social media

Meet your fitness goals faster with these sites, apps and gadgets

Meeting a fitness goal

Recently, a study reported in Wired Magazine found that tweeting and retweeting may help you lose weight. But, really, what they found is that the *support and accountability* provided by the social networking site made a difference in how much people lost.

Speaking from personal experience, there are a plethora (or two) of great web tools, apps, devices, gadgets, etcetera that can provide ways for you to hold yourself accountable and get support from (and give support to!) friends – or even like-minded strangers. They range from general social media posting to a whole crop of fancy schmancy tracking gadgets.

General Social Media Posting

Some people may just post on their Facebook page or their Twitter feed about their fitness progress (a great workout, a weight loss, a healthy meal), and in doing so, reinforce the behavior, and maybe even get positive feedback from their friends and followers. True, some people find this *annoying* if it’s done excessively; other find it motivational and inspiring. As a general rule, it’s a good idea to balance it out with other types of posts. Ultimately, of course, it’s your choice, and if you’re fine with the fact that some people may choose to unfriend or unfollow you, then go nuts. More often than not, people use one of the other tools discussed below, and then share that entry to their Facebook, Twitter, etcetera; these tools generally make it very easy to do so.

The “Check In”

Foursquare is a ‘geolocation’-based social loyalty platform (app, mainly) on which people check in, earn points, get special offers, and are named “Mayor” of a place if they check in more often than anyone else. I was surprised how many people I talked to about what tools they use for fitness support said that they feel Foursquare check-ins – and sometimes, mayorships – at the gym keep them on track. There’s a strong element of personal accountability and commitment with that, as well as sometimes encouragement in comments on the check ins.

Exercise Tracking Tools

There are numerous websites/apps that enable you track your exercise – what workout you did, miles run/walked/biked, how you felt, even how many doughnuts and cheeseburgers you burned off (Daily Mile)!

Many people use the Nike + app, which works with GPS to track your distance, posts easily to your Facebook or other social networks, and lets you compare your efforts to your friends.

Other sites/apps have developed strong sport-specific communities (not sport-exclusive; they cover multiple activities), such as Daily Mile, Runkeeper and Runtastic with runners and Strava with cyclists.

I absolutely LOVE Daily Mile, as a runner…there is always inspiration to be found in the amazing community there. And I adore seeing the data – it’s so satisfying and encouraging to know that I’ve run 515 miles, burned 19 pounds off (exactly how much I have actually lost) and burned 363 doughnuts. And there’s more to it than that; users give each other encouragement via comments and attached “motivations.” They see how they stack up on the leaderboard, share routes, discuss questions in forums and create specific fitness challenges.

Fitocracy (called “Fito” by its users) is another such online support community. User Maddie Grant (author of Humanize, my favorite social media book of all time) tells me that this site was conceived for “geeks who like fitness.” So it relies even more on gamification techniques like giving “props” to other users, or even using the “prop bomb” to like everything they’ve ever done. Unlike Daily Mile, here members get points for workouts and level up when they reach point milestones. There are tons of group-specific (such as swimming) challenges and quests, and the site is constantly figuring out new ways to encourage competition against yourself and others. Maddie says, “Fitocracy has connected me to so many people who don’t even know how much they encourage me, especially on those days when a workout is the last thing you want to do and at those times when the plateau hits. It’s an integral and essential part of my quest to get ripped.” :]

Another great option here is to motivate yourself by running or biking for a cause. Charity Miles lets you easily earn funds for your chosen cause; walkers and runners earn 25¢ a mile, and bikers earn 10¢ a mile, up to the initial $1,000,000 sponsorship pool.

Nutrition Tracking Tools

Since some of us, unfortunately, can’t just eat whatever we want no matter how much we exercise (*heavy sigh*), there are also great tools for tracking your diet, calorie intake and nutrition.

Some people I spoke with swear by the Weight Watchers app; I haven’t used that one in a while but found the content in the nutrition database to be lacking, meaning I often couldn’t easily find the healthy, whole foods I was looking to track.

My favorite app/site in this category is MyFitnessPal. Though the interface is lacking visually (someone, please design a nutrition tracking app that looks fun and friendly!), the food database is extremely complete, including even the most obscure healthy foods. This tool has been absolutely integral to my weight loss progress, and I highly recommend it. I put it in the nutrition tracking category because that’s what it’s best at, though it does also allow you to enter your exercise. It then adds the calories burned in exercise to your budgeted calories for the day. The benefit of this is that it helps focus you on thinking of the food you eat relative to the exercise it will take to burn it off, or vice versa, thinking of what you can eat IF you go for that run, walk or bike ride.

Fancy Shmancy Wearable Tracking Gadgets

This is the hottest category of them all…things you wear on various body parts that track your movement, your calories burned, even your sleep patterns.

Nike kicked off the craze with its launch of FuelBand this time last year. It’s a sexy beast, indeed, using an accelerometer to measure your movement in NikeFuel, a “universal metric of activity” (copywriter speak for “we own this category.”). You wear it on your wrist and can sync it with the FuelBand app to track your progress and connect with your friends.

My friend Shelly Kramer (named one of the 200 most fearless women online, how cool is that?!) is a FuelBand devotee, and eloquently says “I use my FuelBand and work hard to reach my Fuel goal daily; I am often doing jumping jacks at 11pm so I can get to that goal because I’m so competitive (even against myself) that I can’t stand it when I don’t. I also like that Facebook lets you “compete” against other friends you’re connected to. I love seeing my friends who use the running app and it shows me that they just did a 7.1 mile run or something like that, because then if I had slacking in mind I’ll feel like a loser and get off my butt and go for a walk.”

An alternative that’s getting some traction of late is Jawbone’s UP wristband, pulled from shelves in late 2011 due to functionality issues (as in, it didn’t work) and relaunched in 2012. An Engadget review describes it as “downright subtle, compared to the LED-riddled and overpriced Nike + FuelBand” and details issues with the lack of wireless syncing.

FitBit, on the other hand (pun intended) can go on your pants, in your pocket, on your bra, wherever, if you’re not into wearing a band on your wrist, and syncs wirelessly and easily. It even has a WiFi smart scale that syncs with your online profile and wireless gadget to keep you honest. The scale is quite cool and tempting (though not wholly necessary I must admit…it’s not really *that* much work to just enter your weight).

Linda Neff (another fearless friend, and a chapter author of the Women on Fire Book 2 being published this fall) is in love with her new FitBit, and says “It’s like a pedometer, only better…a quirky little friend who cheers on your healthy lifestyle with badges and messages reminiscent of your favorite grade school teacher.”

Biggest Loser NBC (with which I am obsessed, as is my 7 year old) has been using Body Media tracking armbands for years now. The difference here is BodyMedia uses multiple sensors – an accelerometer plus skin temperature, heat flux and galvanic skin response  - which is supposed to make it the most accurate. As tempting as the increased accuracy is, I just can’t quite bring myself to wear an armband on my bicep all day.

I’ve been considering buying one of these gadgets for the past year, and it’s a tough decision as there are elements I like of each. I have a “thing” for Nike, so the FuelBand appeals from a brand standpoint. I want accuracy, so BodyMedia appeals from a geeking-out-on-data standpoint. After doing more research for this story, I think FitBit is a good combination of form and function; it also integrates with MyFitnessPal so I can still track my nutrition in MyFitnessPal and FitBit will use that data…huge bonus. Maybe the best solution is to get one of each. ;]

The Bet

Some folks use these tools just for personal tracking and some use them for a little friendly competition. Now there’s a popular site called DietBet where you can set up that friendly wager. DietBet is a four-week social dieting game, in which you create your game or join one and watch the pot grow as new players join. At the end of the game, everyone who loses 4% of their body weight splits the pot. If you’re the kind of person that needs a lot of external motivation, this might be a good solution for you in the short term…then use some of the other tools to maintain your loss.

Social Music Sharing

Just for fun, you might want to check out a social music sharing app/site like Spotify. This is a great way to keep your workout playlists fresh and motivating. People build and share their playlists for others to check out and use. Here is my current one-hour run playlist.

So, whether you are self-motivated and need something to help you hold yourself accountable or externally motivated and want to share encouragement with your communities and maybe even set up a little healthy competition…there’s a tool or three out there for you.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments on what tools you’ve tried, and how they have (or haven’t) helped you meet your goals!

photo credit: Vethod via photopin cc

Faith, friends and a tweet saved Fletcher

There are days in life that shake you to your core and reaffirm your faith at the same time. Yesterday was one of those days. What started out as a hopeless, tear-filled day ended with tears of gratitude.

If you saw my post about the short, happy life of Fletcher Trouble Macgonagall Moorhead yesterday, you know that our dog Fletcher was on death row for aggression issues that were unmanageable and dangerous for us, as parents of a very unpredictable small child. As I wrote the post and afterwards, I cried for literally four hours straight, with my son telling me not to cry and to look on the bright side (having another dog to snuggle). With no real sense of hope whatsoever, I started to get in the shower in hopes of reviving myself enough to play with Fletcher and my son and prepare for the worst.

Then, I got a text from my friend Katie Klein with love and telling me to hang in there. If you know Katie, you know she is a catalyst and is also one of those people who can – and will – do anything to help a friend when needed. So on a wing and prayer, I asked her to tweet #savefletcher with a link to my blog post. We debated whether or not to do it, because of a really hateful comment I had gotten on my blog recently.

We agreed that hate cannot win. So Katie (@bootyp) posted a tweet that said: Awesome dog who’s a little on the aggressive side, needs a home. It’s life or death. Please. #SaveFletcher

Not long after, I got a DM from a kind, lovely soul who has taken in “the broken, the beaten and the damned” before and has experience with dogs with aggression and other issues. She asked to talk to the trainer that evaluated Fletcher. They talked, and we talked, and the trainer and I talked. And, in an absolute gift, this kind soul – who wants to remain more or less publicly anonymous in case Fletcher doesn’t make it in his second chance, which is totally understandable and appropriate - agreed to give Fletcher a second chance.

*cue tears* So, thanks to some amazing and generous people, armed with Twitter, and the shared belief that it might – just MIGHT – be possible, Fletcher was saved five hours before his scheduled demise. I have no words. None. *cue more tears, of happiness and gratitude*

FAITH, everyone. You have to believe in something for it to be possible.

THANK YOU, to Katie, and Fletcher’s new guardian, and to all of you who offered your love and support over the past week and especially yesterday.

So much love. Spaight

G’s cause of the month: Food Fight MKE

Here’s an easy way to do your good deed for the month: just Text FOOD to 52000. Let me explain.

We recently put ourselves on a new family budget, which includes a little bit each month to donate to a great cause. I’ve asked G (my 6-year-old son, Griffin) to help pick the cause each month. During this month of Thanksgiving, we’re giving what we can to help BEAT HUNGER. Which, here in Milwaukee, I’m sorry to say includes the HALF of children who live below poverty level. That just can’t be acceptable, right? So please do what you can to do something about it. If we all do, we can make it right.

G and I have chosen to donate through Food Fight MKE, a movement initiated by young adults to educate, engage, energize and inspire citizens to help beat hunger in Milwaukee. (Disclosure: the young ‘uns powering Food Fight MKE are part of the OrangeAid internship program at Jigsaw, the agency that pays for my family’s food. This post, I promise you, is purely my personal opinion/beliefs.)

To participate, just text FOOD to 52000 and $10 will be donated to Hunger Task Force, which is expert at making money go as far as it possibly can to help local families. You can donate this way up to three times, and I strongly encourage you to do so. I did.

Semi-secret tip: You can also have some fun and help kick off Food Fight MKE by coming to the Bradley Center this Friday, November 11th at 6:30 PM and participating in a Beat Hunger flash mob. Hope to see you there.

What are you doing to help BEAT HUNGER during Thanksgiving month?

Welcome to the Twitterhood

Twitter – and to an extent Facebook and other online social networking – has become the primary neighborhood, for me, and I suspect for many of you. “Right” or “wrong” (and it’s really neither, it just is) I know my friends that I have met through Twitter – who live in other parts of the city, country, world – better than I know most of the people who live on my street.

Why? Because I see their lives streaming before me in real time, day in and day out. And they see mine. And no, not just the mundane details, like what they are having for breakfast (though yes, you have to self-filter that to get to the good stuff), but also their challenges and struggles (job searches, illnesses, family problems) – and their triumphs (new jobs, weddings, babies being born). It’s really quite the reality show…much more interesting than anything on TV, on a “good Twitter day”. (Other times, yes, it can be like watching paint dry.)

Ask for help when you need it. Help when you can.

Much has been written documenting the social good being instigated online. And I firmly believe we each have a responsibility to “pay it forward” when we can. In my little microcosmic world, recently, I had surgery. Who came to my aid afterwards with books, wonderful home cooked meals, and offers to help? It wasn’t the couple next door or the couple down the street. It wasn’t even family members, who, granted, live a fair distance away. It was friends I met and built relationships with via Twitter, and, subsequently, at offline events. A huge thank you, again, to those who helped or offered help.

There’s always the Twitterhood. And it’s a blessing.

So, should I make more of an effort to get to know the couples next door and down the street? Absolutely. Our suburban lifestyle isn’t super-conducive to that, though, as I’m just not home that much, and when I am, I’m not usually shooting the breeze over the back fence. (Not to mention that where I live, it’s decent outside about one third of the year.) Maybe it would be different if I lived in a town as small as the one in which I was raised? Or maybe not. Maybe things are just…different now. You could argue that I’m being lazy. And maybe at times I am. There needs to be a balance between online neighbors and physical neighbors.

Let me participate in the way that I can be most effective.

If you’re a marketer or fundraiser, you need to understand this dynamic. For example, the American Cancer Society runs a neighborhood fundraising campaign, in which they ask volunteers such as me to send a letter – yes, a paper, old school letter, with, like a stamp and stuff – to everyone on their block asking them to donate money. Nice idea, and maybe once upon a time it was effective, or maybe in some communities, it still is. For me, it was a complete waste of time and generated exactly zero return, as I predicted it would. Why? Because my geographic neighbors don’t know me as well as my online, on-Twitter neighbors do. (Well, that and the fact that half of the addresses were out of date.) ACS gives their volunteer neighborhood fundraisers the option of also creating a fundraising web page, but, after doing all the letters, well, I couldn’t find the time that day to get it done. A great way around this problem would be for ACS and like organizations to give its volunteers choices from several different paths to participation. Don’t assume that how you define my neighborhood is how I define my neighborhood.

We’re creating online communities the way our grandparents did in small towns.

Related, here’s a brilliant post from the inimitable Sara Santiago: A Guy For That. In it, Sara points out how “social media is really just helping us find (and be) “a guy for that” in a much larger online community.” Our “guys” used to be in our town, whereas now, our “guys” maybe be across the country or across the world. And, Sara says, “social media has allowed us to create a powerful online community, in much the same way our grandparents did within a small town.” Yes. THAT. That is what we are talking about.

The assertion here is that, for many of us, the notion, the definition, the expression of “neighborhood” has fundamentally changed.

What’s up in your ‘hood?

My family, particularly my eldest brother, thinks Twitter is ridiculous. I think it’s just an extended neighborhood. So now, when, in the mornings, you see me tweet “Good morning, Twitterhood” you’ll know what the heck I am talking about.

Is this what’s happening for you, too? Or is your experience different?

Is the fact that we’re spending more of our time networking online weakening our physical neighborhoods? Or just making them bigger, maybe even closer-knit?

What do you think?

Hitting the lazy button

Aided by social communication tools, are we becoming lazy communicators with lazy friendships?

Yesterday I posed this question on Twitter: do you ever feel that your use of social media is resulting in more, but SHALLOWER relationships? Even perhaps making long-term friendships shallower? A few people responded with a hearty AMEN and few people said NO WAY. How about you?

It’s not “social media’s fault”; the word choice of “your use of social media” was very intentional. The tools are what we make of them, just like the tools that came before. And you know I love them as much as the next addict enthusiast. Through them, I have met all of you amazing people and I don’t take that for granted.

Here’s the thing, though, peeps. We must not lose sight of the fact that these *newfangled* communication tools will only take us so far in our relationships. They are better, IMHO, for forging new relationships – making initial connections – than at strengthening existing relationships. At least personal, individual relationships. Brand relationships, different story for a different day. I’m talking about human to human connection here. Mano a mano…Hermano a hermano.

A couple of examples. Last week, I had surgery. A close friend promised me a phone call to see how I was doing. Now, like many of you, I am not a huge fan of the telephone. Except, perhaps, with her and a couple of other *old* friends. Well the phone call instead became a comment on my Facebook. Seriously? ITS. NOT. THE. SAME. Not everything in life can be accomplished with a tweet or a Facebook comment. And sadly, I’m sure I’ve done this, too. In fact, I know I’ve done it. Yesterday. A close relative posted something on her Facebook about having a bad week and being in a wheelchair. Wheelchair? Really? I’ve owed her a phone call for months, but did I do it? Nah. Instead, reply to Facebook post: “Dude what up?” Man, that’s some deep stuff right there…I’m sure THAT will make her feel better and show her that I care.

I’m not saying that social communication tools can’t be used in a way that deepens relationships. Often, they can. But I am suggesting that our tendency oftentimes has been to take the lazy way out, using them as a poor substitute for communication that really needs to be happening in a deeper way, one that actually requires a little effort.

Your turn. Agree or disagree? See yourself in this post at all? Or are we all just a bunch of dynamic rock stars using social media beautifully to change the world one deep meaningful relationship at a time?

Social media and the cult of personality

Participation in social media is about the community, not the cult of personality, the narcissism, the “look at me! I’m so great.” I think we all understand that, at least in our talk, if not in our actions. Yet, lately, I find myself bothered by the absolutely rampant self-promoters. I follow people on Twitter who tweet about almost nothing but themselves, their products, their accomplishments, their hotness.

Sure, you might argue, I could just unfollow them, unfriend them, block them, whatever. And I could. But I don’t, because I think they are really good people with a lot to offer who are just caught up in the shiny illusion that social media can create that everyone’s a celebrity. I have actually had people refer to me as a “local social media celebrity” and it makes me laugh and throw up a little in my mouth.

I’ve seen friends, so caught up in the moment of their “celebrity” status, completely disregard other friends, because they are not in “the group”. Welcome to social media high school. I’d like to graduate and move on now, please.

Related to this, I was also recently taken off the speakers list at one national social marketing conference because I was not pimping – I mean, promoting – the conference aggressively enough. Well, sorry, but constantly promoting where I am speaking is not really my style, nor is it something that I believe my followers find of value. I think speakers should be chosen based on their substance and speaking, not their willingness to constantly self-promote. Everyone of course is entitled to their own opinion, and I respect that. It’s just something on which I’ve recently become more clear than ever where I stand and what I personally value.

We all, perhaps, fall into the trap at some point. It’s hard not to, when you’re posting on the fly with a hair trigger finger. Last week I retweeted something someone said about “the lovely Sue Spaight” and then immediately realized that was idiotic. But hopefully self-promoting is not an overall pattern.

On the flip side, you sometimes meet someone like @SusanKim4 who actually IS a personality, a local celebrity, but so genuine and focused on community that it restores your faith. And others who wear their popularity so well, so humbly, so genuinely.

C’mon people. It’s just social media. It’s not all that. It’s not what’s real, and important, and lasting, like friendship and family and community and basic kindness. Let’s not get so caught up in our fine selves that we lose sight of the bigger picture.

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