Alright, folks…a couple of days ago I ran my husband and myself through my Body Composition and Fitness Assessments to help us create our wellness goals for the new year. We have both put on a few over the Christmas season between less exercise (me) and more treats (him). We both are ready to see where we’re at, get on a plan, and meet some goals! The assessments we did include:

With his permission, I’m posting the assessments of our results here. We each completed everything, with the exception of the skinfold calipers. I can’t complete that assessment on myself, so I left those out of my assessment. For Charlie’s, I averaged his BIA and his skinfold caliper results. I also included measurements of resting vital signs like pulse and blood pressure. Since he is a firefighter, he was able to take my vital signs. Here’s how we each made out compared to recommendations:

Check back to see how we take these results and turn them into goals, then turn those goals into a plan!

Since my new practice, i’mPowered Nutrition & Fitness, is offering a $20 discount on my Goal-Getter package to help you meet your New Year’s goals, my next project is going to be something a little different. Both my husband and I are going to show you what the Goal-Getter package is all about by laying out our own nutrition and fitness goals and documenting our journeys to goal-get them! Alright, alright…enough punning.

Husband and I will start off with the body composition and fitness assessments to test where we are at now, then use those results to create goals. Based on those goals and our individual personalities/lifestyles, I’ll make a nutrition and training plan — i’mPowered-style — and we’ll follow it. You’ll get to watch the journey!

Stay tuned for the results of our “before” assessments!

Many recommendations have come out in recent years discussing the benefits of avoiding long periods of sitting. For those of us who work at a desk, that can be tough! While working, it can be difficult to 1) remember to get up, 2) realize how much time has passed since you got up, or 3) get up at all, depending on what your job is!

To help with this conundrum – I tracked down two apps designed to promote movement while I was on my carb counting stent (people with diabetes are recommended to get up and move for 3 minutes out of every 30!). Check out my assessment of these apps:

Move – Daily Activity to Stay Healthy (free from the Apple app store)

This one allows you to customize the frequency with which you want to be reminded to exercise, as well as the time frame in which you want reminders (like 8 am to 5 pm, for example). The app sends you an encouraging and/or Jillian Michaels-like reminder (“Don’t you dare think about skipping this one!” or “Come on, no excuses!”) to get up and move on the schedule you set. The app contains a list of exercise suggestions that you can tailor to your preferences. If you choose to do the exercise it suggests, you click a button that says “I did it!” and it will tack it onto an ongoing list of the exercises you have completed that day, complete with estimated calories burned. If you don’t want reminders on certain days, you can skip them for a day.

• Pros: Easy to use, customizable exercises/schedule, exercise suggestions, accumulating list of exercises throughout the day is motivating.
• Cons: Reminders could be a little less cheesy/condescending, several of the exercises would not be discreet in certain office settings (think jumping jacks and side-lying leg lifts – they have an “Office” exercise pack you can purchase that is supposed to remedy this).

Overall: I enjoyed this app – I liked that it gave suggestions for exercises because, even as an exercise physiologist, I do better with direction. Particularly when I’m in the middle of the work day – I don’t have to come up with exercises on my own!

Stand Up! The Work Break Timer (free from the Apple app store)

This app also allows you to customize it with a daily schedule and frequency of reminders. You can skip days as needed. On schedule, the app pops up a reminder that states, “Time to stand up. We want you to live longer!” If you go to the app at that time, you can select between options to skip that particular reminder or to acknowledge that you got up, which the app will track.

• Pros: Easy to use, customizable schedule, tracks the number of times  and when you get up throughout the day.
• Cons: Reminder is the same every time, no exercise suggestions.

Overall: It worked. I enjoyed the other app more, but they both will get the job done!

Hey everyone! The American Diabetes Association just released new recommendations for physical activity for managing blood sugar and I figured I’d share them since I’m carb counting at the moment!

In addition to getting 30 minutes of activity most days of the week, they also recommend spending 3 minutes doing gentle movement for every 30 minutes you spend sitting. This helps send sugar from the blood into the cell and also improves circulation, which can be poor in people with diabetes.

Not sitting too long is a fantastic idea, but for me the biggest challenge is remembering to do it! I have heard about some apps that are designed to help you get up and move more often, so I think I’ll give those a shot this week to try it out. I’ll be testing out Move – Daily Activity to Stay Healthy that gives you specific little activities to do at regular intervals, and Stand Up! The Work Break Timer, which lets you select time intervals anywhere between 5 minutes and 2 hours while at work to remind you to get up and move.

Update: You can find my reviews of these two apps here.