HARNESSING FITBIT POWER

I got a Fitbit for Christmas, and as Martha Stewart used to say, that’s a good thing.

When these things first hit the market I thought they were nothing but an expensive accessory, a status symbol of sorts.  If I’m anything it’s deadly practical.  There is no way that wearing an overpriced, over glorified piece of technology on your wrist is going to make a person lose weight.  It was just one more battery to go dead.  One more slice of software to need upgrading.  One more charger to forget when you go somewhere.  One more thing that would be obsolete before you got home from the store.

All of these things are still true.  If a person is going to make a commitment to exercise more, that decision comes from their head, not their wrist.  You can’t buy your desired weight no matter how good your credit card is.

I struggle with my weight.  Well, actually, I struggle with my self image ... you know the “self” image projected on to me by movie stars, magazine covers, and fashion models.  I don’t look like them.  I might have briefly in my late teens, but since then I’ve looked like a regular human female; it’s a tough row to hoe.

I would estimate that over the past five decades I have swung from “I have to lose weight!” to “If I’m fit, what does it matter if my waist isn’t ten inches smaller than my chest and hips?” to “What I really need is to be ten inches taller!” to “I can live on 1000 calories a day.” To “This is me, just accept it!”

This past while though, as I still feel the need to be unsatisfied with my body, my focus has been more about keeping active – the old “use it or you’ll lose it” advice.  When you’re in your sixties this adage hits a lot closer to home.  Believe me, when your grand daughter wants you to make snow angels with her and your first thought is ‘if I get down there, will I be able to get back up?’ you know that the old body might need a little work.

My feelings toward Fitbits didn’t change overnight.  I guess you could say that I went from thinking them frivolous, to not having much of an opinion at all.  I’m just not the person who is going to notice if someone is wearing one, let alone be able to tell a new one from an old one – the desire for the latest fashion is lost on me.  It was a luncheon conversation with three women whose judgement I value highly that started me rethinking my stance on electronic fitness monitors.  Two of my friends already owned Fitbits and the third was preparing to buy one.  As we awaited our lunch she asked advice on what she was looking for. 

Instead of the high pressure sales pitch and the ‘can’t live without it’ propaganda, here were people whose opinions I respected talking about what they liked about their watch/fitness monitor.  Practical things like getting a buzz for texts or calls even when their phone was on mute (I didn’t even know they did that), having an accurate count of activity, being able to see charts and graphs of activity over time, and even monitoring sleep patterns.  I have to admit, I was intrigued.

Not so intrigued that I went out and bought one, though.  My cheapness still won out over my fading scepticism, but when my husband was stuck on what to get me for Christmas it was on my list.

I have to confess I really do like my new toy.  I spent Christmas morning feeding it my information so that it knew my stride length, and general unfitness level.  I even shared with it my goal weight and to its credit, it didn’t laugh.  I solemnly presided over the wi-fi marriage ceremony between my phone and watch and we have all marched forward toward 10,000 steps per day.

I say these things with self deprecation, after all it does seem like I’ve bought into this ‘owning a Fitbit will solve all your problems’ business, but it’s not working like that. 

It is working, though.  One of the goals is to do at least 250 steps per hour for nine hours of the day.  This is totally doable; easy peasy even.  And if I haven’t accomplished this at ten minutes to the hour it buzzes my wrist and tells me I have like 87 steps left.  A tiny but effective challenge to move.  It counts how many flights of stairs I do a day – again, I am challenged to see how many I can do.  And 10,000 steps amounts to only my regular day plus a two mile walk – provided the weather stays nice that isn’t even a hardship.

I stand by my mockery of an accessory being able to fix anyone’s life, that’s not what is happening here.  The decision comes from me, of course.  That’s the only way any self improvement plan can succeed.  The role of my Fitbit is making what I’m doing measurable.  I can actually see the kms I’ve walked, the stairs I’ve climbed, the minutes of cardio I’ve put in.  And, I can compare them to last week’s performance.  I am the most uncompetitive person on the planet when it comes to putting myself up against others, but me doing one better than the day before is my rendition of a win.  My progress, should I make any, will be just be between me and my Fitbit.

Maybe, by next winter I won’t have such serious reservations about snow angel activity.  I did make it up again without help – even have a picture to prove it