Pretty decent start. I could have done better tho. But I’m going in the right direction and that’s what this is all for. Hoping to increase my active calorie burn and step count this week.
Weight loss: 2.5lbs
Active calories burned: 5,132
Calorie intake: 11,212 (not as accurate since I didn’t have Monday and Tuesday fully logged)
Total Steps: 83,329
Active time: 5h 40m
It’s a life long never ending struggle. I’m still way far from where I used to be, but also far from where I want to be and lately the curve is going the wrong way again so I have to do something to stop it now before it goes to high up.
So what am I going to do?
The goal is from a week today I am going to start posting my weight publicly again. I did this a couple years back and it was a huge motivator. I’m giving myself a week just as an extra push for the first week to hopefully lose a good amount before I start posting.
How am I doing it?
I own the withings smart scale. It allows me to automatically post to Twitter and Facebook as soon as it records my weight. That means even if I’m not happy with the weight there is no stopping it from going public. The goal is to weigh in everyday. I know that the body weight fluctuates from day to day so this isn’t the most accurate way to weigh in but it’s a good way to build the habit fast and see quick results when I don’t do as well as I should.
What else am I going to do?
I plan and also hope to start blogging more. I want to talk about the apps I use and anything else that might be beneficial to others. I am also hoping to make a couple apps myself through this journey that I plan to use to help me.
So the big announcement is about 12 hours away. And one of my main concerns is not the price, but the durability of the watch itself.
I have been wearing a smart device (mostly fitness) of some sort since 2011 with the first Jawbone UP.
Ignore the first UP, it had major issues. I have had the other 2 iterations, a Nike FuelBand, Fitbit Flex & Force, and the Pebble Steel.
One thing that all of these devices have in common is they all broke on me and had to be replaced multiple times (other than the recalled force, only had it for a couple weeks). I am not an extremely active person. I’m a computer programmer that spends most of his time in front of a computer, yet I have had all these issues with these wearable devices.
I believe that if anyone can get something right the first time it would be Apple, but I still worry about the durability of a daily device that is covered in glass and worn on my wrist. I guess only time will tell, but I am personally hoping that there will be an AppleCare option for it.
Device kill count:
I’ve officially lost 100lbs, so I’m going to Disney World! (I may have already been going tomorrow anyways.)
It’s taken me a lot longer then I wanted it to, and my process isn’t something that I’m necessarily proud of. I am, however proud of the outcome. Looking at the chart above you can see it’s been a struggle of ups and downs. I’ll be writing more about the process later.
I’m not finished yet. I still want to lose another 20-30 pounds to get under 200 and get my BMI in the “healthy” range. This is the healthiest I’ve been my entire life, ==it feels great!==
I went back through some pictures and found one of the night that I weighed in at ==321lbs==: 
And this one was taken today at 220.4lbs: 
I am loving this healthier lifestyle and I look forward to all the extra years of life it should/will give me to spend with my family.
I am awful when it comes to buying iPhone cases. I usually buy at 10-20 each year to try and find one that I can live with, only to end up with nothing on my phone most of the time. So I figured I would write a little blog post that I can update every time I buy a new case.
I love the feel of this case I had the leather case for my 5s and really liked it too. I did however, decide to take it back to Apple. I actually wished the bottom of the case was inclosed like the 5s version, it always made it feel less like a case and more part of the phone. Also the lip on the sides were just a little too much for my taste and I missed the great feel of the swiping the curved glass.
My main reason in buying this case was that it didn’t obstruct the swiping feel. I went with the shine because I hate the feel of the soft-touch cases. This case lasted a whole 2 minutes on my phone. I don’t know what is up over at incipio, but this is the cheapest case I have ever used. it felt like a 2 dollar case.
So I really don’t feel safe not having a case on my iPhone. So I broke down and bought another leather case for now. I was pleasantly surprised that the sides on this one don’t stick out as much on this one compared to the last. Still miss the curved glass feel, but rather have a protected iPhone then one that could get broken a little easier.
Yesterday, I took off my beloved UP24 band for a day to test out the new UP for Pebble app. Sadly I won’t be replacing my UP24 just yet.
Started my morning off on the treadmill. Sadly, the Pebble version of the UP doesn’t allow you to set a workout mode to track individual workouts, but the iOS app did allow me to do it afterwards.
The pebble worked great on the treadmill the step count seemed to be very accurate compared to what I expected the UP band to be reporting.
This is when something went wrong, All of a sudden the steps on my watch were about 1300 steps behind
Finishing up the day at about 2,000 steps behind what the app is showing.
I really enjoyed just wearing one device on my wrists. Currently I wear my UP24 band on my left wrist and my pebble on my left, it was nice not having to do that, but the fact that the watch app doesn’t stay in sync with the app is very frustrating.
This is just the first version I am sure Jawbone will be hard at work to make this experience better and offer more feature like the sleep and workout tracking. If you don’t have a UP band and have a Pebble I still recommend take a look at the app even at this state it’s still nice to have.
Jawbone now has two UP apps(blue and purple). I used the blue app that requires the band the purple is setup to get data from HealthKit and I didn’t want to have the steps from the M8 chip on my phone interfering with my step count.
This week just keep getting more and more awesome for a fitness tracking loving person like myself.
I just updated my Pebble Steel Watch to v2.6 which added fitness tracking to my Pebble, then I added the Up for Pebble watch face. Which allows me to have my pebble now act as my UP band best part about it is Jawbone has ported over the idle alerts to the Pebble, which I mention was the main reason I picked it over all the others.
So far I am unsure if this is going to work as well as I hope. I logged into my UP account via the UP for pebble app, but my steps for the day did not sync over from my UP24 band. So I am confused as to where these steps counts are going right now. But hopefully starting tomorrow things will all be working as they should.
Link to the new app go get it now and add me to your team.
When I saw the first post about the app being available I got really excited, then I saw the details about how it was for users who didn’t have the bands and was confused. I still don’t fully understand why they need to make this a completely separate app, but I am excited about what the end results will mean.
Here’s why:
I love my UP24(band), it’s motivated me the last few months to live healthier, but I only know one other person who has a band. I know about 10 people with a Fitbit, so I end up wearing both (yes I wear 2 fitness trackers, 3 if you count my phone). But soon I may not have too. With HealthKit and a couple more app updates from UP & Fitbit. I should be able to use my UP’s step data for my Fitbit app and my Fitbit friends if they choose could use their data in the UP app. Jawbone has already announced that they will be adding this in soon. So hopefully Fitbit will as well.
My only concern with all this is I don’t want to see the UP band go away. Jawbone has had a lot of issues with it, but overall I still think it’s the best motivating tracker out there. They have one feature none of the others I’ve seen/used has: Idle alerts, my band will vibrate every 30 minutes of inactivity(setting is customizable) to remind me to get up and move. That setting alone with worth the $80-$150 dollars for the band.
*I know I could have already used the M7/8 chip in my iPhone for Fitbit, but I find that chip to be very inaccurate compared to my Fitbit One and Jawbone UP24 step data, which are at most a couple hundred steps apart. The M7/8 chip usually 2,000 steps higher then the Fitbit/UP data and I feel like I am cheating myself and Fitbit friends when I use it.
I’ve been wanting to write this post for a long time, but today I finally can.
This morning I weighted in just under 230lbs I am 6’1.5″ tall(yes I am counting every possible half inch right now). So, by most BMI calculators that means I have finally broken out of the obese category and it feels amazing!
I’m not done yet, I still have another 30lbs or so to get into a the “normal” weight range. And in the next few weeks or less I will be posting another huge milestone, one that I am proud and not proud of at the same time. I’ll go more into details on my weight loss process once I hit that milestone.
Jawbone just doubled the battery life of their UP24 with a firmware update.
I’ve been using the UP24 for the last few months and it has helped me a ton with getting active and living healthier. I do however, find the timing pretty interesting. I can’t help but wonder how long they have been holding onto it, so the UP will still look appealing after whatever Apple maybe announcing tomorrow.
Fun couple days ahead.