1.) Wild Bob - 01/27/2016

So in my ongoing effort to be a man of the ages, and promote my ever continuous pursuit of trying to stay healthy and become more fit...I've been noticing and looking a little harder at all the various fitness / monitoring products. Of which I am sure most of you know, there is no shortage of options out there.

Now, me being a bit of an old school type guy...I've been struggling with whether or not I want to jump on this bandwagon. But, in pushing myself to be OK with thinking outside of the box, and not writing something off just because it’s new and different; I've decided to dabble a bit.

I've looked at and considered a FitBit (a guy I work with swears by his) but not wanting to take that much of a plunge...I've also been looking at alternative app ideas for my smart phone. (Still not sure I'm Ok with this Big Brother type of an option...but I guess I threw that argument out of the window by owning a smart phone to begin with! :re: )

So I warmed up to the idea of trying something new here on this. A few weeks back I was talking it over with my wife, and as usual, she had some good, solid wisdom to share with me on the topic. I was telling her that I had it narrowed down to 2 different apps, and I was impressed at how reasonably priced they were. To which she informed me that if I just wanted to try one out; why not use the app for that came on my phone for free. Duh :duh:...leave it to me to not bother checking everything out that comes on the dam thing.

So fine and good, I initialize the S Health app and away I go using this thing for a couple weeks now. Well, I'm here to report on this thing:

Mother of God! Who ever came up with this aught to be shot!!! :rage:

The short of it: I call it the 'Electronic Nag.' [I]All this thing does is nag and bitch at me!!! I shut if off today[/I]. It's blowing up my phone with notices of:

"You missed your goal of one million steps."
"You didn't drink enough water today."
"You didn't enter the caloric intake of meals eaten today."
"You need to take at least 200 more steps before the end of the hour."
"You didn't get enough sleep over the last 24 hours."
"You haven't entered your heart rate."
"You have not measured your stress data in the last 24 hours."
"Why are you not tracking your caffeine intake?"
"Would you like to install your personal coach app now?"

This thing has been driving me crazy! I think someone somewhere is sitting there laughing their ass off over this stupid product. I purposefully [U]did not [/U]marry a woman that nags me and I like it that way...I dam sure don't want an app to assume that role. :groan:

So, word of caution - choose your fitness / health app wisely! :lol:

2.) bluecat - 01/27/2016

Are you sure you didn't accidently download the "Wife" app?

3.) DParker - 01/27/2016

That's why I went with something less interactive, like [URL="http://www.myfitnesspal.com"]My Fitness Pal[/URL] (there's also an app version you can run on your phone that synchronizes with the main data store at their website, so you can use whichever interface is most convenient at any given time). It's a fairly simple yet flexible eating and exercising tracking application, with none of the obnoxious nagging you're trying to avoid. Just enter your current stats (weight, age, average daily activity level, etc) and your goal (how much weight you want to lose in how much time...which can be a zero if you're just looking to maintain your current weight) and it computes a daily caloric budget for you to stick to. And if you do any extra physical activity - over and above what you entered as your typical daily routine - it will adjust your target calorie intake accordingly. I use it just as a way of forcing me to think about what I'm eating and how much exercise I'm getting rather than as something to tell me what to do. Over time I've learned enough about the caloric level of the foods I eat that I already know how much of what I should restrict myself to. But I find that I'm far more likely to actually stick to those limits if I force myself to go through the process of entering the data every day.

Of course, I'm not sure how ordering Spam by the case fits into that.

4.) bluecat - 01/27/2016

I saw someone with a FitBit the other day and asked them about it.

Here are my findings:

Have to press a button to display time: check
Have to recharge it every few days: check
Only water resistant: check
Outrageous price tag: check
Stupid and trendy: check

I immediately threw away my shock resistant, accurate, waterproof, low price, long battery life Timex Ironman and got one.