1/20 Update: There are only 10 days left to get me your ideas! We have 12 or so so far. I have approved some of the ideas that were posted via commenting so that you can get an idea of what ideas people are coming up with. Obviously I can see the date and time those were submitted, so don’t try stealing their ideas!
1/12 Update: We have received close to 10 great ideas so far. Several were the same idea, so send as many as you can!
1/10 Update: We have had a few more submissions come in. All great ideas. At this rate, we will probably see 16 or so submissions, so if you have a great idea, you still have a good shot at winning the gift card. Even if you don’t win, your idea might be used, and at the very least, you can tell your friends: “I was the one who thought of that!!”.
1/8 Update: After 48 hours, one submission was received. The site has received nearly six thousand visits since the announcement and still only received one submission. Come on people! There isn’t a whole lot of competition!
At TheSupplementRating.com, we are always striving to make our site more useful. For the month of January, we are going to run an idea competition. If your suggestion is chosen as the best idea, you will receive a $50 gift certificate to BodyBuilding.com!
Please submit your ideas through our Feedback Form. Make sure that you include your email address (so we can contact you if you win). Also, be as thorough as possible; include as many details about your idea as possible. For example, instead of just saying “change layout”, give us some examples of exactly how we should change the layout.
You can submit as many ideas as possible. If two people have the exact same winning idea, the person who sends it in first will be selected as the winner. Feel free to make multiple submissions.
If you have any questions about the competition, please post a comment or use the Feedback Form.
The winners will be announced in the first couple days of February, and updates will be posted throughout the month.
Good Luck!
One of my favorite things is finding creative ways to stay motivated about going to the gym, working out and getting exercise. Here is a random assortment of ideas that I have thought of that will hopefully help someone else:
- Buy supplements and leave them somewhere where you will look at them all the time. If you have a bunch of supplements sitting around, staring you in the face, it might guilt you into going to the gym. Place them in a strategic location such as on top of the fridge. Every time you go to get a snack or make yourself an unhealthy meal, you have a bunch of health supplements reminding you of your fitness goals.
- Overpay for your gym membership. If you feel like you are spending a lot on your gym membership, you might be more likely to try and get your money’s worth. The same applies for home fitness equipment. If you pay a lot for some sort of fitness membership or equipment, make sure you don’t forget about it. Leave your gym pass right by the front door. Set up your equipment right by the couch and television. Use guilt to pressure you into working out.
- If you really don’t feel like working out, convince yourself just to drive to the gym, get out of your car and step one foot inside. Tell yourself that if you really don’t want to work out, you can make that decision when you are one foot inside the gym. It is a lot easier to get yourself to do something when it doesn’t sound that bad. Don’t even think about working out, just think about getting to the gym. Driving to the gym isn’t that terrible. Just do it and see what happens. Worst case is that you can still say “I went to the gym today”. Best case (and most likely) is that once you get to the gym, you will justify working out because you have already come all this way. And just like magic, you have tricked yourself into working out!
- Get a gym partner. As long as you are both somewhat motivated, you will keep one another going in times of slight motivation decreases. It is a lot harder to blow off going to the gym when you are also blowing off one of your friends. A group of a few people might not work as well because you won’t feel like you are making someone go by them self when you blow off going to the gym.
- Find activities that you really enjoy. I absolutely love playing roller hockey. There is a rink in town and I go every time there are pickups. I don’t go for the exercise; I go for the competition and the love of playing the sport. Finding an activity that you enjoy which has the side-effect of exercise can really help trick you into working out. Just make sure that your activities are really going to give you exercise. I have found that beer pong doesn’t work so well.
- Get books on tape. Go for a jog or bike ride while listing to them.
The key really is to trick yourself into exercising. Some people feel that exercising is unbearable by itself. If you are one of those people, the best thing to do is just not think about the fact that it is exercise. Put your mind somewhere else and get it done.
The swelling is starting to go down and I am really getting some mobility back in my knee. I have been going to physical therapy which has been helping a whole lot. I am back on the stationary cycle with no pain at all. There is still a little limp going down the stairs, and a little pain while squatting, but other than that it is mostly healed. The incisions have closed up and are slowly disappearing.
The whole surgery cost a ton, but I saved a ton of money by having insurance. I would have been out a ton of money if I hadn’t signed up for an insurance plan a few months ago, right before the injury. I posted about the meniscectomy cost.
I should be back to hockey and running in a few weeks. I am excited about ending my recovery and getting back to my normal active life!
Now accepting nominations for Supplement of the Month, December 2008:
We would like users to suggest supplements that they have used in December which have helped them achieve their fitness goals. We would like to rate the supplements on some various criteria:
- Effectiveness: This is really the bottom line for all supplements. Did the product help you achieve the results you were looking for?
- Value: Do you get a lot of bang for your buck? If you got great results, but you had to empty your wallet for the product, it might not be worth the price.
- Taste: Some supplements are hard to get down, whereas others might taste like a true milkshake. Supplements aren’t exactly supposed to taste great, but if they are too hard to get down, they might not be worth taking.
- Side effects: I have heard numerous complaints about some pre-workout formulas that give people really bad gas or digestion problems. This could be a deal-breaker for most people.
- Innovation: Most supplement manufacturers claim each of their products is “cutting edge technology” or a “scientific breakthrough”, but their products are usually pretty generic. Supplements that are truly first of their kind should be given more weight than other copy-cats.
If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment or send me an email (if you can find my email address). I would like to select a winner a few days into the new year.
Many people have sent me emails asking that I create some sort of “Top Supplements” page. I usually tell them that I have created something like this already. You can easily see the top rated supplements in each category. Take a look at the Whey Protein section and you can clearly see the supplements are listed by rating. Just look at the top and you will see the “Top Supplements”.
I’m not sure if people either didn’t realize that feature existed, or if they wanted to see some sort of summarized page with the top supplements out of all the supplements on the site. I was thinking of doing something like this with a “Supplement of the Month” sort of thing. Each month, I would put together a top 10 supplements sort of list and declare the #1 winner as “Supplement of the Month”. I would keep a record of each monthly top 10 list, so you could look back and see the previous winners and runners up.
However, I don’t have the slightest idea on how to select the top supplements. I am looking for suggestions as to how to determine the winners. Send me an email or post a comment with your thoughts!
I went in for the meniscus repair surgery last Thursday. I was nervous since the only other time that I had surgery was when I got my wisdom teeth removed. I thought I would be sitting in a waiting room for a while just jittering the whole time, but they moved me through pretty quickly. I wasn’t waiting for more than a few minutes before they called me into pre-op.
I was given an IV, then they shaved my knee, and they asked some general questions about my health. They wheeled me into the operating room, strapped me down, then knocked me out.
It felt like it was only moments later when I woke up. I felt fine, except my leg was all bandaged up. I was released about an hour later, got a ride home and rested.
I still can’t really walk. The problem is that my knee is really swollen so I don’t have a full range of motion with my knee. I used the crutches for the first few days, but yesterday and today I started walking without them. I still can’t walk even close to correctly, but I figure that will change once the swelling goes down.
I am glad I got the surgery over with. I will finally be able to play sports and run again. I go in for my follow-up appointment tomorrow, so I should get an idea of how much longer I will be limping around.
After going into the doctor and getting an MRI on my injured knee, it has become clear that I have a torn meniscus and I will need surgery. Since my yearly deductible for my health insurance is pretty high, I decided to have the surgery ASAP, so I would get maximum health insurance coverage for the costs associated with the procedure.
There are two possible outcomes of the surgery. One is that I have part of the meniscus removed, and the other possible outcome is that I have it repaired. If I have the damaged part removed, I will be back on my feet in no time, but I will have an increased chance of getting arthritis when I get older. If I have part of it repaired, I will be on crutches for six weeks.
I really don’t know which one will be better. Obviously, the repair will be better for the long run, but being on crutches for six weeks will be a big pain. At least my knee won’t hurt anymore and I will eventually be back to the things I love, like hockey, running, walking without a limp, etc.
I have noticed that a lot of people want to post a review just to respond to something someone else posted. I also have found that some people flag reviews based on some fact that is over my head. It is hard for me to decide what to do with the original review based on this new information. I don’t know who to believe!
Anyway, I have created a feature that allows users to respond to people’s review. By hitting the “Reply” link, you can write your comments on their review without effecting the statistical information regarding the supplement (average overall rating, effectiveness, recommendation summary, etc.). You can go through and reply to as many reviews as you want.
The one thing about this system is that I have to approve the replies before they ever go live. I chose to do it this way because people can say some nasty things to each other when they have a computer to hide behind. Sort of like road rage. So if you don’t see your reply show up in an instant, don’t worry. It should be up the next day as long as you are playing nice.
Here is another review for a shaker cup I received from www.ShakeItUpCup.com. This cup is similar to some of the other shaker cups that I have used before, but has a few notable differences:
- The ridges on that go around the top really help you screw the top down tight, and help you get a good grip when removing the top after you have screwed it on tightly.
- The screen seems to attach to the top rather than resting in the cup. At first, I didn’t quite understand, but then I plugged the scree into the top and it stayed really well. This is nice because it helps keep the screen and the top together, so you have fewer pieces to worry about when washing and drying.
- The overall manufacturing quality of this cup is pretty good. The plastic is thick, solid and feels rather durable. The cup doesn’t leak at all, even when shaken really hard. Some of the other shaker cups I have used in my years had similar designs, but the quality of the cup just didn’t feel very solid. This cup feels strong and gives me the feeling that it will last.
I used this cup a number of times for several different protein powders, and noticed that the mixing results were better than some other cups. Even my poorly mixing proteins (won’t mention any names) were able to come out mostly smooth from this cup.
I received the “Turbo Shaker” cup compliments of TurboShaker.com
This shaker cup is different from any other shaker cup I have used for several reasons:
- The lid does not screw on. At first, I was afraid that super hard shaking would just blow the top off and I would spill my protein shake everywhere. I was cautious first, but then became more comfortable with the idea as I noticed the lid really stayed on well.
- Instead of having some sort of screen between the cup and lid, this cup has some fins at the top and bottom which help in the mixing process. As I shake, I can actually see the liquid inside starting to rotate.
- There are only a total of two pieces, instead of four. Most shakers consist of the cup, screen, top and lid. The problem is cleaning all those parts, and often times losing the little lid down the drain or in the dishwasher. The turbo shaker only has two pieces, so it is a lot easier to keep together.
After doing a few mix tests, it doesn’t seem like the turbo shaker mixes any better than any other shaker cup. I was surprised since I thought the turbo fins would really assist in the mixing process. I guess it is pretty hard to really tell if they are working or not since I shake my protein shakes so hard anyway.
Overall, the Turbo Shaker is a convenient way to mix your protein shakes or any other supplements that need mixing. With the two piece design, it is a lot easier to hang onto this one.
Find out more at: http://www.turboshaker.com/