A couple of years ago, my employer bought FitBit devices for all of our managers. Most of those devices are long silent, somewhere in the back of a drawer, but for a while it energized all of us to exercise more. So what happened? I’m sure most of you have similar stories to tell and have your very own fitness tracking device, statistically that device is probably one of the silent ones.
When it started it was great. We would have constant competitions among staff “Workplace Hustle” and such. Fairly quickly, people started to drop off until it was just a few of us. We would still have the competitions, but those started to drop off.
Here we have a company trying to encourage their staff to be more fit (a very common thing, they even have FitBit models marketed directly to companies now), but the staff just weren’t into it and the program died a premature death.
I went the opposite direction and went all-in with FitBit. The first step was to upgrade my tracker. The model we were supplied with was an early clip-on model. Clip it onto your pants, your shirt, whatever. I found, and so did other staff, that it was too easy to forget and I am sure at least one of them probably ended up in a washing machine.
The model I decided to upgrade to is the Alta. It doesn’t have the most features like detecting your heart rate or detecting stair climbs, but it is slim on my wrist and has a great battery length which were both important to me. Another nice feature of the Alta is the ability to change wristbands. I went down the rabbit hole of Amazon and found some great ones for not much money.
So here I am, my nice FitBit strapped to my wrist, lots of determination and ready to move. At this point I am what I would call pudgy but loveable, so I am also motivated to lose weight. I have a very up and down history when it comes to weight loss and a not very successful exercise history. Add to that a desk job, and I am the last person you would expect to be winning any step competitions. This is where the genius of the FitBit ecosystem pays off, and where it rewards you the deeper you go into it.
The FitBit App – the key to success I believe my use of the FitBit app is the key to the success I had. As part of my weight loss journey, I used it as my calorie counter. It takes a while to get used to measuring your food that you prepare, but after a few days you get to know what a cup or 100g. of something looks like. FitBit also remembers the foods you enter into it, so if you are a creature of habit like me and have the same breakfast every day, you items will be there to click on (all you need to do is select breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack). The app also lets you create custom meals, say if you go to Subway and get a sandwich and a cookie, you would just need to enter the details in once, and then name that meal. The next time you eat the same thing, it is there in the custom meal section waiting. Decide to be a monster and eat two cookies? Just change the quantity.
If you are new to calorie counting, you need to realize the impact certain decisions will have on your goal, especially when eating out. I will give an example of this. There is a sub I really like at Firehouse called the New York Steamer. Order a Steamer the way they make it and it is 720 calories. Sounds like too much for lunch, right? Change that sub by taking out the cheese and mayo and is is just over 400, a much better number and over 300 calorie difference. The reason I mention this is that your whole day is full of little decisions like this. If you are making your own meals, most people will not measure the amount of Mayo they put on a sandwich, when clearly it makes a difference that can be the key to success or the stumbling block of weight loss. Be honest to your FitBit and calculate everything, and you know exactly where you are in your day and how much you have left to eat.
Fitbit knows how much you eat, and you are being honest and calculating every food item and beverage (be honest, it makes it work better). Fitbit also knows how much you move and what you need to do to reach your goal. This is where using the calorie counting feature really pays off. Fitbit will adjust your calorie count depending on how much you move and tell you how much you are over or under your goal. The caloric needs of someone who walks 15,000 steps are going to be different than someone who gets 3000. That was me: the 3000 to 5000 step desk job guy. Any fitness I was going to get had to be before or after work (or on my lunch break).
Before I knew it, I was buying a FitBit scale as well. The FitBit scale uses wi-fi to feed data into your FitBit app. It does not broadcast your weight to the world (unless you let it) fortunately. My app now knows how much I eat, how much I move, how much I sleep, how much I drink, how tall I am, how old I am, and how much I weigh. It basically knows me better than anyone. The weight loss or gain data is available on a chart, and the app rewards you with milestones like 5lb weight loss as well as meeting certain step goals like 10,000 steps.
This is where it all really clicks for me. A constant reminder of how much I am eating cross referenced with a list of what I ate for the day shows exactly what the rewards or consequences for my decisions are. Weight loss isn’t perfect and some days you will gain for no good reason (or lose for no good reason), but the record of data that starts from the day you turn on your app for the first time shows the long term results. Seeing the long time results gives me strength on the days where the scale isn’t going my way. I KNOW it will go my way based on the data. It is a detailed weight loss an exercise journal without the need for much input, especially the longer you use it.
The step count becomes addictive, in that you want to beat your previous record. 10,000 is easy, and is the recommended step goal for the day for a moderately active person. 15,000 is easy as well, with a little more work. After that, you push yourself for 20,000, then 25,000. Those numbers require work. My record is somewhere around 37,000. I was desperately trying for 40,000 but my wife insisted that since the weather turned into what some might call blizzard territory, that I come home. That particular week I was in a step competition with a co-worker who beat me by 200 steps for the week (you can get that by walking to the fridge and back a couple times). So defeated! The fact that we had both almost doubled all of our co-workers steps for the week made me feel better. The fact that I sit at my desk for 8 hours and have to do all this outside of work hours make it difficult but not impossible, but somewhere along the way it became fun! I enjoy doing walking and take a podcast or playlist along with me.
So that brings me to today. Somehow I have fallen off the FitBit wagon. I had a hernia develop that required me to stop moving as much, and had surgery two months ago to fix it. I am now at that point where my FitBit has been without power for several months. This morning I decided to step back onto that electronic scale, slap my FitBit back on my wrist and start moving again. Each week I am going to add more to this story and see where it takes me. My weight this morning is 239.5, and my goal is set at 200. It is a goal I have reached only once, thanks to the routine I described above.
To be continued
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