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    Body innovation

    Keep your fitness resolutions with these handy exercise apps

    Jonathan Rienstra
    Jan 6, 2013 | 10:00 am
    • Nike Training Club offers myriad exercises and workout routines to kick you intoshape this year.
      Photo by Jonathan Rienstra
    • It'll probably take you a while to get to this pose, but Pocket Yoga guides youalong the way with routines that require some real effort.
      Photo by Jonathan Rienstra
    • Fooducate analyzes your food intake, helps you find healthier alternatives andcounts calories to help you lose weight.
      Photo by Jonathan Rienstra
    • Fooducate keeps track of your daily intake and grades each thing you put in yourmouth. No cheating.
      Photo by Jonathan Rienstra

    With the new year come new resolutions. Most of them involve things like “getting fit” or “losing weight” or “not eating an embarrassing amount of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for breakfast.”

    However, most of us will not keep our resolutions because we’re not ready to change; we focus on the punishment aspect of our resolutions or we’re too ambitious in our goals. To help, we’ve put together a list of apps that will get anyone on track to a healthier body, one mile/pushup/apple at a time.

    We covered RunKeeper in our foodie apps —and for good reason. This is one of the best exercise apps out there, with its in-depth analysis and wide range of activities to measure. It even gives you realistic goals to strive for on a step-by-step basis. Suddenly “losing 25 pounds” isn’t a pie-in-the-sky notion but something tangible to work toward with a game plan. (Free for iOS, Android)

    Not everyone is comfortable in a yoga studio, so Pocket Yoga brings the studio to your place.

    Speaking of losing 25 pounds, this writer was able to do just that using Pocket Yoga. Not everyone is comfortable in a yoga studio, so this app brings the studio to your place. Choose from three types of workouts at varying lengths and then enjoy the most strenuous, relaxing, sweaty, peaceful workout out there. ($2.99 for iOS, Android)

    PushUps PRO was also mentioned in our foodie apps round-up, and it’s apropos here too. This is the ultimate step-by-step attitude. Doing 100 pushups (the real ones that they do in the military) might sound daunting, but PUP goes day by day to get you from wobbly elbows to steel pipes in 54 levels. It almost doesn’t even seem like work at that point. ($1.99 for iOS, $.99 for Android)

    Nike Training Club is designed for women, but any guy that can’t get a workout out of this app is making excuses. NTC sports multiple workout plans for cardio, toning and muscle growth with difficulty levels depending on how much you exercise. It also tracks your progress and offers workout plans from elite athletes like Serena Williams. (Free for iOS, Android)

    Some people respond better to competition. Nexercise makes working out a game with friends and family by keeping track of your daily exercise and putting up your score with everyone else’s. The motivation of keeping up with your old college friends or making sure that your little brother isn’t leaving you in his dust might do more to get you off the couch than any amount of self-guilt could. (Free for iOS, Android)

    So far, so good, right? Exercising daily leaves you feeling better mentally and physically. But our sedentary lifestyles can overwhelm us sometimes. StandApp breaks the monotony of our desk jobs by reminding us to do a few stretches and move around every now and then. Nothing here gets you in shape by itself, but it gets your muscles moving during the day and reminds you to work out later. (Free for iOS)

    Coming full circle on food apps, we have Fooducate. This app helps you keep track of what you eat each day and offers healthier alternatives to the foods you already enjoy. Fooducate also shows you how to get the best out of your meals and demonstrates how all that idle munching can add up with its calorie counter. (Free for iOS, Android)

    Remember that getting fit isn’t about some quick fix or temporary routine. A slow and steady approach, along with a realistic attitude, can do wonders, while fixating on the end result may only increase the distance to said result.

    The goal isn’t just to lose weight but to keep it off, which means that resolutions don’t have end dates. If you’re doing them right, they will work their way into your daily routine for good.

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    A smart home is a happy home

    Stop throwing money out the window: 6 easy steps to optimize your home's energy efficiency

    Brad Seal
    Jan 28, 2013 | 2:36 pm

    Not to depress anyone, but do you remember the cost of gasoline just 15 years ago? In 1998, drivers spent about a dollar for a gallon of gas. Prices have skyrocketed so much since then that we’re all nostalgic for the good old days of the ’90s.

    A similar price increase is underway with the cost of home energy. A growing population combined with a lack of new power plants to support it caused the Texas Public Utility Commission to raise the wholesale electricity price cap by 50 percent last summer. No one can predict exactly how the energy market will be affected in the long term by this cap increase, but if there is one tried-and-true business practice, it is that cost will be passed on to the consumer.

    Naturally, one way to fight rising home energy costs is to make your home more energy efficient. There are countless ways to do this, but what really works? You could call an energy expert to audit your house and tell you what you need to do, but many times these “experts” are simply salespeople in disguise — there to tell you what you need, which happens to be everything they sell.

    If you’d rather not replace your windows, at least go through and seal up any drafty ones.

    Here are some of the most effective things you can do to make your home more energy efficient before those high bills of the summer starts rolling in:

    Windows
    One of the biggest ways homes lose energy, especially older houses, is through leaky windows. If your windows resemble a sieve, you may want to think about replacing them.

    In Texas, the most important factor in a window is the solar heat gain coefficient. The lower the SHGC, the less heat gets transferred through. If you’ve ever lived through a Texas summer, you know that you want the SHGC as low as you can get it. You can also stop heat transfer with solar screens, but they obstruct your view as well as darken your home.

    If you’d rather not replace your windows, at least go through and seal up any drafty ones. Not only will windows without proper seals let air in, they will also let air-conditioned air out. While you’re at it, you might as well weather-strip your doors too.

    Attic insulation
    Ever stepped into your attic during the summer? Yuck. That gross space sits above your head all year long and can push your energy costs up, which is why it's important to have a properly insulated attic. There are several ways to insulate your attic space; the key is which method is best for you.

    The easiest and least expensive way to insulate your attic is spray-on cellulose insulation. This is what most attics have, but the question is if you have enough. In a hot zone like Dallas, you want to make sure you have at least 15 inches of insulation in your attic.

    One popular form of attic insulation these days is radiant barrier, but there have been several questions about whether it makes enough difference in your energy bill to be worth the extra cost. Most experts agree that a foil radiant barrier is much more effective than a spray-on barrier. If you decide to get radiant barrier, make sure whoever is installing it knows what they’re doing since it won’t work nearly as well if it isn’t installed correctly.

    In a hot zone like Dallas, you want to make sure you have at least 15 inches of insulation in your attic.

    Then there is spray foam. Foam is considered possibly even more effective the radiant barrier, but the issue is again cost.

    One thing to consider when getting attic insulation is the location of your interior air conditioning unit. Many homes have the unit up in the attic, which the dumbest possible place because it’s in the hottest part of the house. If you have a unit located in your attic, it's probably worth the cost of radiant barrier or spray foam.

    Attic ventilation
    Along with insulating your attic, make sure there is enough airflow going through the space. This not only circulates hot air from your attic, but it also keeps the attic space dry. You don’t want moisture in your attic, because that can lead to mold and mildew in your home.

    There are several ways to ventilate your attic space, but the key is airflow. That means you need to pull new air into your attic and old air out. Generally, the way to do this is to have soffit vents on the eves of your home and some sort of vent, turbine or fan at the top of the attic. Make sure your vents aren’t obstructed and your fans or turbines are actually working.

    If you’re handy with a tool kit, you can install soffit vents yourself. If you’re like me and are just as capable of ending up in the emergency room as you are successfully completing a home project with power tools, hire someone do it for you.

    HVAC unit
    How old is your air conditioning unit? Just because it’s running doesn’t mean it’s working properly. Obviously, replacing an entire air-conditioning unit is costly. Before you go that route, check that your HVAC system is the right size. Homes often have the wrong size unit.

    If your energy bills are incredibly high, your HVAC system could be the culprit.

    Secondly, you want to check the SEER rating on your unit. This measures how efficient it is. As of 2006, the federal government mandates the air conditioners need to have a SEER rating of at least a 13. The older a unit gets, the less efficient it gets. If your summer energy bills are incredibly high, your HVAC system could be the culprit.

    If you can’t spend the money needed to change out your system, check your ducts to make sure there aren’t any leaks that lets your air conditioning seep out before it gets to its destination. And always make sure you change out your air filters every few months. Not only will that make your unit run more effectively, it will also get rid of allergens in the air.

    Light bulbs
    Most people know that CFL and LED light bulbs use less energy than the regular incandescent counterparts. According to energystar.gov, you save an average of $6 per year, per light bulb with efficient lighting. That may not sound like a lot, but go through and count all of the light bulbs in your home.

    If you find 20 light bulbs to change out, you should save $120 a year. Remember that you get what you pay for, so make sure the bulbs your buy are the best fit for your home. Don’t just buy up the cheapest bulbs because you could sacrifice quality in doing so.

    Little things that help
    Check your electrical outlets and light switches on your exterior walls. Often times they leak, so put foam gaskets behind them. It’s inexpensive and it can help. If you have an attic hatch that is located inside of your house, you might want to install an attic tent so that your air conditioning doesn’t go up into your attic.

    Finally, check your hot water heater. If your water gets extremely hot, to the point where you can’t stand touching it, turn down the water heater because you’re paying to heat water to a temperature you aren’t even using.

    Paying your monthly energy bill will never be pleasant, but by making your home more energy efficient you can avoid having a downright scary moment when you open your mailbox.

    ---

    Brad Seal is a former energy auditor who specialized in creating energy efficient green homes.

    Leaky windows can lead to higher energy costs.

     
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