Technology and Fitness

When you mention the words "Technology" and "Fitness" in the same sentence, you should usually prepare yourself for a long infomercial about some crap product like the Bowflex SelectTech, something that promises huge results at a high cost.

Today I'd rather focus on something rather useful, and that is progress trackers and calorie counters on the web and for your smartphones.

On the web, two of the best calorie and fitness goal trackers are Livestrong and FitDay. Both have their pros and cons, but they are essentially the same. FitDay has a good offline program you can use if you're into that, but personally I prefer Livestrong, because it has many verified and branded foods on it for easy calorie counting.

These are great for when you're cooking from home and need to figure out how many calories are in your family's secret sauce, or the cheese sandwich you just made, but when you're out and about, what are you going to do? Well, I'm all for the old paper and pen method, but if you've got a cellphone, then two of my favorites have been RunKeeper and FatSecret. I prefer the FatSecret app for calorie counting, because it integrates with a barcode scanner to quickly scan that healthy protein bar you just snacked on at work, but when recording runs or workouts nothing beats RunKeeper, as it integrates with GPS satellites to record your run, and tells you approximately how many calories you've burned.

I've even heard of some people using Excel spreadsheets to track their progress!
What do you use to track your fitness? Tell me in the comments below.