Your smartphone can be very useful along any part of your health journey. Having a constantly connected device in your pocket at all times can assist with you tracking your health. Both Google and Apple have built in applications, Health.app and Google Health, that assist in bringing apps together to monitor stats such as your daily calories burned, your weight, the amount of protein you've consumed, among a slew of other data. In this post I'm going to cover just a few of the many apps I use to help me live a healthier life.
Where I got started
I wrote up a monologue post about what health means to me, and how I got started with my whole focus on it.
It's definitely a narrative more than anything, but it is me. And I feel like it does express my weird thought process in regards to being more healthy.
Look, I definitely was never ever a natural at this. If you saw pictures of me just a few years back, especially near the end of high school, I wasn’t the crazy athletic kid that took an extra PE class. And I wasn’t one to be involved in school sports either. When I first started college I dreaded the idea of anything sports related, and having to do yet another type of exercise class.
That’s the biggest thing with health. We all should take care in measuring it, maintaining it, and keeping it in high regard. But it can seem overwhelming. A task no one really wants to worry about. But, unlike a hobby such as reading, your favorite sports team, or keeping your morning routine simple, health is different – it’s a requirement. If you woke up tomorrow and didn’t eat, you’d feel terrible. And you’d really eventually die if you ate nothing but those nasty little pumpkins things that we get around halloween but during the rest of the year everyone realizes are a terrible idea.
I kickstarted my own personal journey into health about 4 years ago. It never was a single, streamlined process. It had its starts and stops, and times where I thought it was too much to handle, or that microwaveable dinners were cheap and convenient, and dammit I was going to take advantage of the sales Stouffer’s had.
Four years ago I got into running. Mainly because a friend of mine wanted to get back into their running habit, and, being a good friend, I said “Sure, I’ll show up at 6 am and we can go running.”
Running is what started it for me. After you run, you kind of naturally learn towards those 6 eggs or so that you eat afterwards. And while buying eggs you become curious about the avocados, decide to go to a place like Sprouts, and then suddenly you’re making protein smoothies with avocado, blueberries, and about five different types of ‘all natural’ boosters. And when your run and track it, you realize that the bag of chips you’re craving to dig into a good TV show with aren’t really worth it considering how dense they are.
This whole beginning post is somewhat of a self monologue to where and how I got to where I am, and I’ll do my best to more clearly define the actual health habits I have. Know, however, that it could very well be anything, from a new store you find, a type of food you learn to enjoy, to figuring out how many calories are really in that delicious scone at the bakery you frequently find yourself at… health can be something you find yourself focusing on just after one little habit. And that’s a good thing.
Health Status
This year begun with me focusing on being more active, and maintaining a healthier life style. It was one of my goals to be a healthier person, alongside some fitness goals such as running my first half marathon (which I did 3 times), running my first marathon (postponed until my leg gets better).
I’m surprised in myself at how far I’ve come. Last year around this time, I was very inactive, discouraged from exercising, and ate mainly whatever I bought at the grocery store. It wasn’t super unhealthy, but seeing how I now react to different foods or just trying to hit calorie goals, I am amazed at the progress I’ve made. I'm glad I got off that route as well, because I definitely could've ended up being a 180 lb 22 year-old, going through that "oh hey... I can't eat whatever anymore" phase that everyone always talks about.
I also had started tracking caloric intake in April of this year, and have been somewhat on and off with it, but I definitely am more able to make better decisions with my diet. I’m way more active, thanks to buying a bike in August, and using it to commute to school 6 miles away, 2 times a day, 5 times a week. And I feel great.
One of the biggest thing I realized, especially when trying to keep my same Activity Goals on my Apple Watch, is how easy it can be to find places to exercise, and find time for it. I could never imagine the Me I knew 3 years ago to actively try and find a working cycling machine to use on vacation, or trying to find a gym to go to when I visit home in Arizona, but here I am. I’m trying my best, and I feel like I’ve succeeded, in not only maintaining a healthy way of living, but making sure to be consistent. And I credit a lot of that to my Apple Watch, but I’ve also made a lot of progress in my own mind and when I think about different aspects of being fit.