Of Food and Fitness
Back in December, dancingwolfgrrl clued me on to an online program to track workouts and eating. It also has a virtual gym buddy feature that you can use with your friends to motivate each other, as well as communities for specific goals, eaters or exercisers. I'd been wanting to track my workouts and eating better, so over the past few weeks I've been trying the program out and have decided that it is quite useful and completely worth sharing.
Originally I was interested in tracking workouts and the gym buddy feature, however the workout features seem more basic than what I was looking for--although it's quite possible that there is way more to the program than what I've figured out. Basically you plug in your workouts and then let the Gyminee know every time you do one. It seems to have a few glitches though because sometimes I enter a workout and it doesn't seem to show. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong. The gym buddy feature works quite well, but I need more buddies to really try it out (hint hint) . The surprise, for me, was the nutrition tracker.
I've used nutrition trackers in the past and they've always been slow and really limiting. Gyminee seems to have gotten it right though. It's fast and painless; but very insightful. It uses the USDA database as its base, however it allows--and encourages--users to add their own foods based on the nutrition labeling on pre-packaged foods or the nutritional information in the recipes they use. The new additions are then made available for other users to use. Accessing the database is fast and once I've plugged in what I just ate, it gives me instant feedback on calories, carbs, protein and fat. The results have been very enlightening. I've discovered I eat much less protein than I thought and more fat--although that may have been the holidays--but my caloric intake is about what I expected.
I update during the day from my iTouch, which makes it really convenient. I'm not sure how it works on other mobile devices.
If anyone wants to check it out, I really encourage you to do so (www.gyminee.com). And then if you want to add me as a gym buddy, my user name is the same as my LJ one (My profile apge should be: http://www.gyminee.com/locker_room/silly_imp).
Originally I was interested in tracking workouts and the gym buddy feature, however the workout features seem more basic than what I was looking for--although it's quite possible that there is way more to the program than what I've figured out. Basically you plug in your workouts and then let the Gyminee know every time you do one. It seems to have a few glitches though because sometimes I enter a workout and it doesn't seem to show. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong. The gym buddy feature works quite well, but I need more buddies to really try it out (hint hint) . The surprise, for me, was the nutrition tracker.
I've used nutrition trackers in the past and they've always been slow and really limiting. Gyminee seems to have gotten it right though. It's fast and painless; but very insightful. It uses the USDA database as its base, however it allows--and encourages--users to add their own foods based on the nutrition labeling on pre-packaged foods or the nutritional information in the recipes they use. The new additions are then made available for other users to use. Accessing the database is fast and once I've plugged in what I just ate, it gives me instant feedback on calories, carbs, protein and fat. The results have been very enlightening. I've discovered I eat much less protein than I thought and more fat--although that may have been the holidays--but my caloric intake is about what I expected.
I update during the day from my iTouch, which makes it really convenient. I'm not sure how it works on other mobile devices.
If anyone wants to check it out, I really encourage you to do so (www.gyminee.com). And then if you want to add me as a gym buddy, my user name is the same as my LJ one (My profile apge should be: http://www.gyminee.com/locker_room/silly_imp).