We have been listening to your thoughts and this last week we have been working with some improvements of your wishes. The most important thing is that you can now keep track of the maconutrients in the diary, using either a pie chart or easy-to-follow bars.

See the new version 3.1 below or try it yourself by downloading from App Store here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shapeup-club-calorie-tracker/id286906691?mt=8

But oh my, it was tough in the beginning!
Here’s our first week:
Session 1:
Everything feels fine. We are going to get so fit! Motivation is on top.

Session 2:
Still going strong. Feeling good, motivation has waned somewhat. But what the heck, if you want to look fit you just have to keep on going.

Session 3:
The thought of eating a pound of worms seems more pleasant than actually dealing with today’s workout.

Now there’s only one thing left that can get us to continue, persistence!

We decide to be more stubborn than our sofa lying alter egos.
Plus, the times you get through the workout program, even though it’s the last thing on earth you want to do, it feels a thousand times better afterwards! Adrenaline is pumping in your body, and you feel like Superman himself.

So even though I have been stuck in long discussions with myself, thinking about action plans that could be applied if today’s training session would be canceled. I devised detailed persuasion plans for Martin on the reasons why we should not work out today, but we still did it.
And I promise, just do a couple of workouts and after a while you’ll be totally hooked on how good you feel and you will actually like to work out even more. I know, sounds totally weird, but it’s like that. The more you do it the more fun it becomes. Tough truth, which probably a lot of us known since we were kids, I  just didn’t want to believe in it…

Ok, stop with the blathering!
Lets go do some workout, watch out superman, here we come!

And since I started working fulltime in the company I’ve been sitting down a lot more than I usually did while I was studying (which is all day, every day now…). Not good.

I decided that I needed to do something about this! What?

Well, according to self research I know I’m very skilled in joining gyms, and very bad at dragging my lazy bum in there.
I needed to find an exercise I could do without the hassle of leaving my home once I finally get back from the office, something that was motivating enough for me to keep going and it therefore also needed to give me quick results.

So I went wild and bought myself one pair of boxing gloves + mitts. Very well.

But who was I suppose to release all my inner aggression at? Martin of course.

I’ve been doing boxing before and loved the result and the feeling of being super strong (which I maybe wasn’t, but however, just the feeling kept me going).

Martin hasn’t ever done exercis.. I mean boxing before. I therefore hereby give you the story of how Martin got Shaped Up by punching his colleague in the face… (which he probably will do after reading this text…).
No I’m sorry, I’m only joking of course, but our plan is to do some boxing twice a week.
And to give myself a kick in my lazy bum I hereby promise you to show some sort of weekly result on how it’s going.

//Tove

A lot of people have asked for a ShapeUp Club version for the iPad. And I totally agree with you, it would be really cool and I believe we could do a lot of amazing things with the charts (and the rest also of course…).

But I’m really sorry to say that we for now aren’t producing ShapeUp Club for the iPad, no matter how cool it would be. However, we will probably do this sometime in the future, as soon as we have the time!

I’m also really looking forward to the press release of Apples next “must-have”- gadget tonight. Do you believe the rumors? Is a new iPhone about to hit the market and blind us to the rest of the world all over again?

I hope so, would love to see how we can improve ShapeUp Club for a new iPhone, were it all began =)

I know a lot of people who hate eating breakfast (and some who loves it maybe a little bit too much..).

But I do have a really good and healthy recipe you could try in the morning if you are one of those who find it a bit hard eating when you just woke up.

This is a recipe for a really tasty smoothie:

1 dl of frozen berries (strawberries, raspberries, maybe a mix of both. Use what you like the best=) )

1 dl yoghurt

1 dl of fruit juice (preferably use one that contains a healthy bacterial culture, but this is not necessary, but good for your stomach)

Sprinkle some wheat bran and fruit sugar over this.

Now mix everything together in a mixer, and drink it.

One of these drinks contain about 150 Calories, depending on what ingredients you use. So maybe you need to eat something more so you won’t get hungry before lunch (and risk the possibility of treating yourself with a snack meanwhile..).

I hope you will enjoy it!

All the best!

Tove

What to do now? Giving up may seem like the only sane option.

No! Don’t give up!
So what, maybe you didn’t do all those runs and gym-visits you planned to do, and maybe you did treat yourself with one or two (…or three or four) pieces of candy a few days a week (…or like every day, every week).
Yep, I know how it is. I’m in just that situation right now. Summer is approaching me in a dangerously speed, and I’m stuck in my office staring out the window in fear of when the sun is really gonna hit Sweden and force me in to the very much too small bikini!
(Yes, I bought it with the intension “No worries, it will fit and make me look awesome when summer is here.” Don’t do that, never works! And yet this is not the first time I buy clothes which are a bit too tight hoping it will fit soon.)

But I know it feels tough now, and you don’t see the point of even thinking of trying anymore.

Don’t stop, because this is when you start feeling even more bad about yourself!

Ok, maybe you won’t be able to hit that dream weight in time, but I promise you, just starting to eat a bit healthier and perhaps doing some exercise is half way to your goal!
The decision and feeling that you are trying, and that your body is benefiting from it will make you feel so much better about yourself. And that’s all it take for you to look and feel beautiful! =)

I guess this may sound silly and pretentious, but I think the most beautiful people around me isn’t the ones with tini tiny bodies or super pumped up muscles. No way!

The people who look the best are those who feel good about themselves and those who are happy with what they got.

Ok, I know, that’s really hard to achieve, and some days you just feel like hiding under your cover. Right?

But I found that what helps me to feel better those days is to say to myself that life is too short to walk around and feeling bad about myself and my body (when most of it is probably in my head anyway!).

So any advice?
Yes =) Of course.
Try a bit more and be proud that you haven’t given up yet!
So come on, let’s do this now! Let the journey be the goal, and be happy that you made that goal!

Now let’s Shape ourselves Up! =)

(Just one more thing, I think we need a better motivational part of ShapeUp Club, somewhere to turn when everything just sucks! Its lucky we’re going to build this soon! =) And of course, if you have any ideas or wishes for what you would like to see here, let us know. You can contact us here: http://www.shapeupclub.com/Contact.aspx )

Yours in rain, snow, sun or any kind of weather you wanna shapeup in =)
Tove

Noo, no, no, no. Full time, hard work is whats happening here. But ok, we might be enjoying it a bit, feels great having this new office and getting so much work done!

Right now we’re working with the 3.0 release of ShapeUp Club. A lot to do, and our hopes is to release it during this summer (july maybe?!). We are hopeful and trying to get as much as possible done so we can get it out to you soon!

I dont have all the details about the 3.0 to share with you yet, but it does include a full redesign of the iphone app and some new features to the website. We gathered all your wishes and have started to produce some of them now.
So thanks a lot for all your input! You are awesome and your ideas are super!

Its a bit of a storm outside my window, but at least the trees are green now =)

//Tove

Just wanted to show you our new office =)

Moved in here yesterday and we can now finally organize the work better and get more done, since both of us are now working full time in the company =)
This is the place were ShapeUp Club is gonna be the best Calorie Tracker there is! (or maybe we already are? Well, in that case, now we’re getting even better!)

Have a lovely weekend

Yours Sincerely

Tove!

Martin setting up the office

Hard work in the office =)

Now what’s on the schedule for us?
Total redesign and upgrade of the iPhone app and website.
Will tell you more as soon as we know more =)
Gonna dig ourselves deep into the ShapeUp code and design, which will hopefully lead to ShapeUp Club 3.0!
This is so exciting =)
All our best!
//Tove & Martin