Fitness Archives - 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.

Your Shape Fitness Evolved: Week 5 Review and Giveaway

March 1, 2012 TechyDad Fitness, Games, Giveaway, Video Games

For the past 4 weeks, I’ve been working out using Your Shape Fitness Evolved for the XBox 360. The past four weeks were dedicated to keeping track as I tried Your Shape Fitness Evolved’s various types of workouts. This week, however, I will review the overall game as well as give what I feel is the best workout routine.

I found Your Shape Fitness Evolved to be quite an effective workout. The paces it put me through made me sweat and left me sore the next day just like any good workout should. There is a wide variety of workouts too to help keep your workouts from getting stale. In addition, there are "games", such as Stack ‘Em Up, that burn calories while you play.

I did run into some issues while working out with Your Shape Fitness Evolved, however these mainly seemed to relate to the Kinect system. Mainly, my living room was too small for Kinect. I wound up working out with the heels of my feet nearly pressed against our couch. This meant that I couldn’t move as freely as if I had moved a foot or so forward. Online searches revealed that Kinect does have problems with smaller rooms.

Overall, however, I found the workouts to be very nice. I could definitely see how regular Your Shape Fitness Evolved workouts could help as part of a weight loss regime.

Now for my "Recipe for Success". I’d say the best workout is one that alternates what gets worked out. The times when I did back-to-back arm or leg workouts were brutal. In addition, I’d recommend starting slow, ramping your workout up and then cooling down with a slower routine. For example, I’d start with a workout "games" like Wall Breaker or Juggle It. Next, I’d use one of the Run the World courses. After that, I’d shift to Cardio Boxing. I’d follow this with a toning workout which works the legs such as Build Strength. Finally, I’d cool down with some Yoga. This routine should burn about 170 calories.

Giveaway

You could win a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved from Ubisoft. Simply post a comment to this blog post. You can enter multiple times by leaving one comment in each of the posts of this series: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4.

One week from today, on March 8th at 10pm, I’ll select one winner from across the comments posted to all five posts. You do not have to be a blogger to enter, but must leave a valid e-mail address for me to contact you for mailing address once the giveaway is over. I will select the winner using random.org and contact you via e-mail. You will have 48 hours to claim the prize. If there is no response, another winner will be selected. Open to U.S. residents only.

Disclaimer: I was given a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved by Ubisoft and financially compensated for this Clever Girls Collective, Inc. campaign. In addition, I was loaned an XBox 360 and Kinect for the duration of the campaign. The opinions expressed above, however, are my own.

Your Shape Fitness Evolved: Week 4 Diary and Giveaway

February 23, 2012 TechyDad Fitness, Games, Giveaway, Health, Video Games

This week, I tried out Your Shape Fitness Evolved’s Humana Health series: Strengthen Your Heart, Active Kids, and Aging With Grace. Each of these is targeted to a particular demographic/purpose.

Strengthen Your Heart had me moving with squat punches, knee-up punches, tap backs, jumping jack punches, kick crosses, jab knee-ups, dumbbell squats, goblet squats, and triceps skating. All of these workouts burned 49 calories.

Next up, I tried Active Kids which is targeted more towards the younger set. Though I did these by myself, I could picture my son doing the squat kick combos, knee-up punches, shuffle cross punches, front kick punches, squat punches, jab knee-ups, combo arms switches, jumping jack punches, and kick crosses with me. This workout wound up burning 56 calories.

If Active Kids is aimed at younger folks, Aging With Grace is geared towards an older crowd. This workout wasn’t strenuous but still managed to burn 49 calories using step touches, knee fronts, tap backs, Z-Steps, Open-Close, squat punches, dumbbell squats, scaptions, and braced squats.

Giveaway

You could win a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved. Simply post a comment to this blog post. You can enter multiple times by leaving one comment in each of the posts of this series: Week 1, Week 2, and Week 3. When my five week series is finished, one commenter from across the five posts will win a copy of the game from Ubisoft.

Your Shape Fitness Evolved: Week 3 Diary and Giveaway

February 16, 2012 TechyDad Fitness, Games, Giveaway, Health, Video Games

This week, I tried out Your Shape Fitness Evolved’s boot camp, cardio boxing, yoga, and hip hop dance.

On Monday, I began with Cardio Boxing. I ran through a complete sequence: Learn It (16 calories burned with punches and kicks), Push It (A) (18 calories burned with jabs, hooks, and upper cuts), Push It (B) (18 calories burned with side punches and kicks), Own It (18 calories burned with a little bit of everything) and Attack It (48 calories burned with all the previous workouts and 4 times the workout time). Of note, I hit 97% of the workouts in Own It. After Cardio Boxing, I figured I’d cool down with some Yoga. I burned 19 calories in Develop It (A). I found that some of the Yoga poses just didn’t work with the small size of my room. The total calories burned was 137.

On Tuesday, I tried a few different workouts and wound up burning 111 calories. First, I tried Boot Camp: Push It. Thought I burned 15 calories, I found this way too intense of a workout. (Especially coming right after having a big Valentine’s Day dinner.) Next, I figured I’d test out Hip Hop: Learn It (A) Class 2. (I had tried Class 1 before this Diary series.) I burned 23 calories with this. I found this workout nice, but not my style. I’m not really a Hip Hop kind of guy. (I’m more 80’s rock than Hip Hop.)

With these eliminated, I went back to Cardio Boxing and tried Learn It Class 2. I burned 20 calories with this. Though it was much more complex than Class 1 was, Cardio Boxing was definitely more my style. Next up was Push It (A) for 22 calories and Push It (B) for 15 calories. These picked up the pace on the punches and kicks. Finally, I went back to Yoga for cool down. Develop It (B) burned 16 more calories.

Finally, Wednesday arrived. Though my arms had been sore all day, I returned to Cardio Boxing. I warmed up by repeating Learn It Class 2 and burned 21 calories. Next, I jumped into Own It (A) to speed up my routine and shed another 22 calories. Then, it was time for Attack It (B). This 11+ minute workout burned 58 more calories. Finally, I cooled down with Yoga’s Develop It (C) for 24 more calories. I considered finishing off the category with Develop It (D), but noticed that this would take about 23 more minutes. I just didn’t think my body would last through this so I stayed with 125 calories burned.

Giveaway

You could win a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved. Simply post a comment to this blog post. You can enter multiple times by leaving one comment in each of the posts of this series: Week 1, Week 2. When my five week series is finished, one commenter from across the five posts will win a copy of the game from Ubisoft.

Your Shape Fitness Evolved: Week 2 Diary and Giveaway

February 9, 2012 TechyDad Fitness, Games, Giveaway, Health, Video Games

This week, I tried out Your Shape Fitness Evolved’s Glutes, Toning, Abs, Arms, and Sports preparation workouts.

On Saturday, I burned 110 calories. First, I worked out my glutes with some squats and kicks (10 calories). Next, I moved into pushups to work out my arms and burn 12 more calories. After this, I worked my abs out with some crunches (8 calories). Then, it was time for some toning. I had no weights, so I just ran through the motions. Still, I burned 16 calories.

So far, it seemed like an easy workout. Then came Sports Preparation: Football Basic Preparation. Instead of 2 groupings of 3 workouts, I had to run through 6 sessions of 3 workouts! At the end, I had burned 64 calories. Yes, this one selection burned more calories than all of the other workouts combined.

On Tuesday, I decided to keep better track of the names of the workouts. First up was Arms 100% (B). This entailed two reps each of Knee push ups, slow mountain climbs, and triceps knee pushups and burned 25 calories. Next was Abs 100% (B). This put me through two reps of slow mountain climbs, up & down planks, and fast mountain climbs. I burned 13 calories and learned a valuable lesson. Don’t do Abs right after Arms. Ow, my back!

Up next was Toning: Build Strength (B). This burned 18 calories by working me through 4 reps of bicep combo lunges and 2 reps of dumbbell squats. Then came Glutes: 100% (B) and 21 more calories were burned. This had me perform 4 reps of dumbbell knee-up side-kicks and 2 reps of dumbbell squats.

Then it was time for Sports Preparation. This time I selected Soccer Basic Preparation. I burned 55 calories by running through two reps each of power jogging, dynamic leg curls, knee-up punches, dumbbell step squats, curtsy lunge raises, balance skating, jumping jack punches, plyo leg curls, and jab knee-ups. If that seems like a lot of exercises, it was! All totaled, I burned 132 calories this day.

Finally, on Wednesday, I burned 219 calories. How did I exceed my calories burned from the two previous days? Well, first I ran through Glutes: 100% (C). This burned 19 calories with 2 reps of braced squats, dumbbell sumo squats, and lunges. Then, I worked on Arms: 100% (C). This 38 calories burning workout consisted of 2 reps of Push ups, fast mountain climbs, and triceps knee push-ups. Next up was Toning: Build Strength (C). I burned 15 calories with 4 reps of reverse fly lunges and 2 reps of triceps squats. Next, I tried the Abs: 100% (C) and burned 22 calories with the supported leg stretch, roll up & down, pulse crunch, up & down plank, slow mountain climb, and fast mountain climb.

If you are counting, you’ll realize this only totals 94 calories. The other 125 calories came from Sports Preparation: Soccer Cardio & Endurance. Yes, one hundred twenty five calories! Instead of the usual 6 sessions of 3 workouts, this had 7 sessions of 3 workouts: Jumping jack punch, triple run punch, front kick punch, slide jump, high knees run, plyo leg curl, power skate, sumo knee lift, x-jog, sprint jump, sumo jump, sprint jump, muscle man twist, dumbbell squat, muscle man twist, single-leg squat, sumo squat, single-leg squat, push-up, up & down plank, and fast mountain climb. Yes, I was ready to collapse after all of this.

Giveaway

You could win a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved. Simply post a comment to this blog post. When my five week series is finished, one commenter from across the five posts will win a copy of the game from Ubisoft.

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