Well, it’s about time to do something about MyFitnessPal. In our family we’re using their service by the daily. But just for logging. No reports, no further features used.
But still, we were using it for quite a time now:
almost 5 years logged every-single-day.
The service has started to roll out ads for some time now in their apps. There are only iOS / Android apps available. And a mediocre website.
Just recently they started to announce that their freeservice will restrict how many years back are going to be stored. From those 5 years we will loose 3.
In addition the whole integration has never gotten to a point where I would have decided to upgrade to the paid premium version. No functionality ever got added. No interfacing with scales, no optimizations for UI/UX, …
But they now reduce the functionalities and service and want me to cough up a bit of money:
I am not generally against subscriptions. But I am not getting 9,99 Euro of value out of the service. A shared google sheet would almost achieve parity. And the price itself is just not value based. For 2 Euro I probably would not feel the urge to move on. For 9,99 (times 2 for 2 accounts) make me move.
So I’ve sat down with my wife and we scribbled up some things we want to have in a replacement. The content and feature-set is agreed. Now I’ll throw up a prototype app.
It’ll be integrated with the MQTT scales. And with the flow we came up with we hopefully will reduce the interactions dramatically over MyFitnessPal. And it’ll never stop saving history. And I’ll learn something new.
Munzee is the next generation in global scavenger hunt games.
Track down QR Codes hidden in the real world and capture them for points. Whether you are a casual player, an avid explorer, or a hardcore competition enthusiast, Munzee helps you rediscover the world around you.
After my first stationary trainer broke I bought a new one with the capability to measure wattage and also to apply resistance measured by the watt.
After looking at my average speeds, heart-rates and times on the device I was able to build a quite detailed understanding of the broader picture. What effects my power output and what does not. The effects of nutrition and health to what the body will deliver while being asked the exact same power output curve than the last time.
In a nutshell the numbers tell me that I am usually at a mediocre wattage of 150W constant load doing about 40 km/h average. My reserves usually allow me to go for 1-2 hours without a break doing this.
So far so good. Now I’ve found out from more serious cyclers that there’s something like “Functional Threshold Power“. I do regular have tests at the doctors to check for any heart-rate issues.
Reading about this Functional Threshold Power my curiousity is sparked.
How much could I do? Should I even go for measuring it?
Addition: Of course the app I am using is called runkeeper yet I am mostly doing cycling. On average I am actually doing about 30km every day right before work starts. Here’s an additional statistic just for cycling:
First: I am not at all interested or knowledgeable in football / soccer. But…
Several times a year I am for multiple weeks in the area of Musashikosugi ((武蔵小杉) which is part of the greater Tokyo area in Japan.
And because of these stays – I’ve probably been there for the accumulated time of 1 year – I’ve got attached to this area / community over time.
This includes all those things the community shares on various places on the internet so to a small degree I can stay informed.
For example: There is a fantastic blog (as for many other communities in Tokyo) that specifically shares community related information about Musashikosugi.
To understand the context you need to know that I’ve worked for Rakuten. The number one eCommerce company in Japan. This surely kick-started my interest in Japan overall.
I know from my time at Rakuten that the company engaged in a couple of sport sponsorships. One of them was the J1 League football club “Vissel Kobe“.
Kawasaki, the area of which Musashikosugi is part of, also has such a football team called “Kawasaki Frontale“.
Through said blog it came to my attention that there was a game between those two football teams and…
So despite me not being particularly interested in sports this news was quite exciting to see. It almost feels like some local patriotism feelings come up. And with the direct connection to my past employment it get’s even more exciting.
Working in the IT industry requires us to spend copious amounts of time focused on our screens mostly sitting at our desks. But this does not have to be that way.
For me sitting down for long times creates a lot of unwanted effects and essentially leads to me not being able to focus anymore properly.
In 2015 my wife and I attacked that “health problem” as a team. And in the 12 months until 2016 we both lost 120 kg / 260lbs added up together in body weight and completely changed the way we deal with food and sport.
With that I also changed the way I work. Sitting down was from now on the exception.
Coincident with this lifestyle change my then-employer Rakuten rolled out it’s then new workplace concept and everyone got great electric stand-up desks that allowed you to change the height up and down effortlessly.
When I started with SIEMENS of course their workplace concept included standing desks as well!
For those times I am working from home one of the desks is equipped with a standing desk with an additional twist.
So this desk let’s you work while standing. But it also allows you to walk while you work. You can set the speed from 0 to 6.4 km/h.
Given a good headset I personally can attend conference calls without anyone noticing I am walking with about 4 km/h paces.
When I am spending a whole day working from this desk it is not uncommon to accumulate 25-40 km of total distance without really noticing it while doing so. Of course: later the day you’ll feel 40km in one way or the other
monthly distance … something between 50 and 350km … only 50km at the desk when walking outside is possible.
It took a bit of getting used to as your feet are doing something entirely different from what the rest of the body is doing. But at least for me it started to feel natural very quickly.
I’ve put two curved 24″ monitors onto it and aside from the docking ports for a company notebook I am using thinclients to get my usual work machines screens teleported there. There’s a bit of a media set-up as well as sometimes I am using one of the screens for watching videos.
For those now interested in the purchase of such a great walking desk: I can only recommend doing so! But be aware of some thoughts:
There are not a lot of vendors of such appliances. And those vendors are not selling a lot of them. This means: be ready for a € 1000+ purchase and be ready to shell out some good money on extended warranties.
My first desk + treadmill was replaced 3 times before. It was LifeSpans first generation of treadmill desks and it just kept exploding. I actually had glowing sparks of fire spitting out of the first generation treadmill.
I’ve returned it for no money loss and waited for the second generation. This current, second generation of LifeSpan treadmill desks is really doing it for me for longer than the first generation ever had without breaking. Looking at the use of the device I would see it as a purchase over 5 years. After 5 years of actual and consistent use I wouldn’t be overly annoyed if the mechanical parts of the appliance would stop working. I am not expecting such a device to live much longer anyhow.
Energy consumption wise it’s quite impressive how much energy this thing consumes. I wasn’t quite expecting those levels. So here’s for you to know:
this is a 28km workday with some pauses
So just around 500 Watts when in use. The 65W base load is the monitors and computers on top.
did you know: Linus Torvalds used to use a first generation model – the one that broke on me many times
I can only recommend to try something like this out. Unfortunately it’s quite hard to find a place to try it out. At least I was not able to try before buy.
But then again I could answer your questions if you had any.
