Being a little bit of a geek has it’s downfalls, mostly the terrible tendency to get distracted.
See, I’ve been logging my weigh ins in Many Many places, and the data goes all the way back to 2010, to my 1st dreaded step on the scales at Weight Watchers. I have MyFitnessPall, iLoseWeight & a spreadsheet that all have the info in, plus a little pen & paper thermometer that I colour in as I go along!
So is it any wonder that this week I have been slightly distracted by 2 more ways to track my weight with.
Exhibit A
Beeminder, it’s obviously quite cool, and allows you to update your data via email, or for the peeps in the USA it’s also possible to send it via SMS, but I’m in the UK, so I haven’t tried that.
But that’s not the cool / motivational bit. The best bit is that it will give you a yellow brick road to follow along & if you should manage to stray too far from the path then there’s a forfeit, it’s not a giant forfeit, more of an annoyance & you don’t get your graph back until you cough up . It’s best if you go over there & have a good poke around.
It’s also ran by some guys who are really active with their site & go out their way to be helpful, I uploaded my data & they helped tweak it so that it was a more motivational Yellow Road. I didn’t have to ask this, they just got involved.
Plus with the added hindrance to not owning a scale, I’m going to have to go to the Gym frequently enough to stay on the right side of the path!
Exhibit B
Well I can’t actually get this one to show up, but I’ve been using Google Docs to set up some forms, mainly to track some bad habits and moods, by setting up some custom forms & using them through my phone.
They aren’t very long forms, at most 5 questions, and I’ve tried to make them with as little need for writing as possible, I’m more likely to use them if i just need to click 4 options than write an essay.
I’ll admit, it’s quite enlightening looking at things like this in a data kind of way. Everything has a time stamp & I’ve made sure that the questions include who’s with me & where am I, so it’s quite easy to sit back & look out for relations ships, and patterns.
The hardest part will be trying to come up with a fix, for the things that are bad. My first task is to stop stealing bits of the kids tea / leaftovers. I’ve got myself some sugar free gum, the idea being that if i chew gum whilst making tea, I won’t be able to eat the “extra bits!”
Now what?
Well, I’ve been plugging through some at home workouts or getting to the gym everyday this week.
My daughter even got the yoga mat out yesterday so that we could both do some push ups together, although her form was terrible, and I still can’t do more than one push up without collapsing!
What about my weight?
Well, after I stood on the scales I’m officially halfway down towards my goal! Goodness knows it’s taken me long enough! Hopefully I can ditch the next 35lbs before Tough Mudder!
(P.S Good Luck to my friend Robin, who running Tough Mudder tomorrow! He needs it, he’s had an injured ankle for the past few weeks & he’s supposed to be running The Manchester 10k with me on 20th May!)