Here is a great infographic from the market researchers at lab42 (lab42.com)  detailing the use of a survey regarding technology use in fitness and weight loss. We were thrilled to see that 74% of people say technology aids them in their weight loss effors, and hope that FitBolt is doing it's part to contribute during your workday! Here's a link to the original post on their blog with the infographic:

http://blog.lab42.com/lets-get-physical-and-digital

As always, if you have any feedback/suggestions for us don't hesitate to email or post in the 'Feedback' tab on our website. Stay tuned for TONS of new notification content coming in the next week or two!

After much thought, we have decided to change the pricing model for FitBolt. We have introduced a new Free plan, which (as the name suggests) costs no money and will remain that way forever. The free plan has a limited feature set, and only allows you to receive notifications for stretches and exercises. Additionally, the free plan is ad-supported, and advertisements will appear periodically in notifications. The revenue from the advertising allows us to offer this ongoing free plan, and we will work hard to make sure that the ads that are shown will actually be beneficial for our users, and will represent products and services that can directly help their health & wellness goals. We are VERY excited to be able to offer a free plan, and make health & wellness during the workday even more accessible to everybody who works at a desk all day long, just like us!

What was previously the paid subscription is now the Premium plan, and still costs $3/mo. The Premium plan removes all advertising, enables all notification types, and will soon feature some brand-spanking-new content we are working on currently! If you were a previous subscriber you were automatically transferred to the premium plan, and your billing cycle will remain the same. You can cancel your premium plan in your dashboard if you wish to downgrade to the Free plan.

FitBolt for employers (company-sponsored) is not available in the ad-powered version, but instead is available at the $3/member/month price point with price breaks at various bulk levels. FitBolt for employers also offers advanced company-wide reporting and analytics. Contact us if you are interested in more information!

As usual, do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have, including questions about the new pricing plans. Have a healthy, happy, workweek!

FitBit Integration

If you haven't heard of Fitbit, you should take a moment to check out their website HERE. We use Fitbit Ultra trackers and the Fitbit website to keep track of all out health & wellness metrics, and couldn't be happier with it! To scratch our own itch, we have integrated FitBolt with Fitbit so that the duration and calories burned from all FitBolt stretches and exercise notifications are logged directly to Fitbit. This is super easy to setup, and you can learn more about it by watching our Fitbit Integration Video. 

In previous versions of FitBolt, the system assumed that if you viewed a notification that you read/performed the notification and it was tracked by default. That has changed in the current version due to feedback from our users, and to work with the new Fitbit integration. The previous 'Hide Item' button simply hid the notification and added it to your history. Now, notifications are NOT tracked by default and you must indicate by clicking the new 'I'm Done' button, which will track the notification, hide it, and add it to your history.

"New Notification" Button

Many of our users stated that they wished to be able to get a different notification of the same type because they couldn't, or didn't wish to, perform the newest notification. An example would be an exercise that you received and didn't feel comfortable doing in your office, yet you still wanted to perform an exercise. Rather than clicking the "I'm Ready Now" button for a new notification, which may give you one of a different type, a new option exists. By hovering over the notification type icon, you will now see button for 'New Notification', will give you a new notification of the same type and will remove the last (unwanted) one from your history.

Not every exercise and stretch is created equal. Some are more difficult to perform than others, regardless of how the movement is performed. Additionally, many people work in packed offices, and prefer to do more discreet, less goofy-looking stretches and exercises. To help people easily identify if an exercise or stretch is within their comfort zone of goofiness and difficulty, we have added rating indicators at the top of each notification near the top. In the future we plan on adding support for specifying a max/min difficulty & goofiness rating for stretches & exercises to be shown.

Multiple of our users said that for notifications which had to be done for a designated amount of time they found themselves pulling out their watch. You could just use the countdown timer and some in-your-head math to avoid this, but here at FitBolt we know you have enough in your brain regarding work without having to do any more math. So, to make your (and our) lives a little simpler, we have added a simple timer to all notifications where it is needed.

When it is available you will see a little clock icon next to the seconds required for the activity. Simply hover over the seconds, and the timer will appear. Click and you will get a 3 second countdown, and the timer will begin! When time is up, the notification title bar will flash and you will recieve a soft chime alert (different from the notification chime). Hopefully people find this useful, I know I have found myself using it multiple times already today! Let us know what you think in the comments!

Tech.MN is a very well respected blog here in the Twin Cities (MN) and covers a lot of great startup activity. They are one of the few media outlets in this area that really support the startup and entrepreneurial scene, and are one of my most frequented websites and trusted news sources. I really respect their views and opinions, and it came as a great honor to me to be interviewed by one of the Tech.MN founders Jeff Pesek. He gave FitBolt a rave review, and I can only hope that more people will see the vision and potential of FitBolt like Jeff did!

Take a look at the article here:

http://tech.mn/news/2012/01/13/fitbolt-is-simple-sexy-and-scalable/

SPECIAL NOTE!: This is the first entry on the brand-spanking new FitBolt Blog! Keep checking back for more entries related to using FitBolt & workday/office health, fitness, and lifestyle in general!

All of the notifications on FitBolt that require any activity (stretches & exercises mostly) were created with the workplace in mind, and don't require any special equipment that can't be found in most normal workplaces. 

Some require the assistance of a sturdy wall or corner, while others call for a desk, table, or similar piece of furniture. Many of the exercises are free-standing and require nothing except your own bodyweight and a wee splash of motiviation. An open area with at least a 4x4 foot open area will do just fine for all of these.

A few of the exercises and stretches do require you do get completely or partially down on the floor. If your office has clean, plush carpet then no worries.. just don't take a nap while you're down there! Some offices, however, don't have luxurious persian carpet (mine included) and an easy quick fix for this is to get a cheap yoga or exercies mat. They are available all over the place, including any chain/department store and can be ordered off Amazon or other retailers. No need to go expensive here, a cheap compact one that can be stuffed under your desk when not in use fits the bill perfectly!

So all you really need to get the most from FitBolt is a desire to be a healthier, happier person in the workplace coupled with a sturdy chair & desk, open space, and nice carpet or a yoga mat!