Back in August, I acquired a Fitbit Charge HR from my lovely wife. On one hand, I tried my best to stay fairly active knowing that heart disease runs in the family, but on the other hand, I wondered if I was doing enough.
I have to say that I have officially jumped aboard the fitness train in the past six months and it’s all because of this little gadget strapped around my wrist.
I’m sure you’ve all heard about these devices but for the kids of the future reading this blog, it’s basically an overpowered pedometer which also tracks your heart rate.
Lately, my obsessions have been:
- How can I get to my 10,000 steps today?
- Oooh, they added a new feature called ‘Active Minutes’. What do you mean 10,000 steps isn’t considered active? Oh, it’s because it defines an active minute by the level of your heart rate.
- Now I’m all about getting active minutes. I walk fast to and from my office. I hop on the elliptical every night now. Anything to get into the active minute zone.
- This past week I’ve been thinking about John and how he has lost weight on a diet. How can I leverage that thinking into making me more fit?
- Fitbit also asks for you to set a goal for your ideal weight. I never bothered doing that because I was more concerned about having a healthy heart. So I started thinking about it and entered that I wanted to lose 20 pounds. What harm could come of that?
- Now I’m starting to log the food I eat each day and it’s comparing how many calories I have coming in vs. how many are going out.
I have to say that as a device, I know it’s not the most accurate thing in the world (I mean, how does it REALLY know how many calories I’m burning based on my height/weight/gender…it can only be estimates), but I have to say that it’s really interesting how my mind gets shifted into another realm when I start seeing that I’m not maximizing the amount I can be doing. For example, on Sunday, I wasn’t doing all that much around the house which meant that my ‘calories out’ bar on the bar graph was slowly being taken over by the ‘calories in’ bar graph of food that I was eating during the day. So what did I do at the end of the day? Got on the elliptical so I could skyrocket that ‘calorie out’ bar way above the ‘calories in’. If I wasn’t paying attention to this Fitbit, I probably would have just been on my merry way to sitting down at the tv.
That’s another interesting point to consider…I used to bring my bicycle downstairs in the winter and watch tv while biking. However, there is the ass factor to consider and that is if you don’t bike all that much, you’re going to be quite sore all the time. I asked Uncle Gerry how to overcome this and I’m pretty sure he said something nice but underneath it was saying “Suck it up and power through!” 🙂
But the elliptical has become a favourite machine of mine in the house. I don’t find it too intense but at the same time, if I want it to be intense, I can do so by pedaling backwards, using my arms to push/pull instead of using my feet…it’s neat! I place it in front of the tv and get to catch up on some shows. (P.S., I just finished Jessica Jones and I have to say…meh).
So…all this to say that it’s been interesting to see how much I have changed since August past to this point. Who knows if I will stick with it? I am notorious for just bailing on fitness after awhile. But I feel that technology has finally figured out how to make fitness fun for the people who don’t find fitness all that fun.