December 12, 2008
Sarah

So Jennifer’s last blog has inspired my blog this month. The winter months are always hard for me with training. I seem to lose motivation. Mainly because, as Jennifer said, who wants to ride there bike cooped up indoors on a trainer? But no matter how much we hate the machines we drag ourselves to the gym during the off-season so we will be ready to go once official training starts.

But, I have discovered a few things this winter that have re-sparked my motivation. They’re similar to the machines but I prefer to call them gadgets. The little devices we use that were not available to T1’s 20 years ago. My two favorites being the new CGM that I am expecting in the mail before Christmas (merry Christmas to me!) and also my early x-mas/late b-day present- my new iphone!

You all can understand why I am so excited about the CGM, but let me tell you what I have discovered about the iphone that I had never even thought of before. I never thought I would want an iphone. Who needs all that fancy stuff when all you’re doing is making and receiving calls? But then I got one, and I found so many cool things!

My favorites:

1. A diabetes log! No more carrying around my little pad and pen in my purse to record my BS, food, insulin, and exercise. This application has a spot for it all. You can record date, time, time of day, blood sugars, insulin, food (with carb counts) and any additional notes on exercise etc. You can then email to yourself to print out for your doctor, or email it directly to your doctor!
2. The website Daily Plate that Lorrie told us about has an iphone app where you can look up food nutrition facts, exercise, and record it all.
3. Restaurant Nutrition, which gives you nutritional info for more than 30 popular restaurants and adds new ones almost weekly!
4. A pedometer (now how cool is that?) if you run or walk, it tells you how far you’ve gone and number of calories burned.
5. You can also GPS running routes!
6. And although this one is not diabetes related it is by far my favorite- Shazam. If you hear a song in the elevator that you like Shazam will ‘listen to it’ for 10 seconds and tell you what the song is and who sings it. You can then buy it directly from iTunes.

So I have a new love for my winter training. I am armed with a CGM and an iphone that keeps me occupied when I am sitting by the fire when it is -15 degrees outside (yes! We hit a record here in Denver last weekend. Hasn’t been that cold here since 1901! Let’s just say I definitely ran INDOORS on the treadmill that day!)

Merry Christmas to you all! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday filled with yummy Christmas cookies- Mari, where can i find one of those russian ones? I have never tried before =).