gtFtr

A couple of people have commented that it’s a pain to remember the correct format of the tweets to send a message – especially when you’ve just finished an hour running or on an elliptical.

For me I found practice made perfect (but then again most of the message formats I defined) but I’m curious to find ways to make it better and more natural or easy for people to enter their information.

On my Windows Mobile phone I can predefine templates for text messages – that means I can build a template for each exercise and just drop the parameters in and hit send.

One idea on the to-do list is a predefined web page that stores your login (as a cookie so we never see it) and has templates to tap in the parameters and then you just hit send (so it would work from any browser including on the iPhone)

Theoretically the format we store the parameters in for the parser could be used to create these forms dynamically and roll them into 3rd party Twitter apps (but I think we’d need a lot more users first to get people to consider that!)

What would help reduce YOUR barrier to using gtFtr? Let me know…

Most of the trackers here are for specific exercises but some people like to track daily statistics. If you wear a pedometer and try to reach the 10000 Steps a Day goal then it would be nice to record process so we now have a Daily or Stats tracker

@gtFtr Stats Steps 9000 Cals 800 3.9 miles# walked to Bldg8 today

The parameters are as follows (as usual apart from the first which identifies what it is order isn't that important, but the space separators are)

• Stats (or Day or Daily) - this has to come first so the parser knows it's recording daily stats. 
• Steps 9000 – How many did you walk today. You can also use S or Step for short. 
• Cals 800 - how many did you burn (that's what it's all about after all)
• Dist 3.9 - how far did you go. I'm not sure if that's miles or km or some random arbitrary unit. You can enter it as "3.9 miles" or "3.9 km" if you know (either can have the Dist prefix as well) as long as you're consistent.

gtFtr is slowly growing. Feel free to use the comments on any post here, or contact us to make suggestions.

It’s not really a fitness tracker, but it might just help with motivation to get on a bike or walk to work. The latest tracker records fuel (gas for the Americans, petrol for the rest of the world, and of course diesel) and what it costs to cover those miles.. The message format follows a pretty standard format:

@gtFtr Fuel 15.173 gals price 50.51 Odo 13804 Type reg V Jeep # I'm probably going to get scared what the Jeep costs to run!

The parameters are as follows (as usual apart from the first which identifies what it is order isn't that important, but the space separators are, and unless specified they are all optional)

• Fuel- this has to come first so the parser knows what's it's dealing with. You can also use Gas, Petrol or Diesel instead
• Qty 15.173 gals – specify Qty, gals (gallons) or litres
• Cost 50.51 – or Price to record how much you paid
• Odo 13804 - What was your odometer reading. You can also use Miles or KMs.
• Type Reg – Which type of fuel – Regular, Unleaded, E10, E85, Flex, Diesel etc
• Vehicle Jeep – If you record a tracker for more than one vehicle this allows you to separate them

gtFtr is slowly growing. Feel free to use the comments on any post here, or contact us to make suggestions.

If you like to ride a bike (either pedal power or an iron horse) we now have a tracker for you. The message format follows our standard format:

@gtFtr Ride 6 miles 30 mins HR 141 Route Windy_Hill_Loop

The parameters are as follows (as usual apart from the first which identifies what it is order isn't that important, but the space separators are, and unless specified they are all optional)

• Ride - this has to come first so the parser knows what's it's dealing with. You can use Cycle or Bike as synonyms if you prefer.
• Time 30 Mins - Either Time or Mins should be entered to track how long you were on there for
• Dist 6 Miles - how far did you go. You can enter it as "6 miles" or "6 km" (either can have the Dist prefix as well).
• HR 141 - What was your average Heart Rate over the exercise.
• Route Windy_Hill_loop – Which route was this (if you have several, or you travel and like to see the difference between, say, riding in Cumbria or NYC). Note: Very important this – don’t use spaces to separate words in the route name. Use underscores or dots or dashes (the parser takes the space as a new parameter)

gtFtr is slowly growing. Feel free to use the comments on any post here, or contact us to make suggestions.

Just added a new tracker to help the runners (thanks Ken and Brad), joggers and walkers out there keep their stats as well as the more indoor exercisers. The message format follows a pretty standard format:

@gtFtr Run 6 miles 30 mins HR 141 Route Windy_Hill_Loop

The parameters are as follows (as usual apart from the first which identifies what it is order isn't that important, but the space separators are, and unless specified they are all optional)

• Run - this has to come first so the parser knows what's it's dealing with. You can also use Jog or Walk instead
• Time 30 Mins - Either Time or Mins should be entered to track how long you were on there for
• Dist 6 Miles - how far did you go. You can enter it as "6 miles" or "6 km" (either can have the Dist prefix as well). If you’re climbing stairs you can enter “ascents”, “steps” or “stairs” and measure distance that way (thanks Tai)
• HR 141 - What was your average Heart Rate over the exercise.
• Route Windy_Hill_loop – Which run was this (if you have several, or you travel and like to see the difference between, say, running in Cumbria or NYC). Note: Very important this – don’t use spaces to separate words in the route name. Use underscores or dots or dashes (the parser takes the space as a new parameter)

gtFtr is slowly growing. Feel free to use the comments on any post here, or contact us to make suggestions.

We added a new tracker into the system today for a LifeCycle (see, we do listen to requests). The message format follows a pretty standard format

@gtFtr LifeCycle Hill Level 12 Time 30 mins 315 cals Dist 12.9 HR 141

The parameters are as follows (as usual apart from the first which identified what it is order isn't that important, but the space separators are)

• LifeCycle (or LC) - this has to come first so the parser knows what's it's dealing with
• Hill or Random - this is the program you used. There are others, we just need to add them. If you use any of the programs just comment here and we'll add them to the matrix
• Level (can be shortened to Lvl) 12 - How hard were you trying (like the Nautilus equipment LiveFitness seem to use a 1-20 scale)
• Time 30 Mins - Either Time or Mins should be entered to track how long you were on there for
• 315 Cals - how many did you burn (that's what it's all about after all)
• Dist 12.9 - how far did you go. I'm not sure if that's miles or km or some random arbitrary unit. You can enter it as "12.9 miles" or "12.9 km" if you know (either can have the Dist prefix as well) as long as you're consistent.
• HR 141 - What was your average Heart Rate over the exercise.

gtFtr is slowly growing. Feel free to use the comments on any post here, or contact us to make suggestions.

Looking through the results after my workout I decided to add a couple more parameters to the Elliptical tracker. Luckily with the parser it's fairly simple.

You can now record average speed and watts for your workout.

Average speed can have a unit of either mph or kph (as always spaces between numbers and parameters)

A couple of people have commented that not everything that's in the messages they send to gtFtr is making it into the graphs.

Well, leaving aside some of the more ambitious plans we have to develop this there's a simple reason for that.

With the system we're currently recording data broken down into three classifications:

• Trackers. These are the exercises or activities that you can record. For instance Elliptical or Calories are trackers. They are always the first thing on a message to tell gtFtr what to do with it
• Measures. These are the actual values. The miles covered, the calories burnt or consumed, the number of sets or reps for a particular exercise.
• Filters. These currently don't appear on the graphs but they are things like CB or FB (Calorie or Fat Burner) programs on the Elliptical or Snack or Dinner on Calories. Once we get a little further on we'll start offering these as a way to filter the results for a particular tracker.

Hope that clears it up a bit. If there are any other questions please leave a comment here or just ask

It's good to have a goal of losing weight, or doing more reps on the bench press or situps, but if you're still eating more than your body needs to support the level of exercise then you're not going to fix things up.

To help with that goal gtFtr now lets you track calories as well. Simply send a message like this to Twitter

@gtFtr Calories 200 Snack # Naughty chocolate muffin

The value should be the calories consumed and you can optionally follow it with either Snack, BFast, Lunch or Dinner. You can use the comment (following the #) to justify the indulgence if you want to.

One of the goals of getting fitter for some is losing weight. Isn't it nice to watch that line go down over time (with the occasional leveling off around the holidays!)

gtFtr now tracks your weight as well. Simply send a message like this via Twitter

@gtFtr Weight 290.7 Lbs

the portion after the number can be Lbs or Kgs (sorry, no Stones yet). If using Lbs please use a decimal not ounces (if anyone has a scale that forces pounds and ounces let us know and we'll look at resolving that issue)