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Fitbit And Travel

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The Fitbit One shown compared to a coin

The Fitbit One shown compared to a coin

I travel quite a bit and I often end up moving through different timezones.

If you’re using a Fitbit this is important.

You need to remember to update your Fitbit to have your correct timezone. I’m not sure how well the Fibit system compensates for big timezone changes overall, but if you check your progress every day it’ll look rather odd unless you adjust the timezone. If you don’t the Fitbit will happily record that you went to bed in the middle of the day and were really active all night ..

Of course some people probably do live like that 🙂

Fresh Tuna Steak

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Fresh tuna steak is superb. Unfortunately it’s not the most common of fish stocked in Irish supermarkets. While most of them claim to stock it, more often than not it’s not available when you go looking for it.

Over the weekend I picked up a couple of nice slices of tuna steak that had been reduced by 50%. Why were they reduced? Due to it being a long weekend!

There are a lot of ways you can prepare tuna steak. Last night I opted for a combination.

I grilled the tuna steak on my George Foreman for a couple of minutes and served it with a very simple tomato sauce. The sauce was a simple combination of shallots, garlic, herbs and tomato. Adding in a serving of pasta and the end result was delicious!

Heinz Tomato Soup With “Twist of Chilli”

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twist-of-chilliSince I’m back eating soup for lunch again I’ve been trying out different brands and flavours.

Heinz are currently offering “special edition” soups. I’m not sure what the logic behind them is, though I assume it’s some way of rationalising their rather inflated price. Fortunately they were on “special” at the weekend, so the price was closer to the one you’d pay for a can of soup. (I never thought I’d be so fixated on the pricing of soups .. )

I’m not sure how many flavours they’re offering in this “range”, but I like spicy food, so the tomato soup with “a twist of chilli” caught my eye.

It’s not that spicy, but there’s definitely a small “kick”.

Calorie wise a 400g tin “weighs in” at about 236 calories. Preparation is simple – about 3 minutes in the microwave (obviously you take it out of the metal tin and heat it in a non-metallic bowl or other container, unless you like the idea of exploding microwaves!)

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Kale Pasta & Sardines

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kale-sardine-pasta

Kale is a wonderfully tasty addition to your cooking arsenal.

Unfortunately it can be quite awkward to get, so I haven’t been able to use it in my cooking for the last couple of months. Fortunately I’ve been able to get a supply in the last week both from local corner shop and from Tesco.

So this evening I had planned to do a pasta with anchovy dish. Of course, as luck would have it, I didn’t have any anchovies, so I had to rejig the recipe a bit.

The end result was incredibly tasty, so I’m sharing the recipe with you 🙂

I’m not 100% sure about the calorie count, so take it as a being a “guess”

 

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Kale Pasta & Sardines

A very tasty combination of kale, pasta and sardines with a bit of "bite"
Course Dinner
Cuisine Italian
Keyword fish, kale, pasta, sardines
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 15 minutes
Servings 1
Calories 700 kcal

Ingredients

  • one tin of sardines preferably in olive oil
  • tsp of chilli paste or one chilli pepper chopped
  • 100 g of wholewheat penne or similar pasta (to make a low carb version swap these out)
  • parmesan cheese
  • 100 g fresh kale chopped
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 cloves of garlic chopped
  • fresh ground black pepper
  • juice of half a lemon

Instructions

  1. Put on the pasta to cook

  2. Rinse and chop the kale.

  3. In a pan fry the sardines, chilli and garlic
  4. Add the kale and continue to cook until the kale has reduced and softened
  5. When the pasta is cooked add some of the pasta water to the pan with the kale
  6. Drain the pasta then add it into your kale and sardines and mix well adding the lemon juice
  7. Serve with some parmesan and black pepper to taste

Recipe Notes

You can make this recipe "low carb" by swapping out the normal pasta for a low carb alternative

 

Tasty Exotic Irish Soup From Fusion And Street

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I love trying out new things and so when I saw Fusion and Street‘s soups for sale at the weekend I picked up a couple.

Today I had their chicken soup and it was fantastic. Of course it’s not a “normal” chicken soup, it’s marketed as “A taste of Mumbai – chicken soup – garam masala spices and basmati rice”

It’s Irish made by a company in Kilkenny, which is just down the road from where I’m based.

Fusion street chicken mumbai soupCost-wise it’s about the same as most of the other soups in that category, so pricewise it isn’t an issue

In terms of calories it’s pretty “light” a 400g pack, which is one bowl, weighs in at about 364 calories

At the moment they have four different flavours:

  • A taste of Marrakech – vegetable soup with lentils
  • A taste of Bangkok –  chicken soup with Thai spices , jasmine rice and fresh lime
  • A taste of Mexico City – tomato soup with fresh coriander, red beans and corn
  • A taste of Mumbai – the chicken soup I mentioned

It’s available in most Tesco supermarkets in Ireland at the moment

 

Setting Up The Fitbit One

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The Fitbit One shown compared to a coin

The Fitbit One shown compared to a coin

The replacement for my Fitbit arrived this morning, so I spent a few minutes setting it up. I had been using a Fitbit Ultra, but they’re not longer being made (even though you can still get them via Amazon and a few other online retailers). I opted for the Fitbit One, as it has a number of features that I really like from the Ultra and I didn’t want to live without them.

To say that setting it up was easy would be an understatement. It was incredibly easy! 🙂

Once you’ve unpacked the Fitbit One you’ll probably want to charge it, as it will probably arrive with an empty, or near empty, battery.

The box contains both a charging cable and a wifi sync dongle. Both connect via USB. You’ll also get a “sleep wristband” which you can use in bed for tracking your sleep. (As a side-note, I hope they sell spare charging cables and wifi sync dongles, as I can easily see them getting misplaced!)

Unlike the Ultra, the Fitbit One does not have a built-in clip, so you need to put it in the provided “clip” that ships with it in order to attach it to your clothing. Of course if you’re just going to shove it in your pocket you might not need it, but the clip also acts as a protective case, so using it probably isn’t a bad idea.

If you’ve got an iPhone 4s (or higher)  you can actually ignore the wifi sync dongle, though it might be a small bit easier to use during the initial setup.

The Fitbit One will sync using blue-tooth with a number of devices including:

  • iPhone 4S
  • iPhone 5
  • iPod Touch (5th generation and higher)
  • iPad 3 (and I assume iPad mini, though I haven’t tried it yet)
  • Samsung Galaxy S III
  • Samsung Galaxy Note II

You’ll need to download the desktop software, which is available for both OSX and Windows. Just go to: http://www.fitbit.com/start/one and follow the onscreen instructions.

The entire process only takes a couple of minutes and is, as I said, incredibly easy.

NB: If, like me, you’re upgrading / replacing a Fitbit Ultra you will need to download the software. The Fitbit One’s software is quite different to that provided for the Fitbit Ultra.

If you want to use the “silent alarm” feature you can set it up either using the mobile app or via the web interface and then sync with the device. I’ve set mine up and will hopefully be woken gently by it tomorrow morning .. though I sleep quite deeply, so it might not work!

 

Fitbit To Offer Wristband Tracker

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Fitbit Flex is available in a variety of colours

Fitbit Flex is available in a variety of colours

I’ve been using a Fitbit for the last few months and absolutely love it.

The only problem with the normal trackers is that you have to attach them to your clothing somehow. And if you forget to take the tracker with you then you don’t track your activity.

Of course having a Fitbit hanging off your trousers can also lead to accidents, like what happened to me coming back from the US last week. I lost the device somewhere between Las Vegas and Los Angeles and by the time I’d noticed it was too late for me to do anything about it.

The new Fitbit Flex, however, would solve this issue, as it’s a wristband tracker, so you wear it like your watch.

Fitbit are currently accepting pre-orders and I expect they’ll start shipping them in the next few weeks. And yes, I probably will get one.

What’s it got?

Pretty much everything that you could want in a tracker:

  • Know your stats: Tracks steps, distance, calories burned, and active minutes
  • Tracks quality of sleep (# of hours, how many times you wake up, sleep efficiency index) and uses a silent alarm that vibrates to wake you up gently
  • Sync to select mobile devices via Bluetooth 4.0 (first all-day wristband tracker to offer this capability). It also syncs wirelessly and automatically to your computer.
  • Multi-platform: Syncs to select iPhone and, now, select Android devices
  • With you all the time: Comfortable enough to wear all day. Water-resistant. Wear it in the shower.
  • Match your mood or personality: Flexible, interchangeable tracker with a variety of colorful wristbands (Black, Slate, Teal, Tangerine, Navy)
  • Rich mobile and online offerings: iPhone and Android App and Online tools – shows activity charts, leaderboards and more. Set goals, view progress and earn badges.
  • Social motivation: Connect with friends and family for support or friendly competition
  • Even more health and fitness tools: Log food, weight and more on Fitbit’s website or apps

You can read more about the Fitbit Flex on their site.