows we came up with came from our childhood: Alf, the Cosby Show, and Full House to name a few. These shows, while age appropriate, aren’t likely to be interests that his peers share. I doubt that many kids in the fourth grade watch the antics of Willie Tanner, Cliff Huxtable, or Joey Gladstone.

So we’re on the hunt to introduce NHL to some shows that suit him both in terms of subject matter, age appropriateness, and peer popularity. We won’t show him a program to merely because everyone else is watching it, but it would be nice for him to have common interests with his classmates.

What shows do you think suit a nine year old boy?

Note: The HDTV image above was created by jgm104 and is available via OpenClipArt.org.

Keeping Score

May 24, 2013 TechyDad Games

On Sunday, JSL was feeling sick and B had hurt her knees and hand in a fall. In order to give them some peace and quiet for awhile to rest, I took NHL out of the house. We ran a couple of needed errands and then decided to do something fun. We headed to an indoor mini-golf place that we’d been meaning to try.

As we golfed, we marveled at the glowing courses and tried our best to get the balls in the hole. NHL even got a hole in one. At one point, though, I realized that the people in front of us were pausing after every hole to write down their scores. It occurred to me that I never even considered doing this.

I think of mini-golf as a fun activity. The competition is with myself – seeing how few shots I can make a particular hole in – not with my fellow players. Keeping score might also make NHL anxious if he doesn’t do well on a particular hole. Besides, both NHL and I have a tendency for getting the ball near the hole and then making many, many failed putts. In the end, I find mini-golf a lot more fun without the score keeping.

When you play mini-golf, do you keep score?

Social Anxiety vs. Crowd Patience

May 22, 2013 TechyDad Aspergers, Autism, Life

There’s an odd little interplay that results when I go out somewhere. If we’re going to a social situation where we’ll be expected to converse with people I don’t know, then I’ll get nervous and want to leave. If, however, we’ll be packed in somewhere with a bunch of strangers who we aren’t expected to talk to but whom we have to put up with while waiting in line or while going from point A to point B, then I tend to be fine. I call it social anxiety versus crowd patience.

When it comes to conversing with people, I have very little patience. This has nothing to do with the people I’m talking to, mind you. It’s just that talking to people makes me nervous. I have to remember their name, past conversations we might have had, talk about topics I may or may not have an interest in, and keep in mind all of the social rules that come naturally to those who don’t lie on the autistic spectrum. I might be sitting there talking, but mentally I’ve bolted for the door and am halfway down the stairs.

(Side note: I’m constantly amazed how B can recall conversations months or years later. In general, I have a very short conversation-memory. Who I talk to about what tends to fade quickly most times.)

However, crowds don’t seem to present much of a problem to me. This is actually quite odd as people with Asperger’s can find crowds an overwhelming sensory experience. However, while there might be chaos all around me, I can usually filter it out and hyper-focus in on what I’m doing at the moment. I just regard people as moving obstacles to avoid when walking or to wait behind if on line. Social expectations are low. So long as I don’t cut in front of anybody or knock anyone over, I’m fine. I don’t need to know the name or interests of the person in front of me. It’s perfectly fine for me to retreat into my own head and ignore everyone walking around me.

All my "crowd patience" goes out the window if the crowd is a party, however. Parties aren’t about impersonally navigating past people to get to a destination. They are social events and all of those conversational social rules apply. Furthermore, I can’t just treat the people around me as if they were faceless obstacles. Anyone near me is a potential conversation. The entire situation quickly moves from uncomfortable to overwhelming.

This doesn’t mean I *WANT* to leave, mind you. In fact, I often *WANT* to join in but the more I join in, the more uncomfortable I feel until I *NEED* to leave.

The give-and-take between my social anxiety and crowd patience can make outings quite "interesting." Will the activity tend towards the impersonal crowds enough that I will be able to put up with it? Or will it be social enough that I’ll begin to get nervous? Add in NHL’s social/sensory concerns and anxiety and it’s no wonder why our social calendar can be tough to manage.

NOTE: The crowd image above is by ainlondon and is available via MorgueFile.com.

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