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Business Technology

>_bodyFit

What started out as a simple utility project soon turned into geek nectar. bodyFit for the BlackBerry is born to the world of software.

Now, body fat percentages and body mass indices along with waist-hip ratios and daily “am-i-getting-fat” questions in general tend to irritate me. Just get on with training hard and having fun doing what you do and the results will be there; don’t major in the minors. At least, that’s my attitude. That said, there still *is* space for trending/tracking your body shape and that’s where >_bodyFit comes in.

iTrainedToday has a vision to make tracking your training as simple and as unobtrusive as possible- sticking to the basics, without falling for the hype of fashionable health trends which really don’t last more than a 3-4 months. For example, back in the 70’s experts were advocating a balanced diet of carbs, protein and greens (70/20/10- or thereabouts) and guess what: it’s still the simplest, healthiest and least complicated way forward. But this is not a health blog…. 🙂

Body fat percentage equations is where this geek got curious and stayed motivated in producing >_bodyFit.

Besides the all-famous Jackson-Pollock equations, I soon discovered equations for the young, the old, the plump, the athletic, the sedentary and the normal (whatever that means). They all use different combinations of skinfold measurements, tape measurements, weight, height and age and are all varingly (in)accurate. The goal of >_bodyFit was to use as many of the equations as is possible and applicable based on the data input. Then, according to my reasoning, you have at least 3 different results which should correlate closely with one another in order to provide you with a more comfortable picture than just a single absolute number based on one formula that’s also being used on someone with a completely different profile to you.

And it’s not the actual number that matters so much as the trend in that same process, with the same tools using the same technique. By consistently recording your measurements using the same calipers, by the same person at the same time of day you get a more accurate reflection of progress. Weigh yourself in the morning after waking up and then just after lunch. Don’t be too shocked if you picked up a kilo or even 2. It doesn’t mean you need to go on a diet straightaway. Tomorrow morning, you’ll be right back down again. Point is, the body fluctuates- a lot. Again, don’t major on the minor changes- but keep your focus on the bigger picture *over time* in order to create an authentic strategy. >_bodyFit will help you do exactly that.

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Business Technology

iTrainedToday

Today is a good day ™ iTrainedToday has been released for early adoption and community testing/feedback. Built on Google’s app-engine, iTrainedToday is a free service for athletes wanting a simple yet informative site to record their training data. It uses Simile for displaying your training data in a easy-to-peruse fashion which, hopefully, encourages you to keep training when you start seeing massive blanks in your efforts 🙂

iTrainedToday is useful for part-time athletes, experienced athletes who just need to keep the recording habit up, weekend gym warriors and even the more dedicated fitness enthusiast. This is alpha, but your data will be preserved as we move the application into newer versions so feel free to start using and giving feedback.