As some of you know, I embarked on a weight loss program back on June 1, 2014, and lost 50#. I did this under the guidance of a nutritionist at my local VA Outpatient Clinic, and my doctor. The weight was lost by November 2014 through diet & exercise (duh? ), and I have successfully kept it off throughout the Winter months, maintaining my weight within +/- 3# during the long, cold months in NEO Ohio.
I managed to keep my enthusiasm up with the help of my DW, who has always been an avid walker, and who patiently took me on walks when I found it very difficult to not only keep up with her, but going beyond 2-1/2 miles was exhausting, and would take me almost 47 minutes to do it. That's a pace of almost 19 minutes per mile. She stuck with me, and today I'm the one who says "Hey, let's go for a walk." She never turns me down.
I went out this morning and did 3.4 miles in 44-1/2 minutes, at a pace of 13 minutes per mile. This was jogging & walking combined. My goal is to be able to jog a 5k without walking by my 65th birthday in October, which I believe is doable.
Back to the topic, I was able to keep track of my workouts using a free app from www.mapmyrun.com (available from the App Store) which resides on both my iPhone 5s and my MacBook Pro. I started using it June 16, 2014, and it keeps a running tally of each of my workouts. When logging data, you can tell it if you've been walking, biking, hiking, or any of about a dozen other activities. This assists the app in accurately calculating calories burned depending on the activity. In the past 10 months I have logged the following:
469.75 Miles
176 Workouts
226.25 Hours of exercise
103,172 Calories burned (29.48#)
The app is not real accurate (IMO) at tracking workouts with the internal GPS of the iPhone, but is great for manually entering data to keep track of walks/runs, or at creating route maps before or at the end of a workout. It does upload recorded data to social media sites of you want to embarrass your friends on Facebook into getting off their ass and onto their feet.
My son suggested I try another free app that is excellent at tracking & map making called STRAVA (via the App Store & online). This is now my favorite app, and is not only very user friendly, but also highly configurable. I have it setup that if I stop to talk to a neighbor while walking, it senses ceased activity via the GPS, and pauses the timer until you begin to move again. This is great if you're walking, running, hiking or biking, as there will be times when you stop to hydrate or take a leak. You can also manually pause it if you will be delayed for an extended period of time, then pick back when you start moving again. We like this feature when we bike ride, as there are time we need to wait for traffic lights or pause for a water break.
Today's workout can be viewed at my STRAVA page, to see how the app reports the workout.
Anyway, that's my reviews/experience with a couple of apps. If anyone has something different, please post them with your review/opinion.
BTW, the app I used for food tracking was MyFitnessPal. It also interfaces with MapMyRun to update daily calorie use/consumption. This was invaluable to me during my weight loss phase, as workouts equated to additional calories i could use for treating myself to an ice cream cone or other treat.
I managed to keep my enthusiasm up with the help of my DW, who has always been an avid walker, and who patiently took me on walks when I found it very difficult to not only keep up with her, but going beyond 2-1/2 miles was exhausting, and would take me almost 47 minutes to do it. That's a pace of almost 19 minutes per mile. She stuck with me, and today I'm the one who says "Hey, let's go for a walk." She never turns me down.
I went out this morning and did 3.4 miles in 44-1/2 minutes, at a pace of 13 minutes per mile. This was jogging & walking combined. My goal is to be able to jog a 5k without walking by my 65th birthday in October, which I believe is doable.
Back to the topic, I was able to keep track of my workouts using a free app from www.mapmyrun.com (available from the App Store) which resides on both my iPhone 5s and my MacBook Pro. I started using it June 16, 2014, and it keeps a running tally of each of my workouts. When logging data, you can tell it if you've been walking, biking, hiking, or any of about a dozen other activities. This assists the app in accurately calculating calories burned depending on the activity. In the past 10 months I have logged the following:
469.75 Miles
176 Workouts
226.25 Hours of exercise
103,172 Calories burned (29.48#)
The app is not real accurate (IMO) at tracking workouts with the internal GPS of the iPhone, but is great for manually entering data to keep track of walks/runs, or at creating route maps before or at the end of a workout. It does upload recorded data to social media sites of you want to embarrass your friends on Facebook into getting off their ass and onto their feet.
My son suggested I try another free app that is excellent at tracking & map making called STRAVA (via the App Store & online). This is now my favorite app, and is not only very user friendly, but also highly configurable. I have it setup that if I stop to talk to a neighbor while walking, it senses ceased activity via the GPS, and pauses the timer until you begin to move again. This is great if you're walking, running, hiking or biking, as there will be times when you stop to hydrate or take a leak. You can also manually pause it if you will be delayed for an extended period of time, then pick back when you start moving again. We like this feature when we bike ride, as there are time we need to wait for traffic lights or pause for a water break.
Today's workout can be viewed at my STRAVA page, to see how the app reports the workout.
Anyway, that's my reviews/experience with a couple of apps. If anyone has something different, please post them with your review/opinion.
BTW, the app I used for food tracking was MyFitnessPal. It also interfaces with MapMyRun to update daily calorie use/consumption. This was invaluable to me during my weight loss phase, as workouts equated to additional calories i could use for treating myself to an ice cream cone or other treat.