Accountability: The Jawbone® UP24

Accountability is a key component to successful life change. Some people choose a personal trainer or a life coach; others choose support groups, blogging, or other peer-supported environments. And some choose to simply hold themselves accountable, which can be the most difficult choice of all. Fortunately, there are many tools out there to help keep you accountable.

I have been using the Jawbone® UP24 for about three weeks now, and overall, I think it’s very effective. The UP24 app syncs right to my phone (which is Android, but it works with iPhone also), and I have everything in one place. That’s my favorite aspect of this device: one-stop shopping.

The device tracks three things: steps/activity, sleep, and food. It has its own tools for these categories, but syncs with many other popular apps, so if you’re already using one, it’ll simply sync up and you won’t have to do much. Setting it up is incredibly easy, as is charging and updating the software. It comes with a special USB device to connect to your computer, but communicates with your phone via Bluetooth.

The steps/activity tracker is very useful, and fun if you’re a competitive type. You set a step goal, and it’ll track all your steps, tell you the percentage you’ve completed, and even encourage you to up your goal if you consistently meet it. You can also set a stopwatch during exercise, and simply tell it the type of workout you did and the intensity level, and it’ll calculate your calories burned. It also tells you your resting burn, active burn, and then total burn for the day. You can also set timers to make the device vibrate, reminding you to get up and move around.

The sleep tracker is a real eye-opener (pun very much intended). Sleep is an integral part of living healthy, and so many of us sacrifice too much of it. When you can see the impact your sleep is having on your goals, it can be motivating to get into bed a bit earlier. It tracks the total percentage of your sleep goal, your deep and light sleep, how many times you wake up, and how long you’re awake.

The built-in food tracker is my least favorite. I do like that it gives you a “food score,” which is a score (out of 10) on the healthfulness of your food choices, but the actual food logging tool is not only hard to navigate, but it’s incredibly inaccurate on nutrition data. The good news is that it syncs with MyFitnessPal, which is a far better, far more comprehensive food tracker. UP24 also recently added a weight goal aspect to the food tracker, so you can set caloric intake. While it’s a bit disappointing to have to use an outside app for the most important component of healthy living, it’s not so inconvenient as to be a deterrent.

UP24 also gives you fun little tips, motivational messages, and even cautionary words every day based on your progress. Today it told me to be mindful of my 4.8/10 food score (in my defense, I’m on vacation), and to keep tracking to make improvements. It encouraged me to surround myself with healthy friends to increase my chances of staying healthy, and it challenged me to take 12,009 steps today to beat my 7-day average.

With the exception of a few minor annoyances, this was a worthy purchase. If Jawbone can clean up the food tracker database and make it more accurate, it’d be near-perfect. You can even sync it with your social media accounts to share your information with your friends and family. It’s versatile, inconspicuous (just looks like a cool bracelet), and user-friendly.

Happy tracking! 

Why "Tricks" and "Diets" Set You Up to Fail

Summer is looming, and the annual pressure is on to get bathing suit ready. Like clockwork, with the spring thaw comes the wave of constant "diet" and "tricks" articles to "help you lose weight fast!" But these articles don't offer up much more than quick fixes, followed by quick failures.

The word "trick" itself implies deception. Magicians do "tricks" to fool your senses. The definition of the word includes underhanded, cheat, and roguish. This is the very reason why we find ourselves, year after year, spring after spring, in a maddening hustle to do it all again. We're tricking ourselves into a short-term solution. Ultimately, we're going to revert to the beginning. Again.


The ultimate goal, the truest, most critical challenge is to change our mindset and habits long-term. We've discussed this in various posts here, but it is the absolute most important part of your success. Drinking a large glass of water before every meal to "feel fuller" and "eat less" is not a sustainable habit. Eating clean and often enough will truly satisfy your body. You will not need to trick your body into feeling fuller if you feed it healthy, clean foods often and in a balanced way.

Summer "diets", beach body "diets"... these are not long-term habits. The word "diet" conjures up feelings of restriction, sacrifice, hunger pangs, and choking down foods we hate. But in reality, the word diet simply means the foods on which we subsist. Diet isn't a trick. It's what we eat every day, no matter what that's made of. Good or bad, your food habits are your diet.

Ultimately, the goal is to be healthy and fit year-round. If you take care of your body, feed it well, and exercise it regularly, you'll be able to put that bathing suit on in February or July. Everyone fluctuates a few pounds, and sometimes it's challenging to eat seasonal foods off-season, but if you make realistic, long-term, healthy changes now, you will have less work to do going forward.

"Tricks" and "diets" set you up for annual failure. Healthy mindsets and habits set you up for a lifetime of success.

Social Media and Your Fitness Goals

Friends and clients often ask me about various tricks, supplements, and weight-loss systems to help kickstart their weight loss or to break through plateaus. My answer is always the same: eat clean and exercise regularly. But what I often leave out (mostly because it’s a difficult, delicate pill to swallow), is that you have to be honest with yourself about your own habits: The truth shall set your goals free.

Social media is a great way to keep in touch, but it’s also an excellent catalog of your own habits. Scroll through your Facebook or Instagram account. How often are you posting pics of you and your friends having drinks? How many awesome desserts and fabulous meals have you concocted? How often are you checking in at restaurants and eateries?

Your efforts don’t begin in the gym. They don’t begin in your kitchen. They begin in your heart and mind, at the point where you are ready to admit that your habits are not the best, forgive yourself for it, and resolve to make the change. If you are not willing to do those three things, no smoothie maker, pill, powder, exercise DVD, or app is going to work. Especially not long-term.

We love to throw around phrases such as “lifestyle change” and “healthy living.” But we rarely talk or think about the volume of effort that goes into truly making those changes. It can be overwhelming, especially when we are struggling with want vs. need. You have to truly want to make changes—of any kind. “I need to stop eating poorly.” “I need to go to the gym more.” Until need becomes want this will not work.  But when you do make the decision, it’ll feel better than any sundae or appletini you’ve ever had.

Use your social media outlets to support your efforts. Post healthy meal photos. Share fitness milestones, even if you think it’s small or lame. If you walked a mile for the first time today, share it! New sneakers? Post them! Working out with friends? Instagram and tag it. Be proud of yourself. You’ll be amazed at the volume of feedback. The people who love you want you to succeed and be healthy. Share it. 

Workouts Do Not Equal Free Eating Pass

It's Friday evening. You just got home from spin class, your fourth one this week. You're starving, and all you can think about is ordering a pizza. You were good all week, right?  What's one night of pizza and junk food? How much could it hurt?

A lot.

Our perceptions of caloric intake/expenditure are often skewed. We tend to downplay the caloric value of food and overestimate how much we've actually burned. This misconception can lead to weight gain or a weight loss stalemate, which results in frustration and diminishes your efforts.

The best defense against this vicious cycle is knowledge. Most food tracking apps and programs will give you the nutritional value of foods, which you should also compare to the food label. It's important that you are utilizing accurate tools to calculate these numbers.

It's also important to remember that all calories are not equal! Attached to those calories are a host of other
nutrients and ingredients that impact your workout and your overall health. The 100 calories in an apple are going to be far better for you than 100 calories worth of cake.

Calculating calorie expenditure can be a bit more tricky. We don't all burn calories at the same rate. But averages are available and are a good way to get a handle on true expenditures. How often have you thought, "I must've burned 1,000 calories in that class/workout!"? The truth is, it's incredibly hard to burn 1,000 calories in 45-60 minutes, unless you are an athlete doing a super-high intensity workout. For example, you'd have to keep a racing pace (20 mph or greater) for one hour in a spin class to break the 1,000-calorie threshold. Chances are, you're somewhere between 500-800 calories burned, even if you are a seasoned spinner. A one-hour Zumba class can burn up to 400 calories, but you're probably somewhere in the 250-300 range.

One slice of pizza, on average, is worth 250-350 calories. 

Will one meal, once a week hurt? Probably not. As a matter of fact, it's probably a good thing to employ the 80/20 rule. It's okay once in a while to indulge. But having a "bad meal" or a "cheat snack" daily because you worked out is a slippery slope, and will kick off a very dangerous fitness glut. Arm yourself with knowledge, make smart choices, and take pride in your efforts to fuel your body with nutrition.

5 Critical Steps to Staying Resolute in the New Year

Day one of your New Year's Resolution is here. You've got determination. Focus. Dedication. Excitement. Enthusiasm. It's going to happen, you're going to be amazing, and nothing is going to stop you.

But do you have a plan? What's going to stop you from slipping back into your old habits by the first week in February, only to panic at the beginning of May because summer is 3 weeks away?

The biggest key to your health and fitness success is planning. A short-term and long-term plan. Goals are awesome, but they will never be realized if you don't plan for them. It's time to go at 2014 like no other year before it. If you want this to be the last battle, you've got to plan for the war.

1. Have a schedule: You must make exercise part of your regular routine. If you don't blow off grocery shopping, paying your bills, or going to work, you can't blow off exercise, either. It needs to be a habit, and it needs to be consistent. If there are days of the week that you know are just too insane, then don't plan to work out that day. But choose the days/times that you know will work, and commit to them. Good intentions don't burn calories.
2. Be realistic and specific: Do not plan to work out twice a day every day if the last time you saw a treadmill or a dumbbell was 5 years ago. Be realistic about the frequency and time of day you plan to exercise. If you're not a morning person, resolving to go to the gym at 5am isn't going to work. Start with 3-4 days/week, 30 to 60 minutes, and work your way up. Know exactly what you're going to do and when. Ask most fitness professionals and/or fitness enthusiasts if they have specific activities set for specific days, and the vast majority will say yes.  If you really love the Wednesday night group fitness class, that that's your plan for Wednesday. Also be sure to have a Plan B. If you hit traffic and can't make the class, that doesn't mean you go home. It means you do something else instead. The same goes for equipment use. If you like to use the elliptical, but they're all taken, then get on a bike or a treadmill. Skipping because you're late or someone else is using your item of choice is nothing but an excuse. 
3. Map your meals: If you're on the go, have a family, work insane hours, etc., eating well can be a challenge. You'll need to map out your meals for the week, even if it means sitting down once a week, listing it out, making food in advance, etc. Not knowing what you're going to eat or even having anything suitable on hand is a surefire way to wind up with take out. 
4. Choose variety: This goes for exercise and healthy eating. You need to keep it fun and different to stay engaged, but also to see the changes in your body. Most plateaus are a result of routine--your body gets used to what you're doing and stops responding. It has to be challenged in order to change. Variety can be hard to figure out when you're new to all this, so just keep trying new things. If you've never taken a spin class before, don't assume you won't get through it. Try. Often we surprise ourselves! The worst that can happen when you try something new is that you don't like it. At least you still got a workout in! 
5. Track your progress: This is not just getting on the scale once a week. Track your steps taken, calories burned, minutes exercised. There's tons of apps and devices out there for you to use.  You need to see your accomplishments outside of pounds shed. You need to see yourself getting stronger, working out longer, working harder. All of this will keep that enthusiasm alive and well. It can even inspire you to set specific fitness goals, such as running a 5k, or doing an obstacle course challenge. You need to see how far you've come in order to keep going. 

May 2014 be your strongest and healthiest year yet! 

Guest Blogging at My Pixie Blog

One of my dearest friends has so kindly offered her lovely corner of the internet to me today. I am so blessed to have Charlotte in my life, and grateful for the opportunity to guest post at My Pixie Blog. Charlotte so eloquently and honestly examines the ups and downs of navigating love and relationships, enriches us with her tales of dog fostering, and makes us feel less alone with her honestly about being a 30-something woman in this day and age. I love her to pieces, and am eternally grateful for her ongoing support and our beautiful friendship. Please follow her blog, like her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter.

Chicken Cacciatore

A healthy twist on a traditional comfort food.

Ingredients:

4 thin-sliced boneless, skinless chicken breast cutlets

1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 medium zucchinis, sliced in 1/4-inch slices
1 large can of Trader Joe's diced tomatoes
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium heat
Add zucchini slices, cook for 3-4 mins
Add onion slices, cooking until onions and zucchini start to soften
Add entire can of diced tomatoes, and mix thoroughly
After about 5-7 mins, "bury" chicken cutlets beneath tomato mixture
Cover pan, and allow chicken to cook 3-4 mins
Turn over chicken cutlets, cover, and cook another 3-4 mins

Serving size: 1 cutlet topped with generous portion of tomatoes, onions, zucchini

Tip: Vegetarians can use the tomato, onion, and zucchini as a sauce with pasta or spaghetti squash