setfire's Forum Posts

It would also be great to search by the creator of the item to easily identify/filter foods and ingredients I created when putting together a recipe. And to search for items/recipes by specific users.

Topic: Feature Discussion / Food Search

One of my many discoveries when I started tracking my nutrition on Gyminee was that like a typical American my sodium/potassium ration was inverted: way too much sodium and not enough potassium (which is depleted further depleted by high sodium intake, and not enough water). I found a 550mg Naturemade supplement of Potassium and I sometimes take up to 2 a day to get the recommended minimum 4700mg/day. I also don’t exceed the 3300mg of Sodium recommended daily. It’s made huge differences in my energy levels. Now I want to take a walk instead of an afternoon nap. And I’ve found that by eating less processed foods my intake of Potassium is way up even without the supplement. Note: it helps to use foods with accurate Potassium info in your nutrition log—I never leave it blank when creating a new food item.

Topic: Fitness and Exercise / Exercising (I think) makes me feel sluggish

My core workout program is a continuos 1 hour full-body workout class using relatively light weights (the most you can put on the standard bars is 60 pounds plus 3 pounds for the bar). But you exercise each area continuously for about 5 minutes (lots of reps of different speeds). I generally max out except for triceps, some shoulders, and part of biceps. So one day I decided to wear a heart monitor to the class and was stunned to find out that my heart rate went as high as 172bpm and never went below 145-150bpm! By comparison when I get on the elliptical I’m usually between 130 – 140; jogging: 160, walking: 115.

Topic: General Health / Cardio or Strength? Which is your highest priority?

Gyminee’s formulas are skewed towards a higher protein /lower carb diet… I supplement with protein shakes but still usually get the majority, 50-60%, of my calories from carbs; 25-30% from protein and the rest from fats. But I’m still losing fat (+20 lbs, so far) and adding muscle. I generally take On Anywhey 100% whey protein powder in 8oz of skim milk twice a day and (as workout recovery drink) which gives me 50grams of protein and 300 calories. But if you want to build muscle the 1-1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight formula is a good start but don’t be afraid to also try adjusting the protein goal downward and see what works for you.

Topic: Diet and Nutrition / Needs more protein

“If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
Although originally said of business practices it also applies to nutrition and exercise: my food scale, tape measure, body scale, progress pics, and exercise log come together on Gyminee along with all the other info and tips from other websites are truly lifesavers. Know out what your challenges are and learn how to measure their effect on your life and then act steadily to direct change in a positive direction.

Topic: General Health / What is your number one health tip?

Jotun, it’s very important to have splurge meals. But eating too much out of guilt or fear of offending or of being made fun of goes against the very idea (of the joy) of splurging. Don’t sabotage a very good strategy of portion control out of fear of offending your family! Enlist them in supporting your choices, even ask for a doggie bag to take home the extra goodies for another day. It’s your body and what you choose to put in it as as your reward for a week of discipline is your choice alone. I basically eat whatever I want: I have one, sometimes 2 brownies a day but they’re 80 calorie brownies I make at home. And I rarely miss a nutrition target, all thanks to portion control. They may make fun of you at first but they’ll be asking you for advice when they see how skinny you are as the weeks go by!

Topic: Motivation and Support / The dreaded weekends

I started by making sure I drank 10 – 12 cups a day of actual water. This helped me feel fuller as I adjusted to smaller portions etc… But I read recently that water from food intake and even caffeinated beverages (in moderation) still contribute to overall hydration and that it is possible to drink too much water, especially for athletes. So now I still take in 10 – 12 cups a day but include the water from foods. So for example if I eat 30 oz of watermelon I round down to = 3 cups of water; a 10 oz grapefruit = 1 cup of water… 16 oz of milk in a protein shake = 2 cups etc. But on heavy workout days where I do 3 hours of total cardio / weight training I usually take in as many as 4 – 6 extra cups of pure water for a daily total of 16 – 18 cups to make up for sweating and to foster faster muscle recuperation.

RealAge.com has a great article: Breaking the 8-Glass Myth

Also, remember to track your salt (under 3300mg) / potassium (at least 4700mg) balance which is typically way out of wack due to generally poor American diet and affects water retention, energy etc…

Topic: Diet and Nutrition / Water!

My 2 cents as a professional brand designer

I don’t think any of these are particularly memorable but (A) at least manages 2 things:

1) The type is balanced, clean and, like the others, stresses the “gym” which helps clarify the meaning of the playful name. The trailing “e’ in (B) is completely meaningless typographically heavy and reminds me of the 70s Stop&Shop” typography.

2) The symbol at least emphasizes the true nature of a the site (an eye tracking various metrics represented by the color bars) better than the figure logos which are way too common, seem gender specific in these examples (Gyminee is not a boys club), and would be more appropriate in any case for a gym rather than for a tool/online community that tracks nutrition. exercise and health stats and promotes social interaction around these subjects. (Side Note: community/social nature of site is not really emphasized anywhere.)

Having said that I think the concept for the symbol in (A) is more interesting than the result, suffers from the attempt to make it both and eye and a torso/head, and merits further exploration. The stripes are perhaps too optically close and might read poorly at small sizes, especially where they seem to converge.

Topic: General Discussion / Help Choose the New Gyminee Logo!

A) Doesn’t offer, Masters Degree as level of education so I had to upgrade myself to PHD, (please send me my diploma).
B) What describes you question (Fitness instructor etc…) implies that an answer is optional to answer but kicks you back to the page without explanation. None of the options seemed to describe me so I settle on Amateur Athlete (team individual) even though I just go to the gym to work out. Maybe the wording should just be clearer.
C) It asked where you heard of Gyminee but doesn’t include Iphone/Apple website as an option.
D) It never asks you what size T-shirt you want. (Small, lol, Thanks!).

Topic: Support/Help / T-Shirt Survey is Flawed

Hey what gives? I just input my workout but nothing got logged on here…

Topic: Fitness Challenges / Heart breaker by heavenbane

I was invited to join a challenge and I just submitted my progress (via my scheduled workouts) but results failed to show on the challenge page (heartbreakers). Help!

Topic: Support/Help / Submitted w/o progress not recorded on challenge page...

I can’t enter my progress a second time—it would throw off (double) the totals on my own page. And I can’t’ delete my exercises and re input because that process is SO tedious.

Topic: Support/Help / Submitted w/o progress not recorded on challenge page...