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Health and wellness magazines on Facebook

There are plenty of places to get information on how to break the right sweat, what work outs will give you those killer abs, the foods you should be eating now (!) to give you energy, the ultimate cleanse … and it goes on and on.

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Photo courtesy Flickr Creative Commons: Rance Costa

I’ve been following all of these tips like a mad woman since I started the Comfort Zone Project. Fortunately, Facebook makes it easy to get a myriad of information delivered straight to your news feed.

Now, I’m no expert (but promise I will be talking to one soon), and it is important to make sure the information you are finding online comes from a reputable source and isn’t just a quote pasted to a photo of some celebrity, but there are places with helpful information on how to become a healthier and more mindful person.

My current obsessions/online cheat sheets for fitness when I can’t go to the gym or need some extra motivation/eating ideas, etc. on Facebook are the fitness/wellness magazines constantly churning out great content:

Shape Magazine

Women’s Health and Fitness

Self Magazine

Even when I lived in the States, I had subscriptions to each of them. I loved them for the awesome workout tips (like the five exercises to build gorgeous arms) and recipes (even though kitchen goddess I am not).

If you want some motivation and do-it-yourself workout ideas and recipes, follow along on their Facebook pages (I’ve linked them above).

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Weight Loss Apps

During my work to lose weight, I have become attached to food and exercise apps to keep track of the calories I am ingesting, the calories I am burning and the athletic feats I am tackling.

There are plenty of weight loss apps out there, but these two are the ones I find myself going back to most days.

Lose It

The Lose It! app

I first heard of lose it a few months ago — right when I started The Comfort Zone Project and joined the gym. Lose It allows you to input your food and has many popular brands and restaurants calorie counts for dishes. While it is great, living in Thailand makes it hard to know the exact calories I am consuming. It’s not like Street Stall with the Noodle Soup comes up on the app with calories and other dietary details. So, often times, I wing it.

An example of diet log on Lose It! app

I have ZERO idea how many calories the rice salad I had at lunch was … so I wing it.

The app also lets me track my work outs, although popular classes like spinning (which I have become addicted to), is not on the list of work outs. Zero clue why.

Despite the fact that I can’t get accurate calorie counts and often times guestimate the workout exertion, I find it good to track my goals and my general calorie count for the day. And, according to my original weight and my dream weight, and the calories it suggested I have in my daily life, I should be at my target weight by June 31. Will it happen? I don’t know.

 Map My Walk

Map My Walk app

This app tracks how far I walk via live tracking. It can give me routes, follows the routes I walk and even lets me compete with friends (which I don’t). It is hard to figure out distance in Chiang Mai with the sois and the not-on-the-map paths. Enter Map My Walk. It lets me know how far I am walking, my speed, the distance and more. It is great for me to figure out how much I walk in a day, and let’s me compete against previous times and speeds on routes I regularly walk.

What apps do you use for weight loss? 

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