I Forgot My Fitbit Was Charging, and Now It’s Like I Walked For No Reason
I’m one of the few people without an Apple Watch. I planned to buy one when my Fitbit died but here I am, still wearing the same Fitbit for the last eight years. (The generic Inspire variety instead of the newer Sense or Charge.)
Buying an unfancy Fitbit turned out to be a good decision on account of it having more lives than a cat. Trust me when I say I put it to the test. I wear it faithfully. It is regularly immersed in chlorinated pool water and soaked with arm and leg sweat.
I say “leg sweat” because I stopped wearing my Fitbit on my wrist and have been strapping it around my ankle ever since I read that it measures steps more accurately and because the new magnetic band I got pinches my arm hairs. (Manicure lady last visit: “Your arms hairy like dogs.” I’m not sure what that means because, you know, dogs don’t have arms, but I got the point. My arms could use a good shaving.)
So now my hairy right wrist is Fitbit-free, and I look like I’m wearing an ankle monitor, but that is better than having my limb hair painfully plucked and having the silverware hanging off my wrist when I’m emptying the dishwasher.
I’ve been trying to drop a few pounds after returning from Disney a tad rounder and as a result, I’ve become obsessed with the FitBit metrics that had absolutely no impact on my life pre-weight gain.
Now I pour over things like my breathing rate, resting heart rate, oxygen saturation, and sleeping habits, for instance.
I sleep just fine...well...actually, I sleep crappy a lot of the time, and good sleep is elusive but either way, I’ve been scrutinizing my sleep data as soon as I wake like the investigators on an especially perplexing episode of Forensic Files.
I had twice as much REM sleep than Deep Sleep and my Sleep Score says Fair. What does that meeeeaaaaan? Should I be concerned?
(Oh great, something new to worry about.)
I also upped the recommended daily goal of 10,000 steps a day to 20,000 steps. I’m obsessed with how to get those extra 10,000 steps, which is no easy feat given considering I spend most of my time sitting on the couch writing within the confines of our not-exactly-mansion-sized home.
My current fitness routine mostly involves weights and circuit training, which the FitBit doesn’t always comprehend. Last week it logged Peggy’s one-hour If-You’re-Lucky-You-Won’t-Die-Here-Doing-Three-Million-Lunges Body Blast class as ten “zone minutes” which felt deeply unfair.
And while I wasn’t worried about missing a brisk daily walk beforehand, now that I’m aware of my Fitbit reminding me what a lazy a$$I am I started doing this ridiculous thing where I take the most inefficient routes to complete household tasks to increase my daily step count.
Why carry the entire laundry basket to the washer when I can ferry each towel individually? Why just stand there and fold towels when I could march in place at the same time? Need to make a phone call? Pace like a caged animal on a sad little zoo path through the family room and into the dining room while chatting. There’s also an abundance of toe-tapping, leg-kicking, and occasional bouncing.
I’m sure that is helpful in terms of lifting my butt off the couch and moving my body away from the computer, what with all those ominous studies that say sitting all day while eating M&Ms means you are developing heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, unhealthy cholesterol levels and excess body fat around the waist and are going to shorten your lifespan by decades unless you keep moving your body. (I imagine if I split open a vein pure sugar would flow out BTW.)
My goal is to become more physically healthy but that darn Fitbit is turning my need to move into a mentally exhausting obsession.
Why is balance so hard?
Oh well. I‘m thirsty and need to refill my water bottle, so excuse me while I take a high-knee walk from the family room after jogging through three bedrooms and skipping across the front yard as I make my way to the refrigerator.