Health Tech + Food Nerd Blog

I’ve been an Apple fan since I saw my first Mac at age 9. When Steve returned to Apple in ’97, and subsequently unveiled the first iMac at a keynote a year later, my love for Apple grew into full blown fanboyism. For the Apple fan a keynote is like Christmas morning. I’ve always wanted to attend one and last week I got my chance. I woke up at 2:30am and joined the 100-or-so people already in line, surprised to find other attendees so talkative and lively in the early hours of the morning. We were all like children, sleepless, anxious, and full of speculation for what the morning had in store.

The market for wearable health a fitness tracking gadgets may seem like the wild west, but it won’t for long. Something is taking shape, and the days of rapid and seemingly directionless horizontal spread without clearly defined market verticals emerging are numbered. Players are beginning to address needs that provide significant value to stakeholders with deep pockets.

Sometimes the best motivator in life is a deadline. That's exactly what signing up for a race gives you when it comes to your fitness routine. But looking beyond your fitness goals, races can also be great events full of new experiences to broaden your horizons. With that idea in mind, here is a list of four upcoming races spread across the United States in places that you might not have considered visiting otherwise. Check one out, but make sure you move quickly - they are all happening very soon!

Several months ago I wrote a piece titled "3 Themes Carrying Over Into 2014," in which I highlighted some of the trends I expected to come to fruition this year in the health tracking market. Just to review, one of the core questions I raised was whether or not a typical consumer really wants to lug around two devices, their phone and a separate tracking gizmo, or wearable.

Have you ever needed a quick healthy snack before a run or workout, just to realize you have literally nothing lying around? It’s honestly embarrassing how many times this has happened to me, especially on busy days when I’m in a huge hurry to squeeze a run in before a meeting, or more often, before dark. Because I’m what my mother would call “an utterly helpless single, male”  - which I will now translate into normal, less offensive speak as, “not a good planner” - I went on the lookout for a couple of services that could make my active lifestyle a little more convenient.

Enter a couple of my new favorite services, which are similar to one another in many ways, but below I'll break down the core differences and hopefully give you an idea of which will be the best fit for you.

It’s time to address an important question that I know has been on your mind … what’s going on with connected water bottles? Okay, maybe passive hydration tracking isn't a mainstream concern, but for some of us, the concept is relevant - and beyond that, the attempts at executing it are pretty darn interesting. While it might be awhile yet before your water bottle syncs with Nudge, that doesn't make it any less entertaining to keep an eye on the latest projects that are popping up on crowdfunding sites.

I've been a big nerd about tracking my fitness routines for awhile now, but I have to admit that when we got started working on Nudge, sleep tracking was totally new to me. It didn't take long until I was hooked. We all have our obvious reasons to avoid sleep issues - joining the ranks of the walking dead isn't ideal, and neither is being prickly as all get-out during the course of a workday - but there's also research suggesting there are plenty more serious reasons to pay close attention to your nightly rest...

It's no secret, nutrition tracking systems are generally tedious and frustrating. With each calorie consumed users are forced to manually search through glorified databases and guess at whether the item on the page is really THAT similar to what was eaten. For example, simply typing "banana" into a calorie tracker yields dozens of results ranging from bananas of various sizes all the way to "banana pudding." Now envision having to perform this task after every meal … daunting, right? Well, what if that was no longer the case?

The App Store is chalk full of strength training apps, and let's be honest, they aren't all worth the time it takes to download them. With all the riffraff out there it can be impossible to find a good place to start, and that's exactly why this "Shortlist of Strength Training Apps" was created. And for a list of only three apps all focused on strictly on strength training, these fantastic executions provide three wildly different experiences, and you're bound to become a fan of at least one.

For the quick workday circuit...

It's no secret, wearables are exploding onto the scene in full force and we at Nudge couldn't be more excited about the prospect of adding some of these new devices to our integration portfolio. Over the past month the world has been introduced to over a dozen new devices promising state-of-the-art tracking experiences going beyond the traditional step and active-minute count generally found in the current market. Whether you are a quantified junky, or just some someone interested in a new health tracker we thought it would be appropriate to highlight some of the devices we are the most excited about.