Thank you, Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong is one of the most recognizable sports faces of our time.  He has won on several stages in life including his 7 consecutive victories in the world renown Tour de France and his victory over testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain at the age of 25.  He is an amazing athlete that has proved the human body is capable of more that we often think, he has elevated the sport of cycling to an extremely high level, and he has created an marketing and fundraising empire with one word and some yellow bracelets.

LIVESTRONG.  The namesake of Lance Armstrong; this organization is dedicated to promoting not only a healthy lifestyle, but to raise money for the research of cancer the world over.  To date, just in sales from the yellow "Livestrong" bracelets that were all the rage a few year ago, the Livestrong organization has raised over $70 million dollars.  Pretty impressive.  And now that the name has become its own trademark, you can get almost anything with this powerful world stitched or printed on the front.  Check out the store here.

So, you can see why Lance is so worthy of some serious props when it comes to his commitment to a cause. And as I mentioned before, he not only is committed to raising money for cancer research but he also has created several tools for the average Joe like myself to help boost my ability to live a healthy and fit lifestyle.  What are these tool, you ask?

Check out Livestrong.com.  This website is amazing...and FREE!  Let me share just a couple of my favorite features with you and then you can explore and share back your favorites with me.

1) My Plate - Calorie Tracker:
The last week and a half for me have been proof enough that tracking your food intake on a daily basis will lead to results.  I have been using the Livestrong.com calorie counter about that long and in that length of time I have lost between 5-6 pounds.  It has every food item you could possibly think of...down to the Costco Organic Peanut Butter I like on my toast in the morning.  A co-worker of mine turned me onto this awesome little tool and I've been using it non-stop.  I'll try posting some screen shots soon so you can see what the calorie counter looks like.

2)Fitness Tracker:
Part of the "My Plate" feature is the ability to track all of your workouts.  Again, you can find any type of workout on this tracker from 5.2mph runs on the treadmill, to pilates, swimming, spinning, and weight lifting.  Each exercise has several custom choices to zero in on the number of calories your burned during your exercise.  Wow!

So, just between these two awesome tools, you are able to track your calories in and out for the day all through a custom program that is available for free online.  Also available is a mobile app version for iPhone and Blackberry that syncs with your online version.  Check out your respective app store for the mobile version.

So, Thank you, Lance.

Check it out and let me know what you think.  I will try and post some screen shots from my livestrong.com page over the weekend so be sure to check it out!