I find myself saying “There’s an App For That!” nearly every day now. With the app store touting nearly 200,000 apps, I’ve come to a recent conclusion that there is pretty much an app for just about everything you can think of — no matter how small a niche or obscure the idea.

My most recent gold mine is a sweet little app called Water by foware. I came down with a fever a few weeks back and needed a way to track my water intake. I started just logging the time of when I finished a glass of water into notepad. However, it was kind of boring and uninspiring so I did what nearly every good technology loving, iPhone fanatic would do – I went looking for an app.

Sure enough, a search for “water” brought up at least half a dozen different apps that could do exactly what I needed. After a quick glance and a few reviews, I spotted a clear winner. Not only was this one of the more well thought-out apps I’ve seen in terms of design and aesthetics, it was simple to learn and use.

In a nutshell, you track your daily water intake by placing various different-sized water glasses and bottles onto a table as you finish each container throughout the day. They track your daily progress over time, grading you on a scale of A through F, and display a line chart for the past 30 days to illustrate your progress. If you get 7 A’s, you receive a Bronze medal, and if you keep up your results over time, you can even work your way up to a Platinum award for 365 days.

When you first load up the app, you input a bunch of data points such as your weight, age, the climate you live in, etc. and it calculates the exact amount of water you need to be drinking per day.

Now this might sound just a little on the cheesy side, but for a tech geek who – to some – could appear to be glued to his phone all day, it’s the perfect app.

It takes some dedication to remember to open it and log your progress, but once you get that habit squared away, it’s all downhill from there.

I’ve realized that there are several tips to ensuring your success:

1. Make sure you finish your first glass in the first two hours of your day.
2. Try and drink at least 10-12 oz every two hours.
3. As soon as you finish a glass, go get a refill immediately.
4. Take time for frequent washroom breaks – they’ll decrease over time.
5. Make sure the “Water” app is on your iPhone Doc or home screen.

And don’t forget to reward yourself personally when you achieve 100%. I swear, I must have been a dehydrated zombie like the rest of the world before I found this app. I think I probably drank about 1-2 glasses of water per day at the best of times. Now, in the past 18 days, I’ve managed to drink 995 oz. Now that’s a lot of water!

How’s your water intake? What other life-altering apps have you’ve made a part of your daily gadgetry?

Tags: glass of water, iphone, water app, iphone app, dehydration

Last night, I had trouble sleeping. This actually occurs quite frequently as I think my brain is sometimes way too active. I tend to over-analyze things or stay up really late to get things done. So a lot of the time I am up until 4 in the morning. Sometimes I’ve even been known to pull all nighters just to finish something, and last night was one of those nights.

Knowing full well that I had to get up to go to work in the morning, I decided to listen to Julie Lusk’s session about taking a three-hour nap in thirty minutes. And believe me, it was so helpful! It took a while to get into it, but afterwards I felt really relaxed.

Now, I don’t think that I should be doing this on a consistent basis, as I have read in previous articles that your body does need at least eight hours of sleep per night – but at least this is something I can do occasionally to get me through the day!

Tags: julie lusk, yoga nidra, real relaxation, virtual conference, yoga session

But I noticed recently that my body has been anxiously waiting for a chance to exercise. Hmmm…what exercise could I do without spending money? I asked my friends for advice on what kind of exercise costs no money and is the most efficient in getting my body toned again. The most consistent answer I got from them was running.

I wasn’t happy to hear what they recommended because I never liked running. But I thought about it because it’s free and it would also burn up more calories. So one day I decided to give it a try and went to the Pasadena Rose Bowl. Surprisingly, I completed a three-mile run without stopping – and I felt so good and refreshed. Since then I’ve been running a few days a week. It still makes me feel good. Recently, while stretching before running, I realized that my hands could almost fully touch the ground when I did forward bends. That’s never happened in my entire life!! My hands were always in the air or, at best, the tips of my middle fingers could barely touch the ground. I was very, very happy that my body was definitely becoming more comfortable with my exercising. I think this did not happen because of my stretches before running but because I have continued doing yoga all these years. This is another confirmation that “continuity is a key.”

Even though I haven’t practiced yoga lately, I do more stretching at home whenever I have time – because maintaining flexibility makes my body feel much better!

Tags: being flexible, flexibilities, flexibility, continuity, maintaining flexibility, running, exercises

Went to bed last night with an upset tummy, but I figured it was nothing a few zzzzs wouldn’t fix. Then today I woke up feeling fine, but about 20 minutes into my daily morning walk to and from Starbucks (no, I didn’t get my Chai Tea Late, just a Green Happy Planet Juice), I started feeling a relapse of my nausea and wasn’t sure if I would even make it back to the house without having to hurl in a ditch on the side of the road (sorry to be so graphic ;-(.)

Well, I managed to breathe my way through it and, as soon as I got home, I lay down for a 30-minute nap. I sure didn’t want to wake up but the team said, “Segovia, it’s almost 9:30 and we don’t know how to set up the LIVE video stream – come do yoga with us.”

I want to give a personal thank-you to Christina for taking it easy today and not doing any crazy inversions or balancers. Instead, she had us on our backs most of the time, doing breath work and slow relaxed stretching. It was a very YIN yoga session.

And although it felt great to get some movement in my body, when it was all over, all I could think about was going back to sleep…but no – the show must go on.

I slugged my way through our daily team rhythm meeting, a client coaching call, took a heck of a lot of Chinese herbs, some asadopholis and a few charcoal tablets, and brewed up a hot mug of chamomile tea to sip on as I sat down to try and get some REAL work done (then I started writing this post – hahaha).

Funny thing is, when I’m lying down on my back, sometimes I feel worse. My most comfortable position to put my body in a state of ease is to be sitting right here in front of these four glowing monitors, knowing that I’m slowly hacking away at the mountainous task list that’s somehow landed in my lap.

To better days!

My new mantra is: “I surround myself with green healing energy. [repeat], [repeat], [repeat]”

Tags: feeling sick, yin yoga, daily yoga session, yoga practice, chinese herbal tea

For me, nothing can actually replace the clean, crisp taste of a cold glass of water. But I know that even something as simple as water can come in so many different forms and from such a wide variety of sources.

But when it comes to hydration, energy and the replenishment of important vitamins, minerals and electrolytes, I have to hand it to Nuun with their latest product release, which they call “U-Hydration.”

Not only were they were a sponsor of our recent yoga conference, which we thank them for, but I was actually able to meet some of their team at the Natural Products Expo West held recently in Anaheim. It was interesting to get the full story on their product line – how the company was formed and how they grew out of the original branding of their first product, Nuun, into their next generation product.

I must admit, at first I thought the idea was kind of silly. I mean, who needs yet another powder/tablet form of something to flavor your water when the market is already overcrowded with what seems like endless aisles and shelves of multi-colored water, vitamin water, carbonated water…the list goes on.

But after checking out their site, it became obvious that their mission was more than just about taking care of athletes, sports enthusiasts and yoga practitioners. It was also about taking care of mother earth.

A single tube of U-Hydration or Nuun contains 16 drink tabs. So when you think of just how much plastic would need to be used in the production of 16 12-16 oz bottles (two gallons worth) of another product – say Gatorade – it’s just ridiculous.

And that’s not even taking into account the extra packaging, storage, shipping, gas and other factors involved in the production of other bottled drinks. So overall, the carbon footprint for a comparable amount of liquid is just a fraction.

Aside from that, U-hydration tastes great and comes in four flavors: cucumber mint, goji berry green tea, lemon chai (my personal favorite) and tangerine ginger. Oh, and did I mention that they don’t have all the artificial sweeteners or calories found in products like Powerade or Propel?

U-Hydration can most easily be found at select REI locations, or online through uhydration.com. A single tube is around $7.95, which puts the cost of a 16-oz glass/bottle at around 50 cents.

For myself, when it comes to liquid hydration for my daily yoga practice, I reach for a U tab and my trusty stainless steel Thinksport water bottle.

Tags: u-hydration, liquid hydration, vitamin tablets, stainless water bottle, sports drink

There’s Good Friday service this weekend, followed by Easter service. That reminds me – I need to get my clothes dry-cleaned before Friday so I don’t look like a slob. I also need to polish off my taxes this weekend. We’ll see how that goes. I actually have all the paperwork lined up, so I just need to write the numbers on to those little lines!

Also, I just found the Sprite commercial I worked on with Jay Chou, Asian pop sensation! I squeak in about the seven-second mark, and again at the end with the hat.

Tags: good friday, workout, exercises, gym, church, sprite commercial, joy chou

More energy, more excitement, more content, workshops – heck, I even wanted more of those tasty little energy bars and u-hydration drinks. I wanted to be immersed in the experience of the virtual conference playground again.

So when Christina, Megan and I decided to host an “Encore Event,” you can bet your bottom dollar I was “all-in baby!”

Well, I’m writing this just a few hours after the close of our encore presentation and find myself a little in need of…dare I say it…MORE.

Thankfully, being one of the creators of YogaHub – and sometimes referred to as the “Wizard Behind the Curtain” – I have the good fortune of being able to log in to the site whenever I have the time (hahahaa) and listen to any one of the amazing workshops or sessions from the 2010 conference.

Which is why I’m so excited we were able to put together the “March Magic” special promotion – because it means that you too can continue the journey, both online and via a special fully-loaded iPod.

So if you’ve enjoyed being a participant of this conference as much as I’ve enjoyed putting it all together for you, make sure you take advantage of “March Magic” today!
Segovia

PS. I’ll see to it that we send you some more tasty samples and goodies in your package too

Tags: virtual event, virtual yoga conference, march magic, ipod, yoga workshops, yoga sessions

A few weeks back during Thanksgiving, we had a visitor from out of town who was practicing with us daily. She felt so sad when it was time for her to leave us that we started to stream our daily sessions live over the web for her directly through iChat.

Well, word went out that we had started to make these daily yoga sessions available to her and some of our off-site team members requested that we make it available to them also.

Hence the birth of YogaHub.TV – LIVE! We made this stream private by first as an invitation-only for close friends and YH team members, but…

Today we opened our new channel live for the world to see at a special dedicated link: Blue Moon Yoga Session.

Our goal for 2010 is to begin making this and other yoga streams available throughout the week for everyone.

So please join us at www.YogaHub.TV/live from Monday to Friday, with a start time between 9:15 and 9:30 am PST.

Tags: daily yoga, yoga session, blue moon, daily yoga sessions, yoga everyday, yogahub.tv, live yoga session, yoga online

Yes, it all sounds wonderful but, as the saying goes, “talk is cheap!” – and I wonder just how many people, if given the same opportunity, would actually commit and stick to a workout, yoga or exercise routine with any regularity, be it daily or even just once or twice a week.

Sure, we all get excited and of course everyone votes to have better health care, especially when it comes to a complimentary daily yoga class. But why is it that after just one week of starting, over 80% to 90% of us fall off this train, get derailed and return right back to our usual daily habits (which tend not to include enough movement or exercise)?

This is the same phenomenon the entire world suffers from come January 1st. We make a commitment – usually to ourselves – that we’re going to “get in shape,” “work out twice week,” or just “start walking for 30 minutes a day.”

So what separates those who CAN from those who CAN’T? Is it something in our DNA? Why is it that some people can religiously wake up at the crack of dawn and get to the gym five days a week, while the rest of us are plagued by the constant and seemingly addictive “snooze button?”

So where do you stand? Do you find sticking to a workout or yoga schedule almost as difficult as trying to fight gravity? Or are you one of those blessed few who can commit to and follow through with some kind of regularity when it comes to your personal health program or fitness routine?

If you’re in the latter group, please share your secrets by commenting below. And if you’re in the former group, perhaps you’ve got some additional insights or light to shed on this strange pattern.

Tags: daily yoga, workout, commitment, new year resolution

When I can make it to our recent morning Yoga class with Christina, it really helps me relax, unwind, and then energize my mind and body. I think sometimes I forget that our bodies and minds are one and the same and that focusing on working the body can relieve tension in the mind – and vice versa. I don’t know if that makes a whole lot of sense, but I do know that right now it’s helping me release a ton of stress.

Tags: morning yoga, yoga at work, yoga in the office, sun salutations, yoga for stress relief, yoga practice, yoga everyday