Day 3 - Recap of today and There's an App for everything!

First I want to recap on last night.  I did go for pho, ordered a small chicken pho and ate most of the broth, all of the chicken, and about half the noodles.  No drinks (only water).  When he asked if I wanted to go have frozen yogurt I told him I was watching my intake of extraneous calories and maybe we could just get coffee instead.  However there was nothing open and so that was the end of the night.  Still, not bad.  I was mindful.

Today, I did some housecleaning (not enough) and unpacking of my many travel bags.  I chose 3 recipes to make this week (more on that tomorrow) and went grocery shopping.  Oh, and I also got myself to the gym for 35 min of walk/run and some squats/pushups.

Which brings me to the topic of the day:  APPS!

I have found several apps helpful and am always exploring more.  I do think there can be an app overload, where you spend more time tracking things than doing them, and it can get overwhelming, but for the most part, they provide accountability, satisfaction, feedback, and support from other app users.

So I'm going to list what I use right now:

1) myfitnesspal - tracks food, exercise, and water.  Has an enormous database of food, although since nutritional data is entered by users, you have to reality check some of the entries.  When you put in your exercise, it subtracts those calories from your total daily allotment, so you also have to be careful and reality check the calories burned for different exercises.  My favorite part of this app - when you hit "finished logging for the day" it gives you a message that says "If you ate this way every day you would weigh xxx lbs in 5 weeks."  Really hits home.

2) Lift - has all sorts of programs to track progress in everything from drinking more water to clearing your email inbox to becoming more extroverted.  Some of them just consist of checking a box each day you have done the activity, but others, such as "3 months to a new you" has daily instructions for how many squats and pushups to do, starting with very modest reps and building on this.  For example, I did 3 sets of 4 squats + 4 pushups in addition to my walk/run.  Check out the "fitness" section for more of this type of program, which include things like "10 minutes of exercise before 10 AM every day" etc.

3) zombies run - While the other two apps are free, this one is not, but its fun.  I don't use it religiously but its great for an otherwise dull treadmill workout.  You can set a 30 or ~60 min workout and each workout is a "mission" with a story interspersed with songs from your chosen playlist.  You actually get stuff, like in a video game, and can build up your base, but I haven't explored this too much.  Its fun though, and its what got me to the gym today.

Ok gotta run - I've done great today (dinner was rainbow chard with Trader Joe's eggplant parm) but I am going out tonight and will drink.  I am going to limit myself to 2 drinks, as I have the calorie allotment for that many.  Wish me luck!

What apps do you use to help with fitness and diet?