Why You Shouldn’t Use Postmates

If you’re subscribed to our YouTube channel, you might have watched today’s video. What was the topic? Uber acquired Postmates for a lot of money. I go on to talk about how we’re not really fans of meal delivery apps because they’re almost all problematic. Then, while I’m combing through old drafts on our blog, I found this gem. I didn’t change the title. I’m not going to mess with the photos that I uploaded over a year ago. This was first drafted on May 8th 2019. We haven’t used Postmates since.

Apr292020

7 Useful Sleeping Apps To Help You Sleep Better

A good sleeping pattern delivers a lot of benefits. It helps to keep you looking and feeling young while protecting you from illness and disease. Sleep also improves your mood, making stress and anxiety easier to handle. However, many of us struggle to get our recommended 7-9 hours each night, check out this article from Sleep.Report about fixing your sleep schedule. If you’re one of the many people struggling with sleep right now, there could be a solution.

While you might assume that your phone should be the last thing you use before bed, sleep apps are becoming increasingly popular. These tools improve your sleeping patterns, boost relaxation and even encourage less stress. Let’s look at 7 of the best options.

Mar242020

Finding Great Cycling Apps & Getting Ready for Summer Cycling Season

If you’re an avid cyclist, chances are you have one or two cycling apps already downloaded on your phone. But, chances are, there are more cyclist apps developed and with the increased technology and creativity, there might be newer ones that you would enjoy. Check out the list of the top cycling apps below, but do keep reading on to learn what I discovered through my search for finding the best cyclist apps.

Great Cycling Apps

Continue reading…

Feb122019

Returning to Meditation

I used to be really into meditation. I did it daily. I even taught a class on it back in the day. It was one of my daily habits, but somewhere along the last year, it’s kind of dropped out of sight. There are so many benefits to meditating. It can help clear stress, focus your mind, and generally get a better hold on mental health. I think it strengthens willpower, mental fortitude, and gives me tools to get through high-stress situations. It’s finding a safe rock through violent storms, a moment of quiet in a crowded room. The benefits are endless and can be different for each person. So why did I stop? Life, laziness, lack of priorities. At the very least, I’ve become aware of my failing habit and I’ve set a course to correct it. One of my annual goals is to meditate 4x/week and I’ve been semi doing okay on that goal.

Nov132015

No Job Left Undone with SmartSwapp

Times are tough and it’s hard to say if there will be any changes to that soon. People are working full-time hours making $500 in two weeks. This might be reasonable for a high school student living with their parents, but with the increasing costs of college tuitions, you need to start working when you’re born to save up enough. Otherwise, you’ll get destroyed by student loans and end up paying ten of thousands in interest before paying off those four years of college. It’s a struggle for nearly every one of the 99%.

Rise and grind

Feb112015

The Largest Digital Health and Fitness Community?

I recently received word that MyFitnessPal and Under Armour were joining forces to create a group of over 120 million members. Now, to be honest, I don’t really like Under Armour THAT much. I have nothing against it but when I was a competitive athlete (a while ago), I found Adidas, Nike, and Puma created training apparel that was more comfortable and effective to boost my training. For the high prices of their Cold and Heat gear, their sizing was awkward for certain athletic (and non-athletic) builds and I didn’t find them to benefit thermo-regulation. (The process of the body trying to maintain its proper temperature despite extreme temps on the outside that could lead to hyper or hypo-thermia.)

On the other hand, I recommend MyFitnessPal to nearly all of my clients, athletes, members, etc that are focused on lifestyle changes and losing, gaining, or maintaining weight. I have it myself although I don’t use it, but Fit does. (My closet is all Adidas, Nike, and Puma, but no UA. If you’re curious, all my socks and underwear are Puma, all my shoes are Nike, all my clothing is Adidas.) It’s a great, free tool that has really improved since it was first introduced. I find that being able to watch my clients gives them more accountability and helps them avoid bad choices. The new(er) bar-code feature is great, too.

Now, with this partnership, they are boasting three apps. Under Armour RECORD, “a complete 24/7 fitness dashboard” that I have never heard of before now; Endomondo, “the most social and advanced personal training app in the world” of which I have also never heard or seen; and MapMyFitness, “the industry leading GPS based fitness tracker” which I know of and think of as one of the best. It’s great that MyFitnessPal’s CEO Mike Lee is stating that nothing about the MyFitnessPal experience will change because it has provided such a great service.

Image source

Dec102013

Techie Tuesday: the Waze App Review

Although we love our gadgets and gizmos, we don’t often write a post about them or review them. However, there are some that are exceptions to this and one of them is Waze. I had downloaded this app about a year ago, but only recently started using it after my brother’s trip here. Waze is a travel/map app and it is incredibly useful and fun.

We all have been through the frustration of Google Maps. Perhaps it led us in the wrong direction or forgot to tell us a turn. Hey, I’m a big supporter of Google Maps–more than most folk anyhow–but I’ve got to be honest, Waze has it beat. Let’s start with a little description so I can show you why it’s better than Google Maps. So you start Waze as a noob, an amateur with an avatar that has a pacifier. This is motivation to use the app more and more to gain points and discard that rookie-telling pacifier. For the avatar portion, once you get enough points, you can choose what “mood” you’re in which is basically your avatar. I’m pretty sure mine was “sleepy” yesterday (no surprise for a Monday, huh?). And there are leaders in each area in terms of points, so there’s always motivation to use it!

Thaaat’s meeee

So how do you get points? It’s pretty easy. You gain points simply by having the app on and driving. You can also gain additional points by reporting different things, which is getting to why Waze is so great. You have the ability to report hazards like stopped cars, accidents, weather, traffic, and even hidden police officers. Everybody works together in a community-like setting. As you are driving along and Waze is open on your phone or tablet, you can see all the hazards or traffic coming up on your route. This is really nice not only to be able to avoid it, but for safety reasons to. You can even see the other “Wazers” on the road which makes it feel even more like a community. I love that part. All working together to help one another.

This app is also excellent at setting routes. First of all, you can input your “Home” and “Work” addresses so it’s easy to plug in. When you type in whatever address you are trying to get to, it will give you several routes, their mileage, length of route concerning time, and ETA. And for each route, it shows you all the “reports” aka the hazards, traffic, accidents, and so forth. In addition, along the route, if traffic is slowing down, it will show you the average speed at which traffic is flowing. Pretty neat.

Vroom vroom, night mode

To sum, this app has Google Maps beat with its sense of community and foresight with traffic and planning routes. Hungry and Fit gives Waze a big thumbs up. Use this smart traffic app to stay hungry and fit!

Question of the Day: What travel app do you use?

BONUS KITTY PIC

Precious is all I can say

Aug062013

Techie Tuesday: CARROT To-Do App

So I’ve become obsessed with getting things done lately. Which is GREAT. Great for me, great for the house, great for everybody. But why? Well…I give all credit to my new to-do app, CARROT. I constantly struggle to find apps that improve my productivity and organization, and still would like more, but as far as to-do apps go, CARROT really works for me.

CARROT is brilliant for gamers or competitive people because here’s the thing: it’s an AI to-do list with personality that gives you points for completing tasks. So I started at Level 1. I’m now at Level 41. Yeah, I’ve been going crazy. But at Level 1, I didn’t have many capabilities. Some people may be turned off by that, saying if I’m paying for an app, I should get all the capabilities right away before me! I totally hear you. But I’m okay with this because it actually improves my productivity. I want to complete more and more tasks so I get more and more upgrades. So at first, I couldn’t set reminders, now I can. I couldn’t rearrange my list, now I can. And so forth. Even though it holds back all it does until you gain levels, that is one of the biggest reasons you want to keep being productive.

My to-do

Obviously, it’s very different from other to-do apps as it’s interactive. It gets mood swings. CARROT will be happy if you complete many tasks, but if you slack, CARROT will turn angry and turn all black and red and make me scared. It’s not always an upgrade when you level up, sometimes you get a KITTEN (yup) or sometimes he tells you a story. Or asks you to sacrifice bunnies for him. I think it’s a female, but I always change the gender.

All in all, CARROT has all the features other to-do apps have, but it makes you work for them so that you are improving your productivity. It makes getting things done fun because who doesn’t like leveling up? I think I may have found my to-do app, finally! Check it out here: http://www.meetcarrot.com/. Use this app to stay hungry and fit!