MyPlate is available on the web and iPhone, for Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 (whatever that is). You set up your profile on their website, including some basics like how much you weigh, how tall you are, what your activity level is, and what your weight goal is (gain, maintain, or lose). Based on this information, the program gives you a daily calorie allowance for meeting your weight goal over time.

During the day you can quickly and easily add the foods you eat into the food diary. When you exercise you can track your activity and the program will automatically figure out the equivalent calories for the workout and add it to your outstanding calorie balance. So if you’re cutting it close come the end of the day but can’t resist a McDonald’s sundae, bust a move and burn some calories. It’ll free up the calories you need for the sundae and you can stay within your daily goal!

The site and apps have a wide variety of exercises and levels, in contrast to most other offerings that give you a flat calorie count for each exercise. If you add yoga for example, it offers Hatha, power & bikram – you can narrow down the exercise to get a count that is more realistic to what you’re doing.

You can track breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and water with the app, and it syncs with the website so it’s independent of where you are. No more trying to remember what you had and entering it all in at once. Real time calorie counting is the way to go!

Of course, every few days or so, it doesn’t hurt to weigh yourself and add it into the chart. The site and app will then graph your progress so you can see where you’re at with your goal, and you can link weight loss with your food diary to see what works best.

This app is the best calorie tracking app / website that I’ve used. Hands down. Why?

First off, pretty much every food item you could ever eat is in the database, and it’s continually being updated by users. On other sites I’ve found it’s not always possible to be precise, and I’ve had to substitute other brands or products. With Livestrong I haven’t failed to find what I want once. If you’re munching on a new product and have the box handy, you can always add the food to the system by punching in all the nutritional information yourself. Then that product is available for others to add to their own food diaries. Nothing like making a contribution to the site to help make it bigger and better!??

The best part of this app is that you can add in your own recipes. Say I have a recipe for family lasagna. Sure, you could go in and add a random lasagna to your food diary, but you wouldn’t have accurate nutritional information. With the Livestrong MyPlate Calorie Counter, you can actually construct a recipe. For lasagna, I would add in my pound of ground beef, my jar of tomato sauce, the noodles, etc. Then I would create the recipe and name it whatever I want, say, “Family Lasagna.” Then, if I ate a tenth of the lasagna, I could add the item to my food diary and punch in .10 to record the exact nutritional totals for my dinner. This is one of the things that sold me on the app; I make a lot of meals at home from scratch.

If you’re serious about eating right, working out, and watching your water intake, I would highly recommend the MyPlate Calorie Tracker. Whether you’re hitting the fast food restaurants or making all your meals from home, you will be able to track anything and everything. You can’t go wrong with such an intuitive, thorough service!

Sara’s rating: 5/5!

Think you know your healthy foods?  Think again.

I consider myself a pretty healthy eater, but the Fooducate iPhone app has definitely educated me  about what I keep in my kitchen cupboards.  Sure, we all know that candy and potato chips are unwelcome in a healthy diet, but even the things I thought were healthy have hidden additives, trans-fat (even when not on the label!) and other intriguing bi-products that I never imagined were in my food.  Thanks to the Fooducate app, I now better understand what it is I’m bringing in the house -even when I’m at the grocery store!

Fooducate is an iPhone app that lets you scan the bar codes of foods and learn more about their contents, how good they are for you, and even offer  alternatives that may be healthier.  The process is simple – use your iPhone’s camera to scan the UPC bar code on the package, and  you’re presented with a screen that gives you a rundown of everything you need to know about the food.  Fooducate gives you at-a-glance information, including a “grade” and helpful notes and warnings.

So…when I scanned my can of store brand pineapple slices, Fooducate graded it an B+ and let me know that it was naturally high in vitamin C, had no added sweeteners, and was a minimally processed food.  Of course, if I was looking for a food with a better grade than a B+ I could hit the “alternatives” button and be shown a screen of equally delicious products with higher ratings.  In this case the app suggested Dole Tropical Gold Pineapple Chunks (A- rating).

So then I decided to see exactly how “healthy” my bag of Frito Lay corn chips were!  Well, Fooducate rates it at a C.  When I clicked to find alternatives, it suggested a few different brands of corn and tortilla chips graded at C+, and threw in popcorn graded at an A-.  I’m sorry, but if I’m in the mood to eat corn chips, I’m definitely not going to popcorn.  Just sayin’.

Some of the items I scanned had lower scores than I expected.  Take for example Special K Chocolatey Delight cereal.  You’d think it’d be healthy, right?! Well, it’s graded C-.  The app lets me know that it has trans-fat (because it has traces that the FDA doesn’t require be on the nutrition label), 2.5 teaspoons of sugar per serving, has high fructose corn syrup, and BHT additive, which studies show to be carcinogenic and should be avoided. Huh. Who knew?  Even my loaf of Sara Lee whole wheat bread didn’t score nearly as high as I expected.  You’d think it would score an A, but it was actually a B and the app notified me of several additives.

Scan a food that isn’t in their database?  Happened to me, but I was a good citizen and helped expand it.  When you scan an item that they don’t have it gives you the option to  add it.  You take three photos – one of the front of the product, one of the nutrition label, and one of the ingredients list.  Then you can quickly and easily email the file to the company and they add it in their system.  Nice!

The app has several other features which are handy. It stores what you scanned in your history, and you can create a shopping list for the grocery store. It also has a quick link to their blog where you can read daily health news.

This is a great, in-depth app that is available through the App Store for free.  You can upgrade to the non-ad version, but I didn’t find the ads disruptive to the usability of this app.  It’s a great app for anyone that wants to be more aware of what they’re eating and what kinds of additives and ingredients are in their foods.

But who are we kidding?  We all know that the healthiest foods DON’T have a bar code!

Sara’s rating: 5/5!

We will shortly be releasing a new platform for clinicians, to help them collaborate closely with their clients who use Optimism. There will be a choice of plans for using this platform, including a free option for use with a small number of clients and paid options for a larger number.

The existing Optimism apps will now be free, regardless of whether they are used with a clinician. And despite being free, we are committed to their continual improvement and releasing new versions for other devices.

If you have purchased a license in the past, we want to express our gratitude again. Thank you! Your purchase has helped us reach the position where we can make this announcement today.

Home Page | Web App Demo | Web App Registration

Mac OS X Download | Windows Download | iPhone Download

 Please support the apps by forwarding this announcement to others who might benefit from them.

If you have a website, please consider pointing your readers to our home page.
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]]> http://www.findingoptimism.com/blog/apps/special-announcement/feed/ 0 http://www.findingoptimism.com/blog/around-the-web/i-can-never-get-to-bed-on-time/ http://www.findingoptimism.com/blog/around-the-web/i-can-never-get-to-bed-on-time/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:37:46 +0000 james http://www.findingoptimism.com/blog/?p=1985 The reason is I don’t have a bedtime. Between 12 and 2 is the norm, but any time 6 hours either side isn’t unusual.

Here’s a video by Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project, with a challenge to take bedtimes seriously.

She expands on the video at Psych Central, with 7 tips for getting to bed “on time”.

• Give yourself a specific bedtime (really, it’s the key)
• Don’t wait until you’re sleepy
• Stay away from the internet for at least an hour beforehand
• No caffeine for several hours beforehand (that’s 8 hrs for me)
• Remind yourself how great it feels to wake up naturally
• Get ready for bed well ahead of time
• Create a bedtime ritual that you do every night.

To read the reasoning for each visit the Psych Central post.

Why am I writing about this? Because getting enough sleep is just about the best thing you can do for your mental health.

I’m using reminders on my phone to tell me to go to bed – at the same time each night. 3 nights so far and it’s working.

Following on from the Happiness Advantage post, YES! Magazine has an article about the 10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy. In summary they are:

• Savor everyday moments
• Avoid comparisons with others
• Put money low on the list
• Have meaningful goals
• Take initiative at work
• Make friends and treasure family
• Smile even when you don’t feel like it
• Say thank you like you mean it
• Exercise
• Donate or spend money on others

Read the 10 Things post for the fleshed out details.

These things are easier said than done, even when you’re well, but I think it’s a good purposeful list of things for the mental health toolbox.

If you’d like a 12 minute summary – rather than the book or 7 hour audio – then the talk below is for you. It’s well worth watching for its interesting, research-backed findings, and for Shaun Achor’s wicked sense of humor.

There is a full blog post on the talk at Holistic with Humor.

The overall top 10 are:

1. Regimented sleep schedule
2. Exercise
3. Reduce alcohol
4. Yoga
5. Mindfulness meditation
6. Lamictal
7. Sunlight
8. Psychotherapy
9. Self-tracking
10. Small, frequent meals

I was aware of the first 9, but what’s with small, frequent meals?

Interesting that there is only one medicine on the list, with respondents rating most of the others as ineffective.

See the full results on the CureTogether Blog.

There is a yawning big gap in the market for a CBT therapist to specialize in exercise. Or at least overcoming the mental obstacles that prevent exercise. My recent post Psychologists Therapy Treats Mind and Body pointed to one such therapist who combines psychotherapy and fitness sessions. It’s a close match, although he doesn’t necessarily focus on a mind-exercise problem, as much as provide a treatment solution.

Despite my finely tuned powers of search I’ve only found one research paper on CBT and exercise: “Physical Activity in Women: Effects of a Self-Regulation Intervention.”

The paper’s conclusion is positive:

“…this study provides evidence that cognitive–behavioral strategies help women be more physically active. The self-regulation technique—mental contrasting with implementation intentions—was effective for initiating and maintaining behavior change. It is a low-cost intervention component that requires only a single session to learn the technique. People can then apply the technique on their own.”

That’s my kind of technique.

The conclusion is a no-brainer. The interesting thing to me is the technique used.

By way of summary, participants in the self-intervention group made diary entries and mental notes each day on the following:

• their most important current wish regarding physical activity
• the most positive outcome of realizing their wish and events and experiences they associated with this positive outcome
• the most critical obstacle together with events and experiences they associated with this obstacle
• three implementation intentions with the following questions:
  - When and where does the obstacle occur, and what can I do to overcome or circumvent the obstacle?
  - When and where is an opportunity to prevent the obstacle from occurring, and what can I do to prevent it from occurring?
  - When and where is a good opportunity for me to act on my wish, and what would this action be?

If you’re interested you can download a PDF of the research paper.

I’ve always been puzzled by this. “Optimism” has an element of confidence, with an expectation of progress. Hope is more wishful* . You could say that hope is a precursor to optimism.

With applications unashamedly named “Optimism”, naturally enough I’m very interested in the role of optimism in improving mental health.

In the Huffington Post Dr. Tian Dayton recently wrote about how optimism can be learned, drawing on the well known work of Martin Seligman. Seligman’s work has been foundational in understanding helplessness as a learned psychological condition, and “learned optimism” as its remedy.

From the article:

“Optimists, according to research tend to be healthier, are more active, eat more fruits and vegetables and spend more time actively with others. So who wouldn’t want to be one? The question is, can optimism be learned, and if so, wouldn’t that be a great New Year’s resolution…”

Read more of the article at the Huffington Post, or visit Martin Seligman’s home page at Authentic Happiness.

* except Christian hope, which in the Bible means confident expectation – the return of Christ, transformation and eternal life.

I found an interesting article by “Boring Old Man” (otherwise anonymous) that addresses this issue in a historical perspective. It touches on what I would call a “dumbing down” of diagnostic criteria, and the influence of politics and big pharma money.

“If probably not biological mental illness is not to be in the domain of psychiatry, let it go and make no claim that the DSM-5 [or psychiatry] is comprehensive. If psychiatry intends to continue being a specialty that treats mental illness proper, reflect the probably not biological mental illnesses in the DSM-5 revision accurately – beginning with the deconstruction of Major Depressive Disorder. Otherwise, psychiatry will continue to be a pretend science dwindling into irrelevance. I’ve got a hunch that 2012 will be a year when that choice will probably have to be made, one way or another…”

Read the full article at 1 Boring Old Man » probably, in 2012….