A great method of self-massage is to use a tennis ball to help us reach the hard-to-get spots or to go deeper into the easy to reach places. For a “foot massage extraordinaire” take a tennis ball, and one foot at a time, stand on it.

Use your body weight to roll it all over the bottom of your foot, putting extra weight into the places that really need it. When you’re finished, note the difference between the foot you’ve just massaged and the other one. The difference will be pretty remarkable.

This same concept can be transferred to the back. Stand with your back to a wall and slip a tennis ball in-between your back and the wall. From here just lean in to apply pressure or move against the wall to roll the ball along your back. This is a great technique to get to some of the hard to reach places.

You can also take two tennis balls and place them into a sock close together, knotting the end of the sock to keep them in place. Lie on the floor and place the two balls in the sock at the base of your skull, on the occipital ridge, the place where the skull meets the neck. By releasing the weight of the head onto the tennis balls, in other words just lying there and taking deep breaths, your neck will begin to relax. You’ll be shocked at how incredibly relaxing and supportive this feels.

Taken from StrengthforCaring

I’m a sales engineer at a technical company, so I’m obviously a geek and a gadget freak. If it’s bright and shiny with lots of buttons, I’ll probably want it. But, over the past two years or so, I’ve been using a decidedly non-techie tool to help keep me organized. It’s called the Hipster PDA and it’s powered by 3×5 cards and a pen or pencil. I’ve found it very easy to carry around a small stack of 3×5 cards in my pocket to pull out when I need to take a note.

Yesterday, as I pulled out my Hipster, it hit me. I should make a template for a daily meal tracker so I don’t have to remember what I ate throughout the day and when it comes time to enter my meals into the Google Apps spreadsheet, I have it all right there in my pocket.

So, in case anyone wants to try it out, here is a PDF template that you can use to print out your very own 3×5 card meal trackers.

I highly suggest reading the 43 Folders post on the Hipster PDA. It’s a great low tech tool for today’s high tech world.

NMFD Hipster Meal Tracker

UPDATE – I almost forgot, once you’ve got your Hipster PDA all loaded and ready to go, get yourself and Inka pen to throw in your pocket. It’s so small, yet can be a full size pen, you won’t even know it’s there. That way you’ll always have something to write with.

To do a job right, and efficiently, you need to have good tools. That’s as true for police officers as it is for technical support people as it is landscapers. It’s also true for people who are trying to lose weight.

No, I’m not talking about a fork and knife. I’m talking about tools that help keep track of your progress, what you’ve eaten, what helps motivate you or to exercise equipment. Here are some of those tools that I use (or have), that I think are helpful to us all.

iPod/MP3 player – I know I couldn’t do a cardio session without mine. If I don’t have music to listen to, my mind starts to go places that I don’t want it to go while working out. I’ve listened to all sorts of music and podcasts when jogging, but in the end, I find the heavy/loud/hard music to be my best motivator. I have an iPod now, but really liked my old iRiver that I used before. And I know my wife loves her tiny little iPod Shuffle.

Tape measure, calipers & scale – These items help me measure my progress. Now, I’m not going to be as reliant on these as I have in the past because they only tell a part of the overall story. What matters to me is, am I honestly happy with the effort I’ve put into my plans? If I am, then I know the weight and measurements will come. But I have to be honest with myself. The tape, calipers and scale are really for setting my baseline. Then, I’ll check on them every so often (the scale weekly for our weigh-ins).

Google Apps Spreadsheet – I’m a techie, so of course there has to be a way to get Google involved. I use Spreadsheets to keep track of my weekly food intake. The beauty of this is, I can login from anywhere there is an internet connection and update my log. It’s a browser based program, all you need is a web browser like Firefox, so I can use any computer I’m at too. If you don’t have a Google Account, I’d go get one and try out Google Docs. There is also an online document editor (like Microsoft Word) in Google Apps that lets you create documents online too.

Resistance bands – I used these after I got over the “how ridiculous, who can get a workout with some rubber bands” thoughts. Guess what, they do give you a pretty decent workout. The only problem I had was I tried to over do it on one band, and the handle snapped off the band and whacked me good.

Swiss ball – I sat on a swiss ball for my desk chair at the office for almost 4 years before it popped on me (I would have loved to see the look on my face when it went). It did amazing things for my back and abs. For example, I golf maybe once a year. I’m a hack. Typically, after my annual golf outing my back and sides would be sore from the 18 holes of twisting (usually more than 100 shots). It was painful. After sitting on the ball for a year and then getting out on the course, my back never bothered me. I have to assume it’s because sitting on the ball exercises all those core muscles all the time, so swinging the club 100+ times was nothing. Of course, the ball can be used for daily workouts too. There are some VERY tough exercises for that damn ball (it’s a love/hate relationship for me).

Those are a few of the tools I use to help me out. I know there are many, many more out there. So please, share with me what tools you use to help keep you on track, motivated and fit.