I have had a few people ask me recently how I track my exercise, so here is the low-down on my quantified self tools and workflow:
- Food and drink is logged with MyFitnessPal. This gives me total kilojoules intake per day. MFP has a clunky web app, a sub-par Android app and an API that is not yet open to the public, but the food database is far better than any of the competitors that I have checked.
- Steps, water consumption and sleep are all logged with a FitBit One. I love the One.
- Weight is logged with a Withings wireless scale, which is connected to Withings Healthmate.
- Every run, ride and hike is tracked with a Garmin Fenix. The Fenix (version 1) is a flawed device in many ways, but still a fantastic watch for outdoor activities. Over two years on, and I still prefer it over the three generations of the Suunto Ambit and see no compelling reason to upgrade to the new Fenix 2 or any of the Garmin sports watches, such as as the Forerunner series.
- All my runs, rides and hikes are uploaded into Endomondo. Endomondo is my preferred exercise tracking tool in terms of feature set, ease of use, and ease of accessing my data compared to Strava, MapMyRun and RunKeeper. It has finally replaced the Excel-based exercise logging spreadsheet that I have used for the last decade.
- Since I have joined the Vigor and PlanetInnovation cycling “clubs”on Strava, any ride longer than 20km is also uploaded into Strava.
- Temperature is logged with a Garmin Tempe, connected to the Fenix via ANT+.
- Heart rate is logged with a Mio Link, connected to the Fenix.
Some of the services are linked to eliminate data duplication: Healthmate is connected to MyFitnessPal, while MyFitnessPal and Endomondo are both connected to FitBit, so I can easily review total kilojoules in and out per day and per week.
There are services I want to look at for better reporting and analysis, such as TicTrac and exist.io; until then I find the combination of Endomondo and Fitbit works well enough for my data analysis needs.
I will follow this post up with another one answering the question of “why do all this?” another time.