Health Tech + Food Nerd Blog

The Nudge Factor is a 30-day snapshot of how healthy you've been living. It takes your health tracking data from several behavioral health factors, pumps it through our proprietary algorithm, and fires back one, simple score from 1-110. It is not only at the core of our app and the Nudge UX, but is also at the core of our vision for the future of this company, and the mobile health tracking space. In subsequent posts, we'll be talking more about macro issues like how we think the Nudge Factor shapes our unique position in the market, and potential future applications for the Nudge Factor. But for now it seems more prudent to start with a very basic description of what the Nudge Factor is, and what it's there to do for you, the Nudge user.

In recent reviews of Moves and MapMyFitness I talked about the advantages of both passive tracking and GPS enabled tracking, which are extremely informative and allow you to track loads of information about how much you're moving.

Next week is Thanksgiving and officially kicks off eating season. The average American consumes 4,500 calories and 229 grams of fat at Thanksgiving dinner alone - more than twice what you should be eating daily. That doesn't include any other meals you'll eat that day and all the leftovers consumed several days after.

I'm personally not one who wants to count calories during Thanksgiving as the holiday is more about enjoying time with your family and eating dishes you wouldn't normally indulge in. Holiday food brings back fond memories of family tradition and good times so I automatically shut off when I hear people preaching non-traditional dishes to replace normal fair. I don't find anything celebratory about eating seeds, raw kale, fat free processed foods, and meat substitutes. There may be a time for that, but in my opinion that time is NOT Thanksgiving dinner.

There are many different fitness trackers on the market that work well and even more that aren't worth a look. The ones that are the most useful, especially for outdoor exercise are apps that utilize the GPS in smartphones to track the time and distance of your activities. As I mentioned last week, the new iPhone 5s even offer a passive tracking chip in it so it can monitor your every movement and Moves offers this same type of tracking on older iPhones and Android.