***This giveaway is now closed! Find out who won here!***
I stole away from work on Saturday for a little BBQ at CrossFit United. It was to celebrate the culmination of the Whole 30 Challenge as well as send the students off as we begin summer break. While I’ll definitely miss them, I’m happy to have a little peace and quiet. A few pics from the day:
How CrossFit does buffets, with boxes!
We made an awesome Quinoa salad we adapted from Pinterest. So good!
Paleo cookies and bars. The cookies were right out of the oven, to die for!
And the BBQ pork, beef and turkey…
Laura and Boone. Isn’t he the cutest kid ever!?
Sake
Lee catching some sun…
Charlie and Nate
Earlier that day a few of the girls and I had gotten on the topic of fitness inspiration. While it seems there is no shortage of places to find it these days, as it turns out, we all revealed that we look to specific people to stay committed to our goals and motivated to push ourselves in workouts. Each one of our idols was different, from Christmas Abbott to Andrea Ager.
I absolutely love Jenny Labaw. Not only has she managed to overcome the challenges of epilepsy to become the 6th fittest woman in the world, she completed all of the 2013 CrossFit Open WODs with a broken foot. Badass!
And Now a Giveaway!
So with fitness motivation in mind, I wanted to offer you guys an amazing giveaway! Through my ambassadorship with Verizon, I’m giving away one UP by Jawbone! ($129.99 value)
{image via Verizon}
What is UP? UP is small, flexible and strong to accommodate an active lifestyle and help people reach their goals for a healthy lifestyle. Some of the features of device include:
- Designed to be worn 24/7; up to 10 days of battery life
- Tracks sleep and activity using advanced sensor technology
- Log what you eat and drink, and track nutritional info
- Get personalized insights that help you set and achieve your goals
- Set a Smart alarm to help you wake up feeling refreshed
- Set Idle Alerts to remind you to move and stay active
I am so jealous of you guys! So, ready to win an UP system? Here’s what you need to do:
Before midnight CST on Friday, May 17, answer the following question in the comments below:
“How has technology helped you reach your health and fitness goals? Or if it hasn’t, who is your fitness idol?” Also be sure to confirm your comment with the Rafflecopter giveaway widget below!
I will randomly choose one winner from the comments to win an UP by Jawbone and I’ll announce the winner Friday morning. Good luck!
Side note: You might come across other UP wristband giveaways around the blogosphere this week. Verizon requests that you only win on one blog.
Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Health and Fitness Voices program and have been provided with the Motorola Razr HD and six months of service in exchange for my honest review and opinions about the product.
My fitness idol is Julie Foucher!
Thanks for the fun post and cool giveaway Jes! I went ahead and answered both questions:
“How has technology helped you reach your health and fitness goals?”
It may seem silly, but first digital scales and now wifi scales have helped me to easily track my weight and subsequently achieve weight goals 🙂
“who is your fitness idol?”
I have had various fitness role models over the years, but at the moment it is my dad. He eats healthy, works out, and is in better shape today than he was 20 years ago. He is a great fitness role model along with my wife, mom, and in-laws 🙂
Technology has helped me reach my fitness goals in a variety of ways.
1-Mobile apps allow me to track my food meticulously! I can track my food and work towards a goal every day and with bar code scanners, it allows me to do so with ease. Also, I have a mobile app specifically for the workout I am following. The app shows my weekly increments, tells me which plates to put on the bar, shows main lifts and accessory lifts, allows me graph and export my information to track my progress and make changes accordingly.
2-Nike Fuel band makes it fun to see where I stand with friends and random people all over the world wide web. It is much like the jawbone, with a light weight design and solid battery life. It doubles as a watch, allows me to track steps, calories and “fuel”, which is a culmination of overall movement. It is a nice reminder of where I stand for the day and it is just flat our fun to have competitions between friends to see who can record the most steps (legitimate) throughout the day. Also, when you upload your info to nike, it shows where you place, totals and goals. It is a really fun way to push myself to take an extra 500 steps or try to beat my record.
3-Online fitness motivation through FB, Instagram and the web, can be a reminder to stick with your diet or workouts. Seeing other people transform, give tips and motivation can really help push me on the days where I feel lazy and unmotivated. Having a smart phone with instant access can really be a driving force as you can have “fitness” thrown in your face, at any time during the day. Sometimes, it can be an overload though.
Overall, technology has allowed me to stay on top of my “game” 24/7. I can access my diet, my workout and motivation whenever I need to.
Hi Jess! Thanks for the fun recap and pictures from the BBQ. I’m going to answer both questions, too.
Technology- Technology has helped me reach my health & fitness goals by making it easier to track along the way. I use a fitness app to keep track of my WODS and max weights. I love entering in a new PR and seeing how I have improved over time. I also use various apps to learn progressions.
Fitness idol- Christmas Abbott! 🙂 I love her energy and ambition, plus she has a crazy interesting background. Also, she’s hot. In terms of people I know in real life, I would name Tyler along with my uncle and my dad for all the same reasons- They set personal goals, work hard towards those goals, and are open to new ideas & methods. They also ask themselves “Why” and “What’s next” which I believe are vital for personal growth.
Diet tracking software and apps have definitely helped me transform my diet into something more healthy and balanced. I chose to focus on this because the fuel you need to perform and change is 90% of the battle to get in shape!
I love sleep tracking! Not only knowing my length of sleeps but also the quality allows me to change what I eat before bed or how much physical activity I do late at night to see what will help me sleep better with actual chart proof that things are working!
Technology has been integral in meeting my health goals! Several years ago, I lost 40 lbs, mostly by using an online food tracker. I definitely don’t count calories these days, but I still use technology a lot. Lately I’ve been loving the WOD app for my iPhone. It makes it easy to keep track of PRs and log my workouts, especially since my CF notebook lives at one of my gym’s locations and I have been spending a lot more time at the other gym lately.
This is going to sound totally lame, but my fitness idol is my husband. He keeps me motivated with my cycling — he’s a stronger cyclist than I am, so I find myself working harder to keep up with him!
What a great giveaway! I used the website Dailymile when I was training for my first half and full marathons. Such a great support network, and those graphs and charts were super motivating. 🙂
I use technology all the time! Mostly by using apps on my iPhone like MyFitness Pal, Couch to 5k, and MapMyRun. Makes things so much easier to keep track of it all when you have such a busy life as it is. I like to take inspiration from those around me. You inspire me when it comes to diet and CrossFit, my Aunt is an inspiration when it comes to my running. I really like Jillian Micheals attitude towards life and fitness and making it all one.
I use the MyFitnessPal app to help me track my progress and reach my goals.
Technology has helped me monitor and track my weekly activities. I use my gym app to reserve classes. Fitocracy to log workouts and give and recieve motivation. Calorie counter to track calories and nutrition. The Jawbone Up reminds me of when we used to carry a phone, ipod, camera, video recorder, and have a computer. Now we have it all in a phone. Up is like the all technology I use now in one convenient tool.
1) social media provides an avenue for motivation. The CrossFit Instagram posts throughout the day makes me anxious to get to the box in the evenings. Friends Facebook and Twitter posts provide a source of accountability – in a sense, “if they can do it, I can do it.”
2) currently, ESPN anchor Stuart Scott. Dude posts about his P90X workouts on the days he receives chemo treatments. He’s going through a helluva lot more than I can imagine and yet continues to get his workout in and live an active lifestyle. No matter how “rough” a day at the office is for me, or a sore throat may seem like a good excuse to skip a day, his will to power through while staring down cancer motivates me daily to slip on the Nanos and get to the WOD.
Oh man! This couldn’t be a more perfect question for me and the phase of life I am in right now!
Technology has significantly helped me reach my fitness goals and continue to do so daily in so many ways! One of my favorite apps that I use on my iPhone is called “myfitnesspal”. I’m not quite sure what I would do without this app, actually lol. I’ve become so dependent and obsessed with tracking my food. Not only does this app keep me accountable by adding friends that can see what I eat and the exercise I do daily (I keep my profile public to increase accountability for myself) but it keeps ME motivated! I love tracking my weight each week after my Monday weigh in and seeing the bar graph continuously plummet over the months, it’s incredible want such a small simple app can do for your self esteem and your determination to reach your goals.
Another, very simple app that I use is called; Moves. This app is most likely no where near as accurate as the Jawbone up but it has been a good starter step counter for me. This app is simple, you keep it in your pocket or in your purse when you go about your daily life and it counts your steps taken for the day. I was surprised to find that at the end of the day, I’ll walk around the block one more time with my dog or on nights I work, I’ll walk around my unit that way I can get in some more steps and reach higher daily records :). Motivation for me, is definitely key!
In the past three months, with the help of a nutritionist that I see weekly and the two apps that I mentioned. Keeping track of what I’m eating and becoming AWARE (such a key word for me) of what I put into my body, has become such a HUGE part of my life! I’ve managed to lose 60 lbs!! I can’t believe it, honestly. I know that I have another 60 lbs to go, but I’m certain that I’ve been provided with the tools now to make the right choices. Not only the right choices, but I now also have the motivation and drive to achieve my dreams and live a healthier and far more happier lifestyle. 🙂
I use technology to keep me motivated to be healthy. I use apps like MyFitnessPal and Couch-2-5k to track my food intake and movement throughout the day. As trivial as it may be, I use the Internet to read fitness blogs. Following someone else’s journey while on my own, is very inspiring and helps keep me on track.