A Really Neat Workout Smartphone App

People use their smartphones for pretty much EVERYTHING these days, so why not use it as a personal trainer? I've looked at a few fitness apps for my Blackberry, but wasn't sure which was the best one, until a blog post on my favourite Blackberry site made a list of the top 10 fitness apps for the phone (if you're interested, you can read that post here). The one I found most intriguing was FitDeck Mobile.

FitDeck is a company that sells flash cards with different exercises on them, and you can plan a complete workout by selecting the ones you'd like to do, or shuffle through the deck and see what comes up. They have different decks for different lifestyles, and some of them are pretty specific, including workouts you can do on the stairs, or if you're stuck at your desk or in an airplane chair. The cards name the exercise, which part of the body it targets, and pictures showing how to do it. Some of the cards include variations for if you are fatigued or you have a higher or lower fitness level. Some decks are body weight only, and others give workouts you can do with certain equipment.
I thought this was a pretty great idea for people who may not be aware of different exercises they can do, or just want to be able to plan a workout on the go. The mobile app unfortunately doesn't offer as many virtual decks as there are available, but I found I would use the Body Weight, Office, and Stairs decks the most often. The Body Weight deck was $9.99 CAD, and the rest were $6.99, and I think it's worth the money. I know I've already used the Stairs deck at work, and the Body Weight one will come in handy on those bad weather days where I won't want to leave my house to go to the gym.

Why not visit the FitDeck website to check out their products? The site still says that the Blackberry app is coming soon, but it does exist; just search for it in your Blackberry's App World.

And, as always, it's a good idea to check with a doctor before starting any fitness regimen, and to warm up before and cool down after working out. That disclaimer is everywhere, and it's there for a reason!

Exercise Ball Chair?

I'm contemplating bringing one of these into work:

Maybe I'll use it as a desk chair for most of the day.  Sitting on them helps with balance and posture, and keeps you alert.  Face it, if you start to slouch or doze off from staring at all those numbers, you're going to fall off!

I think I'm going to go for it.  I have a sort of corner desk so there'd be room to store it underneath without it rolling away.  The only worry I'd have is fending off the weird looks and comments I'd get from my co-workers.

It's a Good Feeling!

Lo and many moons ago I bought a blouse, but it never quite fit me the way it should have.  That is normally the point where one cuts their losses and puts it back, but not I!  I loved this blouse so much because it looks like mint-chocolate-chip ice cream (which, now that I'm reminded of it, I am craving so hard now!), so I bought it on faith that someday it would fit properly.

Now, what with all I've said in my last post, this blouse is actually a little loose!  I love the feeling and am glad I stuck with the shirt!  And as much as I still hate clothes shopping, at least it won't be as difficult as it used to be! 

Catching up...and how!

Wow. Just wow. It has been far too long since I've updated this blog, and this is the one out of my four that I really should have been keeping up with all this time.

What else can I say except I think I finally have it right. I have cut back on so much food and have gone back to resistance training at the gym, and it has really helped so much. I was never huge in the first place, but I have gone down about 20 lbs from when I started all this, about 5 or 6 lbs away from my goal, and I'm probably about 5% away from my ideal body fat percentage.

I guess this all really started when my cousin decided she wanted to rejoin the gym (we used to go together when I first signed up there many moons ago) to get into better shape for her wedding. This was in late June/early July last year, and she was getting married in September. Of course as they were finalizing her membership, they pushed sessions with a personal trainer on her, and on me since we were supposed to be going together. We were kind of reluctant, but decided that if we wanted to see some results by the wedding, we'd need a crash course, and personal training would get us there.

In time my cousin found that she was getting pretty busy with her wedding preparation and couldn't come to the gym as often, and eventually not at all. I, however, had a stubborn motivation to stick with it, and I kept going to the sessions, even renewing them as they expired, and doing more and more cardio on my own.

I also stopped drinking diet pop, juice, and milk, and drink tea sparingly. I no longer eat cereals or muffins for breakfast, bread, rice, potatoes or any kind of starchy carbs with my meals except for a few large-flake oats with breakfast and some quinoa (which isn't even really a grain) with my other meals. I never touch junk food anymore, although I miss the salty snacks dearly, and people think I am stuck-up or something because I won't eat their desserts. I stick to mostly chicken or fish, and veggies and salad. I usually only have a fruit a day with breakfast. I'm also taking whey protein (since I lift weights) and a calcium citrate/vitamin D3 supplement.

The only vice I still have is my new-found love affair with almonds, the raw, plain kind. It's hard to find nuts in the store that don't have a lot of salt on them, but I can get a nice big bag of them at Costco for $10. That and I like my glucose tabs just a little too much.

All of this has been a lot of tough work, and there are a lot of things I miss, but I've never felt better and I wouldn't change or stop what I am doing for the world. At least I hope so.

Finally got rid of some little enemies!

Yesterday was a day I had been counting down to for quite a while.  I finally had 7 pilar cysts removed!  Briefly, they're cysts that form on one's scalp.  If you want the gory details, check out the Wikipedia entry.

A couple of them were quite big and really had to go, but I was just too chicken to get them removed sooner.  Then, around this time last year I went to get referred to a plastic surgeon.  It was only done yesterday after all that time because there was a mix-up with my referral, and then I got a little lazy and didn't follow up until a couple months ago.  After that, though, everything happened pretty quickly, and everyone in the office were so nice and professional, so how could I be mad, really?

Now it's over with, and once the pain from the dozens of staples in my scalp goes away (and they get taken out), I can sleep on my back without anything getting in the way, and I don't need to be embarrassed to go to the hairdresser anymore!

Still, I really wish I could wash my hair right now.

And if you think having 7 of them taken out at once is a lot, consider this:  the doctor told me the record he had was 52!  That's pretty gross.

Hot Yoga!

For the past week or so I've been going to hot yoga.  I never thought I'd be able to do something like that, but I'm not against trying something new.

After going the first few times, I'm still not sure I'm able to do something like that, but it is pretty good.  I've never sweat so much in my life!  I always seem to get stuck close to the humidifier so that makes me sweat double!

I am not very flexible, though, my balance isn't that great, and on top of that I have to do this before I can have any supper, so it's like 90 minutes of torture, but I think it's worth it.  The bad part is that it's so expensive.  I'm on a $40 unlimited for the a month kind of deal, but after that, it's like $175 a month.  You must be joking!

Maybe after it's over, I'll take my sister boxing...she says she'd like to try that.

So I've set a little goal.

Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a bit of a LEGO freak, so what I've decided to do is to reward myself with some for losing some poundage.

I say when I drop about 8-10 pounds (trying to get to a certain weight, not losing a certain amount of pounds), then I will purchase the following Green Grocer set:

I have a few of the larger, modular house sets like this, but not this one yet.  It's the cheapest one out of the two I don't have so I'll go with this.  If something drastic happens, then I may go for the other one later!