Swimming and app-ilicous repeat

So yesterday I went swimming for the first time in three weeks and today's workout on the treadmill was much better than it has been for three weeks. I believe swimming makes all the difference for me. Let's hope it reflects on the scale tomorrow.

Remember the Ab workout app I showed you a few weeks ago. Well this month I downloaded an app for my arms. This months workout is heavily cardio oriented so I decided to add in a quick upper body work out twice a week.

This app has a 5, 7.5 and 10 minute option like the Ab workout. It is all free weight and body weight exercises so you don't need more than a pair of dumbbells or even soup cans for beginners. It offers overhead press, biceps curls, triceps extension, bent over row, front raises, bridge dips, push-ups, and side plank.

Bottom line: Overall I think it is a great light weight workout for cardio focused people, but not meant for those of you who prefer weight training.

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I didn't have a shoe post this week, so I figured I would show you my favorite shoe app. I have to say I love the Zappos App. I know you can buy more than shoes at Zappos,but really why would I?

It is easy to search and navigate, I can search shoes according to brand, style, price and more. I can also do comparisons to other shoes. the most important is it allows me to "window" shop for shoes when I have time to kill. Much better than Angry Birds.

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Today's Fitness app is Nike's Boom. This App is cheestastic, but I find it oddly motivating. It takes and shuffles the music from you iPhone for your work. No big deal as I can do that on my own, but I have to say I like that is doesn't change songs when I am moving. When I have my iPhone in iPod mode the songs change mid-way through because my ginormous body giggles the phone in my pocket when I exercise telling it "Hey - she wants to change this song."

The other cheese factor is the "attaboys" you can select pro-athlete to cheer you on with canned and cliche expressions during your workout. The only thing is that there aren't any female athletes. It also records your workout so you can take a look at your work out history, but it doesn't give you much information other then the date of the work out and how long it was.

It gives me two options:

1 - Basic Workout - I select my warm-up, cool-down and exercise time. A trainer from SPARQ called Matt James tells you to start and finish and gives you a little canned encouragement every 10 minutes or so.

2 - Interval Training - Probably the more useful of the two. You can select how many sets you want to do, how long, and time between set. And it blow a whistle every time your supposed to change. The frequent whistle is irritating but you don't have to do you own timing then.

It has a couple other features like getting SPARQ rated. - Your enter a lot of your metrics like body weight, how fast you do the 40 yards dash, etc. I don't need to compete so I don't use it, but some dudes out there might like it. It also has a featured gear section, but I don't feel the need to use because I am not a Nike aficionado. You can also sign up for Team LiveStrong, which I couldn't tell you about either because I haven't registered.

Like I said Oddly Motivational, but ultimately can be replaced with your iPod and a stopwatch.

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So I wanted to tell you about Meal Snap. I broke down and actually purchased this app for 99 cents. So far my all it gets from me is an "Eh", definitely no WOW factor. It works well if the food is easily recognizable. Like if I took a picture of a slice of pizza and diet coke it will give me fairly accurate calories, but I take a photo of something like my Tomato pancakes. It doesn't work so good.

I took a picture of my tomato pancakes in fact and it told me it was only 13-19 calories per serving. WAY OFF! But take a photo of something like 1/2 a cup of Frozen Yogurt it can guess is pretty accurately 150-190 calories.

It also does not automagically transport my meal to my Daily Log. Which it should because they are both made by DailyBurn. So my suggestion is to skip this app - don't spend the $0.99, unless you eat at chain restaurants a lot.

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So I have a great app for people just starting out on exercise. It is call iMapMyWalk the free version for iPhone is more than enough for me. It uses GPS to Map your walk and give you distance, calories burned, time. It stores your last ten workouts to review and you can post your walk to facebook. I LOVE it, because before I used to have to set my odemeter to zero in my car and drive a walk to get the approximate distance.

The only draw back is that sometimes the GPS signal is not super accurate. So if you want an exact estimation forget it. For me close enough is good enough. They also have MapMyRun, and MapMyRide, MapMyHike, MapMyFitness.

Check them out...

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Last week I told you about my favorite "diet log" App called Daily Burn. It really is a great app one of the features I like is that you can select a work regime and it gives you a guide to follow or you can make your own.

However the workout I chose are only 3 days week and for me that just isn't enough, so on Tuesday and Thursday I add a little extra cardio and some abs. Of course I found an app called Daily Ab Workout, you get the basic workout for free and can upgrade it for $0.99. You select 5, 7.5 or 10 minutes for the workout. Then it gives you a list of 10 exercises, it shows you the exercise then gives you verbal cues to start and change. This fatty selects the 5 minute workout because I am not fit enough 10 minutes of abs.

There are other options like Daily Arm, Butt & Leg. I wouldn't recommend the daily cardio workout because for me 5-10 minutes just isn't enough.

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Ok, so the name is a little cheesy- but "there's an App for that" is just over done. I will probably try out a few names over the next few months.

One new found love I have it trying to find the perfect app to try an lose weight. In my quest I have tried innumerable tracking apps for weight, calories, and exercise. I have very specific needs Ease of Use, Simple to Interpret, and FREE. Here are my top three!

3. Weight Watchers - This app is Free but really only usable if you are signed up for WW online. I should mention I tried and failed WW 3 times. It doesn't work for me, but the app meets the criteria for you WW members. It is easy to enter my daily food and exercise, and auto-magically calculates my points. And has lots of easy to use extras. My favorite being the little cocktail widget. If you have the WW app you know. The Cocktail widget is the best.





Bottom Line: App is great, diet doesn't work for me so it is in third place.

2. CalorieCounter by MyNetDiary: Easy to use, great display, love the little area for water and vitamins, but I found the calorie counts for exercise to be off and the weight loss graphs seems to change even when I did not change also while the entering my food intake was easy, but tedious because I had to search through member contributed foods in addition to the ones already in the database. They have a website you can become a member of too, but I like one stop shopping.



Bottom Line: Good if you are already on a plan and just need a basic counter, just beware searching for the right food can take a while.

1.Daily Burn- Tracks nutrition, and workouts more comprehensively than WW or MyNetDiary, you can choose a customized nutritional plan and then it will show you where you meet or fall short on those goals in your diet with easy to interpret graphics. You can also choose a workout plan or just log your own exercise. The weight loss chart is easy to interpret as well. On a side note: if you are willing to pay for the upgrades it has some cool features like a barcode scanner to enter you food values in quicker and online contact with a trainer. I only use the free version so I can't tell how well the additional features work. One thing I might try though and it's sister App called SnapMeal. Supposedly for $0.99 you can take a picture off you plate and it will magically tell you what is in it and how many calories it has. Let me know if anyone has tried it.




Bottom line: It has everything I need and can really help a beginner in choosing an exercise and diet regimen. Although I am sure the manufacturers suggest you seek a physician’s advice first.