Greetings blog comrades! I started this blog way back in 2004 as a kind of fitness tracker. At the time I was trying to quit smoking and “get in shape.” Things like Strava and myFitnessPal, et al. did not really exist back then.

I am now staring down the barrel of my 48th birthday, and my health and fitness situation is not entirely satisfactory. So, I’m thinking I’ll start a serious effort to make some changes, and use this dusty old WordPress site as a kind of summary of what’s going on in a variety of fitness tracking apps that I use. Amazingly, this is still sort of necessary, because the integration between the various health and fitness apps is still atrocious all these years later.

I am aware that this is not of much interest to anyone other than myself, but, as I have almost no followers on this platform, I won’t be bothering very many people with my drivel. Writing things down helps me to clarify my thoughts.

Objectives: “Getting in shape” turned out not to be a specific enough goal. So, my overall objective is this: Have my body composition measurements within the “healthy range” defined by medical authorities by my 50th birthday. Specifically, body fat percentage must be below 21% by the end of October, 2024. I will be measuring this with a Withings Body composition scale.

Methodology: The basic plan is this: I will consume fewer calories than I expend. This is difficult to track accurately, but I will do the best I can by tracking caloric input in MyFitnessPal. I will track calorie expenditure in a variety of apps, since none of them reliably talk to each other, there will be a great deal of monkeying around. Cycling is logged to some combination of Garmin Connect or Zwift, which will sync to Strava, and thence to MyFitnessPal. Weight Training is logged in FitBod, which is supposed to be able to sync to Strava, but doesn’t on Android, because Fitbod is an iPhone app with Android support tossed in as a half-assed afterthought. If anyone knows a better app for tracking weight training on Android, please let me know.

Governance: I’m planning to do at least weekly posts outlining that week’s objectives and noting the success / failures of the previous week. So, we’re looking at about 104 posts over the next two years.

Wish me luck, comrades!