By Julie Blaustein

Trendy Lime will be celebrating its 1st. anniversary with a special edition of JETLAG at the sizzling hot Butterfly in San Francisco, September 10th.

Join San Francisco trend-setters, world travelers, and social media fans, WHERE FASHION MEETS TRAVEL and win a “Any City” round trip with JetBlue! The trendy jetsetters of San Francisco & Bay Area are invited to dress up to the nines to celebrate Trendy Lime’ 1st. anniversary at JETLAG. Served on board of this flight: JETLAG-only delicious mix of Travel, Fashion, Music, and Socializing to be enjoyed by the most discerning tastes. Food bloggers, Gratitude Gourmet and Club Dine In gave the venue and the food a thumbs up during a private tasting.

Admission is just $10 until 11 pm with an RSVP, or $10 all night with pre-sale tickets that you should purchase now as they are limited.

The perks of attending the JETLAG celebration include:

• Round Trip with JetBlue (any 2 cities!) for the lucky TrendyLimer  – To qualify you must be part of the A-List Crowd or join now at Trendy Lime group on FB
• “All you Can Dance” package by DJ Nader & DJ Michelle Musial
• 1st Class pampering with Mary Kay goodie-bags
• Fashion in the Air: “Fresh fashion experience” is brought to you by San Francisco renowned designers “ANYA” and “RockChiq” and presented by the stunning models from around the world.
• Spectacular gourmet creations by the chef and owner of “Butterfly” Rob Lam, complimentary between 9.30-10.30,
• Trendy Lime birthday cake at midnight

Sponsors and Partners include: JetBlue, Mary Kay, Mesaic, Red Bull

Media Partners: Bub.bliciou.us, Eclectic a la Mode, FailCon, Fashionaholics, Jetset Extra, Laura Loves Art, Mashable.com, Moda Epidemic, Vator.tv, 360 Fashion Network.

Follow the buzz about Trendy Lime’s 1st. Anniversary  and  Special Edition of JETLAG at #jetlagTL

JETLAG is brought to you by Trendy Lime and Michael Nader. Trendy Lime is a social media driven producer of upscale social, networking, and networking events for trend-setters and world travelers. Our San Francisco network of international socialites is 3,000 people strong and counting. Soon we are planning to bring Trendy Lime events to other world metropolis. Our distinguishing feature is combining elements of fashion, travel, and technology at the events. Our Mission is to provide unique event experience for the most discerning guests, while supporting good cause initiatives and collaborating with local businesses. DJ Nader (Michael Nader) is the Co-Founder of Feel Group and is the owner of several successful San Francisco establishments including Harlot and Morac.

Photo Credit: Sean Percival

This week is the National Women’s Health Week empowering women to make their health a top priority. And it’s not only women’s health that we should be concerned about. Childhood obesity in United States has more than tripled in the past 30 years, and there are more than 1 billion overweight adults globally, of which at least 300 million are obese. Food industry is vowing to make processed food healthier, meanwhile studies showing how addictive fatty foods are, also suggesting that processed carbohydrates may increase the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease more than fat does.

Jamie Oliver’s new TV show Foodrevolution has a mission to fight childhood obesity and change the way America eat. His combined Facebook and Twitter community has passed 700 000 followers and the petition to improve school food has so far been signed by half a million people. It’s a great example of how to create awareness by engaging directly with the community, both online and offline. Watch this clip with Stephen Colbert (4min in) and the magnitude of the challenge the nation in whole is facing becomes evident.

So, what if you could bring a personal trainer, dietician and motivator with you all the time? In your pocket? Now you can. DailyBurn and Swedish ShapeUp Club are two easy to use online weight loss and fitness services, both with free iPhone apps. Yes, you can get started with your new life with zero cost (ShapeUp Club is soon to have an application available for Nokia). DailyBurn’s freemium model also offers a basic functionality free online, whereas with ShapeUp Club one can sign up starting at $3 per month to get added functionality, such as advanced nutrition tracking with charts, back-up and online community.

Setting up ones individual health program is quickly done in both services, whether one is looking for losing, keeping or gaining weigth. The iPhone apps make it really easy to record daily food and exercise, with metric system of ones choice, allowing one to create, add and favourite food items and meals. Both services sync all data with the online account. DailyBurn is a bit more fitness orientated with lots of various workout program and challenges, where one can find like minded people for support to achieve fitness goals.

I spent previously four years on developing the largest online weight loss service in Sweden (Viktklubb.se) in collaboration with an obesity unit, that also conducts research studies on weight loss online with help of the service. These are my learnigs and thoughts on why I think the two services have figured out the key success factors of weight loss, thereby already enjoying over 100 000 users in respective service.

1. The social aspects of weight control. Gaining and retaining motivation with the help of the community, day or night, is very important. To find and interact with other people in the same situation has shown to be crucial to many. Besides from the inbuilt communities, this is where social networks like Facebook and Twitter come to help to increase the interactivity, thus strengthening the core service. ShapeUp Club has been more focused on blogging than social networking so far, where I’m especially happy to see DailyBurn engaging with its users.

2. Easy registering of daily calories and activities. iPhone apps do just that! The most annoying thing users know is spending a lot of time to fill in the diary of daily calories and activities. It brings down the motivation and once one skips registering, it gets harder to stay on track. I think both services have done a great job even if I find it a bit easier with ShapeUp Club. On the other hand, DailyBurn offers a FoodScanner app for $0.99 to easier find foods by scanning UPC barcodes or typing in food names.

3. Visualization of the progress. This is the number one motivational factor. To see charts and diagrams over ones weight, waistline, body fat, to name a few, does wonders. DailyBurn is also connected to Withings, a WiFi scale linked to the Internet that automatically tracks weight and body fat directly to DailyBurn. Trust me, men like this one. Men has shown to be more competitive, also when it comes to fitness and weight loss, thus making the information publicly available a good motivator.

4. Watercheck/Water tracker. Grown ups should drink at least 2 liter (0,5 gallon) water per day. Registering and visualizing the daily water consumption is a great way to get a hang of how much water one actually drinks during one day. I’ve learned how easy it is to be mistaken of ones daily water consumption. I particularly like the neat implementation of watercheck in ShapeUp Club’s iPhone app.

As Andy Smith, CEO and Co-Founder of DailyBurn, said: “You manage what you measure”. (quote by Mark Suster). I couldn’t agree more.

Ps. Not to worry! For the occasional social drinks, stick with gin & tonic and wine. They’re the kindest when it comes to calories.

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Follow her on Twitter: @paulamarttila
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

by Michelle Lentz

CES is gigantic. In fact, I think gigantic is a bit of an understatement. With so much to do, see, and learn, there can be a bit of sensory overload. I was about numb by the time I landed in the North Hall at the end of yesterday afternoon. A girlfriend of mine took one look at me and dragged me over to the Paro booth. That’s where I discovered Paro, robotic harp seals created to be therapeutic robots.

The "pacifier" is plugged into a battery charger.

The seals make cooing noises and respond to petting and loving. If you walk away, the seal tries to follow. It wags its tail and really enjoys chin scratches. The seal opens and closes its big black eyes (complete with long eyelashes) and is responsive to its name and several other greetings. The seal even gets sleepy at night and knows when it should be awake.

Playing with the seal, it was easy to forget that this wasn’t a pet and actually a robot, with chips and wiring making it work. The seal was created for medical therapy. Placed in nursing homes, used in rehabilitative wards, and used with Downs Syndrom and Cerebral Palsy patients,  everyone responds positively to the seal. In many hospitals and nursing homes, pets aren’t allowed because of hygeine and can cause injury to patients. The seal, as a robot, provides a lot of the same benefits as animal therapy, without the cause for concern.

Of course, the seal costs $6000 – ouch! Especially if you’re a non-profit rehabilitative center.

I plan on ending every day at CES playing with the Paros. They certainly brought a smile to my face at the end of a long day.

__

Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

By Miiko Mentz (@miikomentz) and Alison McNeill (@alisonmcneill)

As we head on into the weekend we thought we’d get you in a weekend spa mood by sharing more interviews from the 2009 Face & Body Expo. So far we’ve shared our interviews with Danielle Farnan of GoSmile and Lisbeth Boger of Eminence Organic Skin Care. Next up are Sanitas Skincare and Sparitual.

Josie Dembikzak of Sanitas Skincare talked to us about the importance of having good skin and how it comes from the inside out. Sanitas skincare has both nutritional and topical skincare products. And we got to throw back a couple of shots (no, they didn’t contain alcohol) with Josie, check it out:

In the video below, Anya Whisenhunt of Sparitual shares with us the Sparitual philosophy of creating eco-friendly products, and she talks about a few of their vegan products from nail polish to bath salts. Sparitual nail care and spa product formulations are naturally colored and free of unhealthy ingredients such as synthetic dyes, formaldehyde and toluene, which are common ingredients found in most mainstream nail polish brands.

Sanitas has not jumped on the social media bandwagon and does not have a twitter handle or Facebook fan page (maybe after reading this they will engage). However, we did find an active Sparitual Facebook fan page and a Twitter handle (@SpaRitual), but no tweets. I suspect that the company didn’t create the Twitter handle. However, they should claim it because they have lots of customers and fans talking about them on Twitter.

The next time you’re at the spa, perhaps this weekend, ask about Sanitas Skincare and Sparitual.

Related Posts:

Face and Body Expo 2009: GoSmile

Face & Body Expo 2009: Eminence Organics