I dislike being part of a trend. It makes me feel like a statistic. But as of 1/8/2018, I am apparently one of 25 million active Fitbit users. If you are smarter than I am and have managed to avoid this whole wearable tech thing, you may not be aware that a simple Fitbit, like the one I have, will count your steps and track your sleep. The fancier ones can do amazing things apparently, car repairs, legal advice, Freudian analysis, but I just have a basic one. If this wearable tech thing is a cattle call, apparently a lot of us are mooing. Damned if I'm not mooing too.
I live in Minnesota. It's been cold this winter, so my husband @preparedwombat and I have not gotten our normal amount of walking in. Here we are at a local restaurant, our smiles undoubtedly brightened by the fact that you can't see our sagging mid-sections after our season of sloth.
Since joining the herd of Fitbit users a couple of years ago, I have managed 10,000 steps a day pretty regularly, usually 4 times a week. Last Spring on a trip to Las Vegas--I was there to attend a conference and @preparedwombat came along to check out the poker tables—he and I took a couple of days to see the sights and logged a whopping 22,000 steps on a single day. Pretty good for a couple of geezers. But this Winter, with bleak black cold a constant before work and after, and a long cold drive to the mall the dues you must pay to get a measly plasticine mall walk, I have been managing only 5,000 steps a day or so, if that. So it was with determination and slightly creaky fortitude that I set out on a walk yesterday afternoon, sporting my trusty Fitbit on my wrist.
Conditions were not perfect but were so much better than they have been, that I got a little excited, maybe went a little overboard. It was afternoon, the sun still shining down from the steely sky so I could easily avoid the patches of ice. There was some wind off the lake (which lake? this is Minnesota, pick one) but it wasn't too bad. I had forgotten a scarf, but the collar on my coat is big so I turned it up against the wind, pulled my hat down tighter over my ears, and kept walking. There are a couple of long walks near our house that we normally take. One is more rural, going past a little lake and the last of the fields in our neighborhood, and one goes into town, past churches and bars and our town's little movie theater, skirting the edge of the big lake. It was a day for heady excess. I went crazy. I did both walks.
I had a great audio book going, Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama, (He reads the audio book himself. Sniff. I miss him so.) The wind was tolerable, the shoes were good, someone else was cooking dinner so I wasn't needed at home, and I didn't have our elderly dog Bacci with me so no worries about keeping the walk brief to get her in out of the cold. I just kept walking at a pretty brisk pace for about two hours.
It was nearly perfect. Great book, great walk, good exercise, plenty of fresh air, lovely scenery, a little alone time. All good, but for one thing. I got home, flumped into a chair and plugged in my phone which had run out of battery while I was out. I checked the Fitbit app and stared, blinking, disbelieving. Only 30 minutes of the 120 I'd walked had been captured, only 7580 steps. That's just not right, thought I. I did more steps than that, thought I. Credit where credit is due, thought I with a kind of rising panic. Fair is fair after all!
The Fitbit battery was low when I left, but it has never been so low that it refused to track my steps. I have always been able to cajole into doing its job. So I plugged the Fitbit into its charger, plugged the phone into its charger and waited for sweet justice ....that never show up.
I don't know what happened.
Some combination of the low battery and the low temperature caused my Fitbit to fall asleep, completely lose interest. Hell, for all I know it is secretly seeing another middle-aged woman's wrist behind my back. Probably a younger woman. I really don't know. What I do know is that I had a very hard time not getting my little pat on the head, my little Fitbit fix of validation for my efforts. Dinner was ready and I was hungry, but as I sat there at the table with the family, where I should have been focused on them and the fine meal, I kept going back to the phone and syncing and re-syncing it with the app, trying to make my Fitbit wake up and tell me I'm a good girl.
Walking is its own reward.
I was a walker long before I got a Fitbit, and if I'm lucky, I will go on walking long after the zombie apocalypse comes along, wearable tech is a distant memory, and we all have to walk miles each day to forage for food. I love walking and plan to go on doing it as long as I can. I guess the question must be asked though, is wearing a Fitbit on my wrist enhancing my experience of walking or taking away from it? By continually keeping this leash on my wrist to get my little "Atta Girl!" when I hit a steps goal, am I missing an opportunity to just be while I walk and get my zen on? It is worth pondering. Perhaps I'll take a walk next weekend and really think it through. And maybe I'll leave my Fitbit at home……just to show it.
images from pixabay and my iphone
This was a fun read. There is nothing so frustrating than doing something for hours, assuming your mechanical/electronic/computerized buddy is doing the thing it was BUILT to do, only to find out it crapped out on the job. And there's nobody to complain to about it to get it all resolved. If there was some kind of backdoor on Fitbit (assuming there is not?) where you could manually enter your estimated steps that Fitbit lost, maybe that would help.
Or maybe that would be an enticement to cheat? :) Rationalizations would abound about how Fitbit certainly MUST have been napping while I ran that marathon!
Thanks @negativer. I think I had better get better at keeping my battery charged or better at not caring when it's not. Also think you're right, back door estimates would lead to fibbing. Thanks so much for reading.
I live my Fitbit, but yeah, I go through that same thing when I’ve put in unrecorded steps. I feel so cheated! It’s like they didn’t happen. It’s not enough that I know they happened. I need a record of it! Where’s my kudos?
I like your question about whether wearing your Fitbit ribs you if the ability to just be. We should all ask that question with regard to our dependence on electronic devices.
I love my Fitbit too, when it works and does what it is supposed to. I remain convinced I want a Fitbit that is as simple as possible, so I keep getting the Fitbit Flex. It certainly is not the flagship of the company, but it should still work, right? I find that after about 9 months, they stop holding a charge for a full week. That is the state this current one is in. Would you recommend getting a fancier one like you? Maybe it is just time to upgrade.
I really like my Fitbit Charge. My previous Fitbits kept breaking, but this one has been good. I like all the functionality and the battery seems great. Actually my first Charge band broke but they replaced it for free.
OK, good to know. I will see if I can find one for cheap.
xoxox honey. I'm calling it a day.
I had no clue Barack Obama wrote a book (and reads the audio version)! I'll have to find that :P
I haven't discovered the joys of audio books yet, but I may get around to it at some point. Most of my reading is in between classes or (bad me!) during classes. So I dunno.
Keep walking, no matter who's watching! I get mad when certain apps erase my streaks too :P
I really like Dreams from my Father. He does great voices when he reads, for his white grandparents and mother, his Kenyan father and sister, his black and white friends when he is a teen and a young man. He really traveled quite a road to get where he got. As for audio books, oh my goodness. Finding audio books and becoming a devotee has turned nearly all time into potential "reading" time. When I cook, drive, walk at lunchtime, audio books every chance I get. Time that I should probably be resting mentally or focusing on something else (the highway before me for example, the recipe I am making) has now become audio book time. I get through many many more books in a year than I could before audio books. As with all things, important to find balance.
Hope you don't get caught reading in class!
haha, I know this feeling well! Devastation and then reality that a walk is a walk and we were doing it pre fitbit we will be doing it post fitbit. the most disappointing thing is if you are in a challenge and it didn't count.
I have been on the fitbit wagon for years now, I may have even been an early adopter and I am one of those people who have the fancy one's and although I am still waiting for it to make car repairs I am impressed with the ability to now pay my bills from my watch like PayPass which is pretty awesome cause I never liked taking my wallet to the gym but do like to grab things on the way home if need be. Technology is amazing and forever changing and developing. Soon we won't need a watch at all but a chip in our wrist...
Thanks @insideoutlet. As long as its not a chip on our shoulder, we'll all be fine. Thanks for reading and responding.