For the past few weeks I have been checking out some of the online fitness trackers that are out there. I like these gadgets and when they work well they can be a TOTAL asset to your life. Many include diet calendars with recipes and shopping list generators. The workouts often have animated diagrams of the exercises. Some have community sections where you can touch base with other people for support, encouragement and advice.
I have been testing 3 different "virtual trainers". They are (in no particular order) Fitness, Self and Women's Health.
Fitness Magazine has a lot of really fantastic features, many that are free just for registering on the site. The Personal Fitness Planner is not one of them. They give you 10 free days to use it, you still need to give them a credit card, in case you want to use it for longer but I doubt you will. I contacted customer service about my problems with the tracker but I never heard back from them.
The premise is good, it has recipes, meal planning and tracking, shopping list generator and workout generator with tracking. Unfortunately you can't really enter food exclusions. For example, I don't eat meat or chicken so I have to go through each day and edit the meals to reflect this. I can check off "I never want to see this meal again" but eventually the database runs out of options. It does track caloric intake nicely but if you can't make a menu that you can actually eat its pretty annoying.
The workout tracker was what made me cancel my free trial offer. It was hard to use, it wasn't flexible and I had to keep starting over. I see no reason to put in exercises which require things that most people don't have at home, like a weight bench or 12lb. dumbells.
Now I guess you could bring a print out with you to the gym but doesn't that defeat the purpose a little? At my gym we have trainers and they will give you a free assessment and workout plan so why do I want to pay for one online?
They do have animated diagrams of the exercises but the actual workout tracker was a nightmare. You couldn't go back and add things that weren't on the workout for the day, there was no flexibility at all. You can't swap cardio and strength days or include extras. For example, one day I had time to go running but not lift weights, when I tried to put the info in it closed out the wrong day. It wasn't good, I didn't enjoy it so I cancelled it.
Self has something a little different. They have a FREE, you have to register-no credit card required, Reach Your Goal tracker. With this, you select which goal you want to reach, mine is Run 3 Miles with Ease, and it gives you a plan including diet and exercises.
The diet tracker is really just a list of meals and snack and their description including calories. It doesn't have a shopping list generator or an actual calendar of meals. You can add things that aren't on the list but you have to look up the caloric value and then enter it into the tracker. Totally annoying. For me if I have to go outside of the website I'm on and then go back to enter info I just won't do it.
The exercise tracker is good. It allows you to choose from a pull down menu of activities that are specifically designed for your goal, as well, you can choose from a pull down of all kinds of other exercises. There is no required day for cardio or strength training so if you have a crazy week and need to catch a workout whenever time allows you can mix it up and do them whenever. The selection of other activities is varied and large and for all of them it includes the calories burned information. Printables and video, streaming and download, are available for demonstrations of the strength exercises. This gets them bonus points with me because it means I can take the workout with me anywhere.
In general the Self tracker is better than the Fitness one, it's also nicer to look at, the design is good and the progress charts are simple to read. I continue to use this one even without the meals tracker.
Women's Health offers a 30 day free trial for their FIT COACH. I have only been using it for 2 days but it seems to be exactly the same as the tracking system on Fitness but they adjusted some of the problems with it. Perhaps this is an out-of-the-box fitness tracking system that these guys customized, I don't know. They made it possible to enter extra workouts, change things and go back and edit.
I still can't find any page with calories burned information on it but the food tracking is better on this version. You can swap around meal and ingredients without issue. The interface is easier to understand and I think it has more options, either that or the layout is just better to navigate.
Also, I like to see charts and daily progress, it gives me a feeling of satisfaction. Unfortunately with this system you don't really see your progress until your weekly check-in, where as, the FREE Reach Your Goal tracker on Self lets you see your progress daily, entry-to-entry. I guess I will have a more complete view of Women's Health FIT COACH in a week, that right there, makes me less happy about their tracker.
more later.
martha
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