The ShapeUp Blog

All right everybody! Time to initiate the closure of one more week. Its finally Friday!

I hope you are satisfied with the days that passed and that you came a bit closer to your goal. Or perhaps at least decided that it is now time to start working on your health (I mean seriously the decision is almost half the job!). =)

Quite a lot has happened this week at Sillens, we have for example released an update to the iPhone application where you can sign up for an online account directly on your mobile (plus a few bug fixes), so be sure to update your ShapeUp Club app!
We have also started on new and exciting project for ShapeUp Club (you will soon become aware of what it is).

I have also prepared myself for a lecture, which today also brought this week to an end.

This lecture took place at a school in my hometown, Örebro.

It should be noted that I am extremely new to the whole lecturing thing, and this was the third time I have been asked to talk about our company.

But I do believe that it all went well, even though I at one point accidently mixed my notes up, but what the heck, I’m hoping that nobody noticed that :S

I mean, the lecture took place on a Friday afternoon and my audience had not had a coffee break in a long time since the coffee cart lost its way somewhere in the school corridors.

I was going to ask someone to take a picture of me while speaking, but forgot all about it due to nervousness. But here’s another picture of another lecture I held, where I spoke about pretty much the same things.

Picture borrowed from www.ungforetagsamhet.se

Today it was however also focused on trying to get this school to introduce a concept called Young Entrepreneurs (freely translated from Swedish…). It’s simply a project where the students can test how it can be to run their own business.

Hopefully it went well, got a bit of good response after the lecture, nice!

Well, moving on, to what happens next week;

I figured that Christmas is now long gone, and it is again about time for me to start living what I preach. So, I therefore joined a good, suitable gym for my needs (read: they have a jacuzzi).

Otherwise, we will keep you up to date with the latest news about ShapeUp Club here via the blog!

Have a nice weekend my friends!

/ / Tove

I heard on a radio program, a few of days ago, that we succeeded to endure the worst day of the whole year!
Some researchers, which I think was from England, had investigated the matter and concluded that the 18th of January, due to weather, lack of money and distance to holidays, was the absolutely most awful day of the year to be alive on.

Yep! Encouraging, huh! But still, congratulations!
Now, this year’s most annoying day has passed, and everything can only get better from now! Don’t give up! Yes, perhaps you have to struggle harder to reach your goals right now, but it’s worth it, and will get better! It will soon be spring and everything is going to feel a lot easier.

Well, yes, it’s obviously still heavy to manage in the backwater of the year’s most ghastly day.
What can we do about it?

When I’m a bit down and think that everything is just plain boring I quite easy think that a piece of candy would probably lighten my world (no, not literally…)!
And do you know what? It think that’s ok sometimes! Just keep track on how many encouraging candy pieces you’ve eaten and you shall be fine.  A smart thing can be to eat one or two squares of dark chocolate, it is a bit harder to indulge yourself in. (Note: Harder, but not impossible, I have manage to still succeed in such a task. At several occasions…)

Other things that tend to ease my mind can be to play video games.
(A Nintendo Wii tennis game could perhaps be a good way to combine both exercise and video games).

Or put together a nice meal with some good friends.

Scrap a recipe book together with your favorite healthy food and sinful pleasures!

Oh, well, ok! Now it’s actually time for me to go to bed. Do not forget to sleep! It is important for the metabolism!

I find it very difficult to motivate myself to exercise this time of year. I much rather hide in big and cozy sweatshirts in front of a nice movie.

But I have an idea. Take a walk!

Oh no, you might think now. What a hassle to go out in this dreary, grey weather (although this may only apply to us in the north, Im sure the rest of the world is drenched in sunshine…)
No, not a good idea at all Tove … No walking!

But to take a walk is a great way to burn some extra calories and also a very nice way to clear your mind.

It could be a way for you to figure out how to do to achieve your New Year’s resolutions or perhaps get a moment alone and daydream for a while.
(Actually, did you know that people who daydream more frequently fulfill their dreams than those who don’t!)

You could also take the walk together with a friend or your partner.
An excellent way to get some exercise and in the same time catch up with each other. Fantasize together about warm and sandy beaches or maybe icy ski slopes? Well, I do not know what you prefer, or what your dreams are swirling about right now. But I am sure that there are many great dreams, hopes and goals here at ShapeUp Club! So take a walk and pretend for a moment that you reached them. See yourself succeed! The likelihood that you will achive your goal gets so much higher if you fantasize about it!

Well, maybe not such a stupid idea to take a walk after all..?

Sweden is really cold right now, but quite beautiful as well, just have a look at these trees!

..no, don’t get me wrong, I still fantasize about warm beaches and blue oceans!

To begin with, I would like to apologize for this blog post. I do not really know why I necessarily had to post it.
It all started out with a pretty nice thought. I pondered over how hard it can be to decide what to eat for lunch or dinner.
And therefore I thought that I perhaps could share a salad recipe with you, as a lunch-tip.
Now you should know that I’m terribly bad at cooking. No, I do not think you understand to what degree I can mess things up in the kitchen.

Ok, now, here’s my tuna salad (a recipe I think relatively few people can fail to prepare).

1. Start by boiling a few eggs. A relatively easy task.

Here you may begin to suspect that I am not star in the kitchen, the egg cracked and everything started to resemble some sort of cross between boiled eggs and scrambled eggs. (These are the eggs that got out of the saucepan in a fairly good condition.)

2. Chop vegetables while the eggs boil.
Mmm, here you might think that I cut myself or something like that. But that actually happens surprisingly rarely (mostly due to my very blunt knife).
So, put in all the vegetables you like.
Yep, I only had cucumber and a jar of corn at home. (Obviously I also lack talent in shopping groceries.) Well … moving on.

3. Boil some pasta. Success, nothing went wrong. It even got cooked in a perfect amount of time.

4. While pasta is boiling, add a jar of tuna to your salad.

5.  Nope, sorry, add 2 (since my salad lacks almost every ingredient, I needed to fill it up with something!)

6. Add the eggs and pasta when it has cooled off, and mix everything around.
7. Enjoy the salad with some cottage cheese, and perhaps a glass of sparkling water.

Again, so sorry for this post, do not prepare this food! Taste horrible.
No, actually it was pretty good, but by the look of it …. I do not blame you for doubting me

Ok, well, that’s that. Hope you are looking forward to my next recipe tip I been thinking about sharing with you!
No, but seriously, wouldn’t it be nice with a recipe blog, with someone who actually can cook? Perhaps he/she could give tips on good and healthy food, etc and how to prepare it. (Even for those of us who are really bad at cooking, but still like to learn and eat healthy!)
Maybe something for the future, or what do you think?

Today I am proud to present the new diary at ShapeUpClub.com! We’ve in the latest weeks been testing and debuging the new system and it should be much faster and easier to use than the current system.

Hopefully everything will work perfect but please if you have any problems or find any bugs just post in the forum or send us an email and we will fix it right away.

Now we will focus on a new update of the iPhone app that you will see in App Store in the coming weeks!

Enjoy!

Before christmas we told you about the changes we are making on the website. We have been working a lot with this update and finally we are in the end of the development. We promised you pictures and now we are ready to share some with you!

As we said before we have been focusing on speed, adding food to your diary is now really easy and quick! This is the first page of your diary. To the right you can easy add food to your diary. Search, browse, choose from favorites, recent food, add quick calories or add meals.

Now you don’t have to scroll that much anymore, we have divided the list of foods in your diary to different tabs, one for each meal.

Click the magnifier to search for a food. When you find a food that you like in the search result you can add it directly from the list or see more info before you add it. Just click “Add This” and the food will show up in your diary.

You add exercise in the same way. Select the exercise tab in the top. Now just search, choose your exercise, enter the amount and add to your diary.

Most of us have made new years resolutions and I know that many of you will be able to reach your goals in 2010!

As we said we are in the end of the development so we will be testing the new version and make the last touches in the design! Soon you will see the new version of ShapeUpClub.com!