gtFtr

Making the messages easier

gtftr — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:18:56 -0500

A couple of people have commented that it’s a pain to remember the correct format of the tweets to send a message – especially when you’ve just finished an hour running or on an elliptical.

For me I found practice made perfect (but then again most of the message formats I defined) but I’m curious to find ways to make it better and more natural or easy for people to enter their information.

On my Windows Mobile phone I can predefine templates for text messages – that means I can build a template for each exercise and just drop the parameters in and hit send.

One idea on the to-do list is a predefined web page that stores your login (as a cookie so we never see it) and has templates to tap in the parameters and then you just hit send (so it would work from any browser including on the iPhone)

Theoretically the format we store the parameters in for the parser could be used to create these forms dynamically and roll them into 3rd party Twitter apps (but I think we’d need a lot more users first to get people to consider that!)

What would help reduce YOUR barrier to using gtFtr? Let me know…

10000 Steps – Pedometer and Calories

gtftr — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:10:15 -0500

Most of the trackers here are for specific exercises but some people like to track daily statistics. If you wear a pedometer and try to reach the 10000 Steps a Day goal then it would be nice to record process so we now have a Daily or Stats tracker

@gtFtr Stats Steps 9000 Cals 800 3.9 miles# walked to Bldg8 today

The parameters are as follows (as usual apart from the first which identifies what it is order isn't that important, but the space separators are)

Stats (or Day or Daily) - this has to come first so the parser knows it's recording daily stats.
Steps 9000 – How many did you walk today. You can also use S or Step for short.
Cals 800 - how many did you burn (that's what it's all about after all)
Dist 3.9 - how far did you go. I'm not sure if that's miles or km or some random arbitrary unit. You can enter it as "3.9 miles" or "3.9 km" if you know (either can have the Dist prefix as well) as long as you're consistent.

gtFtr is slowly growing. Feel free to use the comments on any post here, or contact us to make suggestions.

Get fit and leave the car at home

gtftr — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:16:20 -0500

It’s not really a fitness tracker, but it might just help with motivation to get on a bike or walk to work. The latest tracker records fuel (gas for the Americans, petrol for the rest of the world, and of course diesel) and what it costs to cover those miles.. The message format follows a pretty standard format:

@gtFtr Fuel 15.173 gals price 50.51 Odo 13804 Type reg V Jeep # I'm probably going to get scared what the Jeep costs to run!

The parameters are as follows (as usual apart from the first which identifies what it is order isn't that important, but the space separators are, and unless specified they are all optional)

Fuel- this has to come first so the parser knows what's it's dealing with. You can also use Gas, Petrol or Diesel instead
Qty 15.173 gals – specify Qty, gals (gallons) or litres
Cost 50.51 – or Price to record how much you paid
Odo 13804 - What was your odometer reading. You can also use Miles or KMs.
Type Reg – Which type of fuel – Regular, Unleaded, E10, E85, Flex, Diesel etc
Vehicle Jeep – If you record a tracker for more than one vehicle this allows you to separate them

gtFtr is slowly growing. Feel free to use the comments on any post here, or contact us to make suggestions.

Ride on (Bicycle or motorcycle)

gtftr — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:00:13 -0500

If you like to ride a bike (either pedal power or an iron horse) we now have a tracker for you. The message format follows our standard format:

@gtFtr Ride 6 miles 30 mins HR 141 Route Windy_Hill_Loop

The parameters are as follows (as usual apart from the first which identifies what it is order isn't that important, but the space separators are, and unless specified they are all optional)

Ride - this has to come first so the parser knows what's it's dealing with. You can use Cycle or Bike as synonyms if you prefer.
Time 30 Mins - Either Time or Mins should be entered to track how long you were on there for
Dist 6 Miles - how far did you go. You can enter it as "6 miles" or "6 km" (either can have the Dist prefix as well).
HR 141 - What was your average Heart Rate over the exercise.
Route Windy_Hill_loop – Which route was this (if you have several, or you travel and like to see the difference between, say, riding in Cumbria or NYC). Note: Very important this – don’t use spaces to separate words in the route name. Use underscores or dots or dashes (the parser takes the space as a new parameter)

gtFtr is slowly growing. Feel free to use the comments on any post here, or contact us to make suggestions.

A new tracker for runners

gtftr — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:27:00 -0500

Just added a new tracker to help the runners (thanks Ken and Brad), joggers and walkers out there keep their stats as well as the more indoor exercisers. The message format follows a pretty standard format:

@gtFtr Run 6 miles 30 mins HR 141 Route Windy_Hill_Loop

The parameters are as follows (as usual apart from the first which identifies what it is order isn't that important, but the space separators are, and unless specified they are all optional)

Run - this has to come first so the parser knows what's it's dealing with. You can also use Jog or Walk instead
Time 30 Mins - Either Time or Mins should be entered to track how long you were on there for
Dist 6 Miles - how far did you go. You can enter it as "6 miles" or "6 km" (either can have the Dist prefix as well). If you’re climbing stairs you can enter “ascents”, “steps” or “stairs” and measure distance that way (thanks Tai)
HR 141 - What was your average Heart Rate over the exercise.
Route Windy_Hill_loop – Which run was this (if you have several, or you travel and like to see the difference between, say, running in Cumbria or NYC). Note: Very important this – don’t use spaces to separate words in the route name. Use underscores or dots or dashes (the parser takes the space as a new parameter)

gtFtr is slowly growing. Feel free to use the comments on any post here, or contact us to make suggestions.

LifeCycle

gtftr — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:57:25 -0500

We added a new tracker into the system today for a LifeCycle (see, we do listen to requests). The message format follows a pretty standard format

@gtFtr LifeCycle Hill Level 12 Time 30 mins 315 cals Dist 12.9 HR 141

The parameters are as follows (as usual apart from the first which identified what it is order isn't that important, but the space separators are)

LifeCycle (or LC) - this has to come first so the parser knows what's it's dealing with
Hill or Random - this is the program you used. There are others, we just need to add them. If you use any of the programs just comment here and we'll add them to the matrix
Level (can be shortened to Lvl) 12 - How hard were you trying (like the Nautilus equipment LiveFitness seem to use a 1-20 scale)
Time 30 Mins - Either Time or Mins should be entered to track how long you were on there for
315 Cals - how many did you burn (that's what it's all about after all)
Dist 12.9 - how far did you go. I'm not sure if that's miles or km or some random arbitrary unit. You can enter it as "12.9 miles" or "12.9 km" if you know (either can have the Dist prefix as well) as long as you're consistent.
HR 141 - What was your average Heart Rate over the exercise.

gtFtr is slowly growing. Feel free to use the comments on any post here, or contact us to make suggestions.

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What did you eat today?

gtFtr — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 17:58:00 -0500

gtFtr lets you track calories in a fairly simple limited way, but over at TweetWhatYouEat they've set up a much more detailed system.

I suggest you check 'em out and give it a try. We're going to focus on the exercise side of things and let them look after the stuff they're good at. That's what's so good about Twitter... can you have lots of friends helping you out ;)

Bite sized tips to help keep you on track

gtFtr — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:26:00 -0500

The Dumb Little Man blog often has great tips for how to get the most out of life. Exercise is always important but it's not the only thing you need to consider when going for a better lifestyle. One crucial thing is being aware of what saps your energy and how to avoid it.

It's not all don'ts! They have some great articles that might surprise you such as this great one on 8 benefits of red wine.

Their article on keeping your New Years Resolutions is just as valid for a get fit program as it is for the annual self-improvement drive

Why use replies (@gtFtr) not direct messages (d gtFtr)?

gtftr — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:58:18 -0500

A perfectly valid question and one a couple of folks have asked so I'll answer.

There are two reasons... firstly because the graphs are not private I didn't really see a need to make the tweets private. We could add the complexity of making you create an account and hiding your data away but part of the idea behind gtFtr is to encourage folks to work out and get better - I put my stats out there for folks to laugh at my pathetic pushups and make me want to do better. For something like SugarStats (a great tracker for diabetics - I'd actually thought about adding the same metrics but they do a great job so I won't) I can understand why folks would want to keep it private. So firstly it's a motivator.

The second reason is that it's social and viral. I want your friends to see you sending tweets to gtFtr and get curious and come and check it out. Web 2.0 is all about viral growth, Twitter is all about communications and so it's a great way to get the word out there.

If enough folks want me to look at adding direct messages I'm certainly not going to say no (though it adds complexity so it might not be top of the list, especially if we need to get into making the graphs private as well) ... use the comments and let me know what you think....

Some minor tweaks

gtftr — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:19:33 -0500

I've been a little lax over the holidays. What with some unexpected work related travel and the general season of goodwill and all that I've not been paying as much attention here as I should be and a couple of users have made some suggestions I needed to catch up on.

The changes rolled out tonight are mostly things that are not directly visible but for instance the parser has been tweaked to make it a little more robust (be gentle with it... check before you send because it's still a little temperamental!) and there are a few new parameters.

I've also added a To-Do list to give you an idea of some of the aspirations I have for the project. Some of them are quite likely to happen, and hopefully in short order. Others are more pie-in-the-sky either because my l33t c0d!ng sk!llz are a thing of the past or I just don't have the hours in the day to see them through.... so always looking for someone to adopt this project and make it fly ;)

A couple more parameters for the Elliptical tracker

gtftr — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:56:54 -0500

Looking through the results after my workout I decided to add a couple more parameters to the Elliptical tracker. Luckily with the parser it's fairly simple.

You can now record average speed and watts for your workout.

Average speed can have a unit of either mph or kph (as always spaces between numbers and parameters)

Gaming gtFtr

gtftr — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:57:44 -0500

In the past couple of days I've had conversations about the risks and impact of people "gaming" gtFtr to try and appear to be fitter than they actually are.

To my mind there's a flaw in the reasoning... who would lie about their workout results?

But there probably are folks who'd use the anonymity of the Internet to make claims about their prowess... though I'm not sure who they'd be impressing or fooling.

Sending a message

@gtFtr Situps 20 sets 50 reps

when you're actually built like the Jeff Albertson ... no-one will take you that seriously. For that lie to work you must be sure that no-one you know in real life follows you on Twitter, never post your picture online and certainly never follow it with a twitter about your 6 Twinkie lunch.

At the end of the day who are you gaming if the goal is to get healthy?

If you claim something that you can't do ironically it may, because of the public nature of the Twitter timeline and gtFtr, actually introduce a hidden motivator to work towards that goal that you've been claiming as fact in case you are exposed?

Who knows. It'll be interesting to see how many supermen start visiting gtFtr and posting their results..

Eating Right

gtftr — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:47:52 -0500

It's all very well to exercise heaps ever day, but what if you're idea of a healthy lunch in a fast food burger and fries with a coke and an apple pie on the side?

Well you'll probably end up with some muscle tone but the fat won't go away (or worse you'll have something important fail on you)

But it's hard to know what's okay to eat that still tastes okay but isn't too bad for you.

I'm going through that process at the moment, and found a great article over at Yahoo! Health entitled "127 Foods That Fight Fat" that makes interesting reading.

While most of it resonated with me, there was a section on "diet" drinks... while the real thing is sweetened with sugar (or it's evil cousin High Fructose Corn Syrup - avoid that particular creature if you can) most of the diet products are laced with aspartame or similar "artificial" or chemically modified sweeteners which according to some folks can do you more harm than sugar (it's a personal choice but since swearing off non natural foods as much as possible I've noticed general well being improvements).

The important thing is not too get too hung up with an eating regimen any more than you would an exercise program. Sure you'll have days where another 50 pushups are too much, and there will be days when you're out with friends and a steak and fries is what you really want. Just don't go overboard and over the next few days try to compensate - a few more raw veggies, some more water, a few more reps...

It's all about balance and a long term view

Inspirations for a 6 pack

gtFtr — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 21:02:00 -0500

Everyone wants to get fit and look their best, right?

I was inspired down this path by turning 40, getting slower, needing one more notch on my belt... all good motivations but it's hard to find something simple, repeatable and easy to fit around work and the rest of your life - especially if you travel.

While the title seems pretty miraculous with a bit of effort it might just pay off. I think I'm going to have to up my efforts from 3 sets of 12 situps if I want to get anywhere ;)

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So what does a gtFtr graph look like?

gtftr — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:39:30 -0500

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but a real life example must be worth much more...

If you want to see my calorie consumption on the Elliptical from when I started running the code (instead of just sending myself Twits that didn't go anywhere) it's available for the world to see...

If you're brave enough to share your information, check out the trackers we currently record and get Twitting.

Note: to see the graphs you will need Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 installed. It does mean you'll need a PC (Windows XP SP2 or greater) or a Mac (OSX 10.4.8 or greater) - IE, Firefox and Safari all work. I've not been able to test with Moonlight yet (it's too scary. I like simple 'click here' installers!).