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FitBit™ this
A FitBit. Yep, I’ve got one. I don’t know how that happened, except I did use a few AirMiles and maybe I was inspired by a friend at the gym. The way I figure it my Gym-sista, who is rocking the fitness, had the nerve to talk all about how happy she was with her Fit- Bit™. She tapped and swiped and keyed things into her phone and BlueToothed™ and sighed. When she was finished, I was dazzled and dazed. I was vulnerable to her technological workout savvy. So, here I sit with a computer strapped to my wrist. A little wee computer that has been telling me I need to move around a bit more today. The truth is, between Friday evening and Monday morning, moving isn’t something I do very often, and now I have a technological reminder, a buzz. Of course, the first time the Fit- Bit™ buzzed I spent five minutes looking for a buzzing device before I realized I was wearing it. Several moments passed before I realized the buzz was telling me and I should get off my butt and get my heart rate up a bit. How would a computer, so little, know I should do a bit more than watch Holiday Baking Challenges on television? As it turns out, FitBit™ doesn’t actually know what I’m doing, but it does know I’m not doing enough of what it doesn’t know.
Why did I think I’d be okay with a gizmo that tells me what my heart rate is? I’ve got enough paranoia in my life, I don’t need a constant reminder of my heart rate. Thank goodness it doesn’t keep track of my blood pressure. Somehow it does know the number of steps I have taken and how many calories I’ve burned. What was I thinking? I don’t like most kinds of interaction, human or otherwise, and now I’ve got a little buddy nagging me all day long. That’s right, all day long. Apparently, a good FitBit™ owner wears the Fit- Bit™ to bed so it can track your heart rate and how long you’ve slept. This morning, for snicks, I put my FitBit™ on before I got into my gym gear. Struggling to put on a sports bra and then wiggling into a pair of compression tights had to be worth about 10,000 steps, I figured. Looking for my water bottle and iPod™ have to be another 1,000 or so steps, right? As it turns out, the struggle was only forty-seven steps, which makes me think I need a more complicated new sports bra and definitely tighter tights.
Ah, FitBit™. Where were you when I was a lithe, limber teenager who loved track and field and thought nothing of playing a rousing game of field hockey, three or four times a week? Where were you then? Back in the days when my fitness level was probably impressive, I only had a grouchy gym teacher growling that I ran as if I were carrying a toddler on my back. She didn’t care about my heart rate or the number of steps I took in a day. She only cared about how fast I ran a 440 or how many goals I scored on the opposing team. She did weigh me once and said at five feet six inches, the one hundred and seventeen pounds I weighed was too much to switch from hurdles to high jumping. Today, my gym gear and bag weigh almost that much. But I’ve been told nothing feels better than reaching your daily step goal. I’ve been told that I wasn’t in a team competition anymore, but that I’d enjoy my own friendly competition. I’ve also been told I’ll sleep more, if that’s even possible. I just woke up, a moment ago, and was shocked to see I hadn’t finished writing this column. But I did fall asleep with my left index finger pressing on the tttttttttttt key and it took almost eleven FB steps to delete my typo! Okay, okay, I actually did know what I was getting into when I bought the little stinker. I like a challenge, especially a physical challenge. I found I work harder if I have a deadline, which explains the late night walks around the block, in my comfy clothes, to get the last 500 steps logged.
Later today I’m going to see how many steps I’ll log by eating a piece of Christmas cake really quickly. I let you know how that works.
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