Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

When Mike and I hiked the Na Pali Coast in Kauai, we started with only our tennis shoes and some water. A couple hiking down the trail handed us walking sticks, “You’re going to need these.” We took them gladly, not knowing how helpful they would be when we hit really steep parts on slippery rock.

Ever since then, I have planned on purchasing walking sticks to tackle the steeper trails in the Wasatch Mountains, but the cheap-skate in me doesn’t want to shell out the big bucks for them. I know they help with balance and give me extra power when going up really steep inclines, but I don’t want to spend that much money on them.

These websites give detailed instructions on how to make a sturdy walking stick:

• Making a Walking or Hiking Stick

• How to Make a Walking Stick or Hiking Staff

• Crafts : Tips / Techniques : Crafty Walking Sticks : Home & Garden Television

• Make Fun PVC Pipe Projects

I personally like the simplicity of the PVC walking stick in the last article. PVC tends to be lighter and stronger than wood and much more readily available. Have fun making your own walking stick and you’ll be better able to tackle the trails.

Via: Before You Buy Fitness Walking Poles or Trekking Poles

On my search for a Palm program to track my calories and exercise, I tried Diet Tracker.

• Diet Tracker – PalmGear.com

I found it difficult to use. Adding food into the diary was time-consuming because it took too many clicks to do it. The software that I’m using now just lets me click on the line and start typing. It will bring up the database of foods that match what I’m typing and I can choose from that, or add my own. EASY. With Diet Tracker, it was much harder. I had to click on the little +Food button, which was impossible to do with my finger, so I HAD to pull out the stylus. Then there were several more choices before I could get to adding my food.

The screens were so pretty, that I was reluctant to give it up. Plus, it let me track things like how many hours of sleep I got and how good I felt each day. I really wanted this software to work. In the end, it crashed my Palm when I pushed the Delete button. That was enough for me to decide that I was going to try some different software.

I’m so grateful that they allow trial downloads to test software because I can find exact right software for me.

While on my search for new software for my Palm, I checked out Weight Commander for the PC. It wasn’t what I needed, but it was an interesting program.

It doesn’t allow you to keep track of your food or exercise. It’s not a nutrition or exercise log, it is strictly to keep track of your weight. It recommends that you weigh every day and input the weight into its system. Every day it gives you a little word of warning or information.

My one problem is that I tend to lose weight in drops. I’ll stagnate for days or even weeks on end and then have a sudden drop in weight on one day. When I had this, Weight Commander chided me for losing weight too quickly and told me to slow down. I know my body and that sudden weight loss was the accumulation of days of eating healthy and exercising while the scale didn’t move, so I was bothered by the admonition to slow down.

The best advice that Weight Commander gave me before my 5-day trial expired was “Don’t follow the hollow.” That meant, don’t look at your daily weight data, look at the average. Look at the general trend. Is the general trend going up or down or staying the same? Don’t look at today’s weight, look at the weight average.

That is really helpful advice when you’re weighing every day. My body weight can fluctuate wildly from day to day, which means that I get ecstatic when I see a huge drop and depressed when it bounces up. “Don’t follow the hollow,” is something that I can remember when I see those big changes.

If you are tracking your weight daily, my weight log and spreadsheet would not work for you. It assumes a weekly weigh-in, but it could be adjusted for a daily weigh-in. If you have Microsoft Excel on your computer, this spreadsheet would do much of what Weight Commander would do without the admonishments.

I found out about CalorieKing.com from PalmGear. They were selling a Palm handheld calorie counter and I was looking for a new one, so I tried it. I was unimpressed because it crashed my Treo a couple of times and the Palm software didn’t sync with the PC software, so I didn’t purchase it.

I promptly forgot about CalorieKing until Jeremy Zawodny recommended them in his weblog entry, “The Diet Plan and The Three Habits“. I worried that I might have been a little rash in discounting them, so I looked at them again.

Jeremy was right about CalorieKing. They have a MASSIVE database of food and you can search it from their website, but their software leaves a lot to be desired. I wanted to be able to set up my weight and have it find my metabolic rate automatically. Then I wanted to tell it my goal and have it tell me how many calories a day I should eat. Instead, it just told me that I should eat a certain number of calories a day without any other ability to tweak it. It just wasn’t the software for me.

Additionally, the fact that the Palm and the PC software didn’t sync (whereas the PC software syncs with their monthly web program) was the final decision-maker for me. I don’t want to pay a monthly fee to keep track of my food. I just want to put my food on my Palm and be able to view it on the PC sometimes. Maybe even print it out and put it in my journal or show it to a nutritionist.

CalorieKing wasn’t for me, but it might be for you. They allow a free trial download with a 7-Day trial, so you can check it out for free. And as always, you can just look up any food you want for free, which is what Jeremy recommended in the first place.

Want to try out CalorieKing? Here’s where they are:

• CalorieKing – Diet and weight loss. Calorie Counter and more.

• CalorieKing Handheld Diet Diary – PalmGear.com

• CalorieKing Nutrition and Exercise Manager for Windows – PalmGear.com

I just noticed that Microsoft has a bunch of templates that work with their Office Suite (Word, Excel, OneNote, Publisher, etc.). Some of them are for weight loss or weight tracking. You can find them here:

• Microsoft Office Templates: Diet and Exercise

• Microsoft Office Templates: Nutrition and Recipe Planning

My favorite was the Fitness Chart for Excel. You enter your weight, height and measurements and it calculates your body fat percentage and BMI. It’s such a convenient way to keep track of your progress. You can download them here:

• Microsoft Office Templates: Fitness chart for women

• Microsoft Office Templates: Fitness chart for men

If you have Excel on your computer, this spreadsheet could help you keep track of your progress. There are so many templates that work with the MS Office Suite. I’m sure you’ll find one thing there that will be helpful to you.

You buy a pedometer, set it up and it will connect to the computer, showing your steps, distance and other information. You can get walking buddies and even have a friendly competition with them. What’s the catch?

• WalkStyles Home

It costs $9.95 a month to use the website. Now, according to the Five Buck Workout Rule, you would only have to workout twice a month to make the membership pay for itself. But then again, I HATE to find out that the coolest features of my new toy only work if I fork over money to the people who manufactured it EVERY month.

It sounds like a good idea and I can justify it feasibly, but it’s something that I’m not going to jump for. I think I’ll just use my McDonald’s pedometer, which came free with my salad and just keep track on my own.

Are you tempted by exercise gadgets?

Do they help motivate you to do your workout?

For how long do they usually motivate you until you lose interest in them?

Has there been any gadget that has REALLY worked for you and kept you motivated for a long time?

What do you wish you hadn’t bought?

The Question of the Week is meant to be an Inner Workout for you. Find some time during the week and allow yourself to write the answers to the questions posted. You can write them on paper, on a word processor or here in the comments section. Whatever works for you as long as you do it.

Keep writing until you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. I’ve also heard that it works to keep writing until you cry, but that doesn’t really work for me. Whatever works for you. Just keep writing until it feels right.

I received an email from the makers of the Aquaclip asking if I would like to review them on my website. They sent me some Aquaclips for evaluation and I was excited to receive them in the mail.

When they came, I vowed to try the Aquaclip for an entire day, carrying my water around with me everywhere I went. That lasted for less than ten minutes. I walked out to the car, tried to sit down and the Aquaclip got in the way of my seatbelt, so off it went. I clipped it to my purse and that’s where it stayed until I got home and abandoned it on the counter. It stayed clipped to my purse pretty well, but not nearly as well as just throwing the bottle in the purse.

I guess the problem is, I’m not a “tucker.” I don’t tuck my shirts into my pants, so I really don’t have an exposed waistband or belt to hold an Aquaclip easily. It feels weird if I pull my shirt over the bottle and just as weird to have it pulled around it. Having water at my waist was uncomfortable for me, so the Aquaclip isn’t my thing.

I was worried that the Aquaclip would get in the way of drinking from the bottle, but it doesn’t. It works wonderfully as far as that is concerned. I was also worried that the bottle would jiggle around or fall off, but it didn’t fall off my waist or my purse the entire time I used it. It worked exactly how it is supposed to work, I just don’t want water on my waist.

Mike, however, really liked the Aquaclip. He’s not a “tucker” either, but he didn’t mind having his t-shirt pulled aside. He used the Aquaclip while running on the treadmill and he said it worked beautifully for him. He also found three places on the treadmill where he could hang his water bottle using the Aquaclip. He immediately took it outside to see if it would work in the car for a drink holder.

The Aquaclip didn’t work for me, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good product. It is well-designed and it works for its intended purpose. If you’d like one, they are only three dollars and can be purchased here:

Aquaclip water bottle holder – hands free beverage bottle carrier

Cool Hunting got a hold of screen shots and a bunch more information about the Nike+iPod.

• Cool Hunting: Nike x Apple = Nike Plus

It answered some of my questions that I had:

• The software IS a web-based program that syncs to the nikeplus.com website.

• You can get the input on your iPod screen. No word on whether you can turn off the voice response or not.

• It looks like you don’t have to wear Nike shoes for it to work, you just need to figure out how to put the sensor in your shoes.

I tried the pre-order again and it works now, but you HAVE to buy the shoes in order to buy the NikePlus kit. One-hundred bucks is just too much for a pair of running shoes.

It doesn’t look like Nike is charging a monthly fee to track your workouts online, but there is nothing that says that they don’t.

If it really works the way the commercial says it works, then Nike and iPod are freakin’ geniuses. Seeing this commercial actually made me want to go on a run.

• NIKE+ : Overview

Here’s how it works: A $29 sensor is placed in the sensor pocket in the sole of your $100 Nike shoes. The sensor communicates with a receiver that attaches to your iPod. During your run, you are able to check your pace, distance and time of workout using your iPod. They call it the Nike+iPod Sport Kit.

After your run, you can sync your iPod up with your computer, tracking the distance, pace and time of your run.

Those are the basics. Their flash website is a little sketchy on the details. Here’s what I want to know:

• Can I put that sensor in my RYKA shoes? They fit me better, don’t give me blisters and don’t announce to the world that I spent too much money on my shoes.

• Will there be a version of this that I can just tie to the shoe laces of my own running shoes or are you going to force me to buy your shoes to use this?

• When I check my time, pace or distance, does it give me the information in audio form like the commercial shows, or is it on the screen of my iPod? Can I turn off the audio if I want to?

• When I sync to the computer, will it be with a software program on my computer or is it going to be some stupid web-based thing where I have to be hooked up to Nike’s website in order to track my progress? Can I choose?

• What is the software like? Is it like that dorky screen animation that the commercial showed or was that just for show? Can I print up my workouts and progress charts?

The Nike website is a little broken. It provides a link where you can pre-order the Air Zoom shoes and iPod Sport Kit, but when I clicked over to pre-order it, the website just said it was currently out of stock and wouldn’t allow me to do my pre-order. They dropped the ball on the whole “pre-order” idea.

I really like this idea, but I want more information. For thirty bucks, I was willing to order it basically site unseen, but their website foiled that sale. I guess I’ll see it when it actually becomes available.

Via: Reader submission – Matthew Strebe at SlashNOT!

See Also: Starling Fitness » More Info On the Nike+iPod