My Fitness Pals

My littlest sister Annie told me a few weeks ago that I just had to download "this app we've been using" (meaning she and my other little sister, Beth) for food and fitness. I was like "Whatever, Annie, I've seen all the food logging apps." But she said this one was great, and I had to check it out, because not only were she and Beth on it, but Dad was on it too, and also Sara (3rd and final sister). I downloaded it to placate her, but I didn't open it 'till (sorry Annie) I saw some fancy fitness blogger was using it, too. I'm such a snob.

So I started using MyFitnessPal, and lemme tell you... Annie was actually right; it's great! It updates splendidly from the internet version to my mobile phone--I have never had an incident where I entered things on my computer, then checked my phone and it hadn't updated. It has a very good database of food, AND you can add your own foods that can either be corroborated or refuted by other users (Wikipedia-like). The database for exercise is okay, but I've had some issues with logging strength training exercise and it saying that I hadn't burned ANY calories doing them. Also, we found after some digging that you can share your food journal with your friends, or even make it public, which is something I'd really been wanting to do. 

I am LauraWV on there, and I have 4 friends: Annie, Beth, Sara, and Dad. It's like our own personal little twitterverse where we share our successes and comments on what we're doing, with other people who really want to know. I used to tweet all my healthy lifestyle victories on Twitter, but I've gotten away from that thinking that most of my twitter friends could give two hoots whether I ran or mowed the lawn for exercise today. I love MyFitnessPal, and it's helping me immensely to re-focus on my healthy lifestyle. 

So thanks to the support and camaraderie I've been getting from my sisters (and under the knowing oversight of Dad), I've been having a GREAT couple of weeks. 

Tuesday night, during a night of truly horrendous sleep, I told myself that if I was still awake by 5AM, I'd just go out and run. It was better than laying there being frustrated about not being able to sleep for another hour. Five AM came, I was still awake, so I got up. I went out, and it was so dark and beautiful outside. The stars were bright in the sky, and I could see Orion shining over me. Took my 5min warm-up walk with Lupin, leashed him in the front yard, and went off to run my 28 minutes of Couch to 5k Training, Week 8 Day 2. 

As soon as I started running I felt absolutely great. It was just one of those great runs. I went up hills, down hills, went all the way out the road that I had pictured (as I lay in bed unable to sleep an hour previously) I would make it to before the guy in my ear said "you are halfway done," and I turned around. It still seemed easy, and before I knew it I was back at my front yard and he was saying "workout complete." Unbelievable. I ran for 28 minutes (2.2 miles) without stopping, feeling great, and it was still dark when I got home. I had so much time... took a leisurely shower, then laid down with the family for another 20 minutes before I made them wake up. 

I would never have done it if I couldn't come home and immediately post it to MyFitnessPal, so my sisters and Dad would all know that I'd done my exercise for the day, subtly challenging them to do the same.