App Thursday: Pushups 100+ Lite

Intro­duc­ing our newest weekly fea­ture… App Thursday!

Using mobile apps, gad­gets other tools to keep up with your work­out or diet is noth­ing new. There are plenty of fun toys and apps that have been avail­able for quite a while to help in the process. But with so many options out there, how do you find the best tools? Let us help! Every Thurs­day, we will fea­ture a fit­ness appli­ca­tion that one of the train­ers has reg­u­larly used, tested or at least researched to bring you only the best of the best.

Today’s app is brought to you by Andy Abend: Pushups 100+ Lite

Andy has been using this app since last month and gives it 5 stars. This app is espe­cially handy for this month, with our goal of 50,000 pushups.

Descrip­tion
Increase the num­ber of your daily pushups with this incred­i­ble train­ing pro­gram. After this unique plan 100 or more pushups should not be a prob­lem for you.

Fea­tures

• auto­matic train­ing pro­gram for 3 weeks
• pause timer
• reminder for next session
• data export into .csv or .pdf file
• weekly auto­matic plan dif­fi­culty adjust­ment (by test queries) begin­ning from the halfway point of the train­ing plan
• rep­re­sen­ta­tion of your train­ing results with a graph
• each entry can be stored and deleted separately
• selec­tion of indi­vid­ual train­ing sessions

Cost
Free (there is also a $0.99 ver­sion that comes with addi­tional features)

Com­pat­i­bil­ity
iPhone
iPad
iPod Touch
(Sorry Android and Black­berry users!)

Sug­gest an App to Fea­ture
What fit­ness apps do you use? Let us know if you use an app that should be fea­tured here. Share it in the Com­ments, or email lauren@​bc4​c.​com with some details. Thanks!

The Amazing Power of Avocados

From Health​.com

Love avo­ca­dos?

Well you’ll love them even more when you dis­cover their amaz­ing ben­e­fits: they keep you thin, pro­tect your vision, and may even pre­vent cancer.

Eye opener
Pro­tect your vision with a few slices of avo­cado at lunch or din­ner. Avo­ca­dos are rich in lutein and zeax­an­thin, antiox­i­dants found in the retina that keep eyes healthy; they also may help pre­vent age-related prob­lems, like cataracts and mac­u­lar degeneration.

Can­cer fighter
Extracts from avo­ca­dos kill or stop the growth of pre­can­cer­ous cells that lead to oral can­cer and may have a sim­i­lar effect on other can­cers, accord­ing to a recent study. Researchers credit the fruit’s unique combo of nutrients—which include folate and vit­a­mins C and E.

Nutri­ent booster
Add avo­cado to salsa for a big­ger health pay­off. A study from The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity found that peo­ple absorbed four-and-a-half times more of the cancer-fighter lycopene from the toma­toes when avo­cado was added; the healthy fats help you absorb more nutrients.

Health­ier fat
Skip the mayo, and go for creamy avo­cado on your sand­wich. It packs 4 grams of heart-healthy monoun­sat­u­rated fat (which low­ers cho­les­terol), 2 grams of fiber, and 1 gram of pro­tein per ounce, mak­ing it a lower-fat, more-filling sub­sti­tute for the white stuff.

What are your favorite ways to enjoy an avocado?

Log and Blog

Con­grat­u­la­tions! You’ve com­pleted Day 1 of March boot camp. Only 15 (or 25 depend­ing how you’re count­ing) days to go…

Make the most of this month by fol­low­ing two sim­ple rules:
Log and Blog!

Log: You’ve prob­a­bly heard it hun­dreds of times: write your goals down. But do you know why this step is so impor­tant? When you put pen to paper, you turn your thoughts into some­thing tan­gi­ble. That’s why we strongly encour­age you to track your diet and fit­ness goals by writ­ing them down. You will quickly see how the act of writ­ing these things down helps keep you moti­vated. Here’s a handy PDF that you can print to track your meals, goals and progress (print page 11 to track your meals)…

Down­load and print log book (PDF)

Blog: Have you ever heard that work­ing out in a group is one of the best ways to stay moti­vated? It’s true! Hav­ing peo­ple there along­side you to share in your expe­ri­ence and encour­age you along the way is often­times the dif­fer­ence between a suc­cess­ful exer­cise plan and one that tends to fiz­zle out over time. Share in your chal­lenges and your suc­cesses with your fel­low BC4Cers, and be sup­port­ive of their efforts as well by check­ing this blog after every workout.

You can also stay in touch with your fel­low BC4Cers via our Face­book page. Go ahead… go there and Like us today!

Read on to learn more about track­ing your meals…

We at BC4C would like you all to take a few moments and con­sider where and how you are get­ting the food you eat today.

• Do you plan to grab break­fast while hang­ing out your car window?
• Do you plan on grab­bing a hand­ful of M&M’s from your co-worker’s desk and call it a mid-morning snack?
• Do you plan to stand in line for lunch and order the fastest item that can be prepared?
• And do you plan to eat what ever is left on your child’s plate and con­sider your din­ner taken care of?

When we were in school we were forced to do a num­ber of sim­ple cal­cu­la­tions in order for us to add and sub­tract like sec­ond nature; the same prin­ci­pal applies for our nutri­tion journals.

Log­ging your meals — though tedious like math — will help you devote some time and energy to plan out where and what you eat. We ask you to eat five meals a day — not three meals and two snacks — because each time you eat you should use it as an oppor­tu­nity to get in the nutri­ents you need. The five meals you eat should be the vehi­cles for you to obtain your 9 serv­ings of grains, 4 serv­ings of veg­eta­bles, 3 serv­ings of fruit, 2 serv­ings of dairy, and 5 serv­ings of pro­tein the USDA rec­om­mends we eat every day.

While using a nutri­tion jour­nal, we hope that when you walk out the door every morn­ing, you do so with a plan of how you will get the nutri­ents you need to stay active and healthy — which will even­tu­ally become sec­ond nature.

Remem­ber, print page 11 to track your meals…

Down­load and print log book (PDF)

Tell us how you’re doing on Day 1. Leave a com­ment by click­ing the “Com­ments” link at the top of this post.

Piedmont Park Track Club

This month’s shirt is inspired by all of the BC4Cers that have been train­ing for upcom­ing road races — includ­ing half-marathons and marathons. We’re not afraid to run!

Please note the lit­tle “48” inside the Her­mes foot… To date, we’ve been able to donate $48,000 to many won­der­ful orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing Pied­mont Park Con­ser­vancy and Kate’s Club — thanks to you and your hard work!

Please post your results and improve­ments from today’s PT test — we want to hear your suc­cess stories!

Enjoy your week off next week.* See you next month — Tues­day, March 6th!

*Sev­eral folks are already plan­ning some infor­mal work­outs for next week. Stay tuned to our Face­book page for announce­ments of workouts.

2012 Charity Partner Winners

Thank you to all that par­tic­i­pated in our poll to decide the remain­ing char­ity part­ners for 2012.

In 2012, BC4C will con­tinue to sup­port the Pied­mont Park Con­ser­vancy with 50% of our pro­ceeds all year. Kate’s Club has been (and con­tin­ues to be) our fea­tured char­ity part­ner for the first quar­ter (Jan-Mar) of 2012. Addi­tion­ally, we will sup­port each of the fol­low­ing causes for one quar­ter with the remain­ing 50% of our proceeds.

And the win­ners are… drum­roll please…

1. Labrador Friends of the South — with 33.5% of the vote (991 votes)
2. Atlanta Bicy­cle Coali­tion — with 23.16% of the vote (685 votes)
3. Trees Atlanta — with 22.14% of the vote (655 votes)

Thank you to the 3,000 peo­ple that vis­ited our site to vote! We look for­ward to see­ing each of you in the park next year!