A few weeks ago now, after gushing about my newly acquired Fitbit at dinner, a friend commented that I wasn’t someone he expected to fall prey to fads. I immediately set about explaining why it wasn’t a fad: rather it’s a smart use of technology that serves a great purpose.
As I rattled off my explanation I noticed how silly some of it sounds. It makes you accountable for how much you move! I had no idea how sedentary I was at work! It motivates me! I want to hit my 10,000 step goal!
All of the things are crazily simple but until I started wearing a Fitbit they were things I didn’t think about. I exercise a few times every week and considered that sufficient movement.
After a spending some time with my family members who had been on the Fitbit bandwagon for six months, my interest was piqued. All of them had taken to weaving in extra activity each day: nothing major but walking wherever possible, getting up a bit earlier and doing whatever necessary to reach “green status” on the various Fitbit daily benchmarks. Depending on the model you have it sets targets for steps taken, distance covered, stairs, active minutes and calories.
We were away on holidays and I thought it seemed like a good thing to get involved with so I bought one.
It was fascinating getting a sense for how many steps I took each day. 10,000 steps is the benchmark – it’s the optimal level of activity and whilst we were on holidays it was pretty easy to reach.
My first day back at the office was illuminating. By 4pm I had barely reached 3000 steps. By contrast the days I spend not working with my daughters reaching 10,000 steps happens almost without thought.
I implemented a few changes for my work days. Rather than just exercising a few days a week, I became much more disciplined about doing a 30 minute hilly walk almost every morning sometime before 7am.
Instead of heading to the closest bus stop on my way home, I started walking to the stop furthest away. I noticed the time it took was almost identical because weaving through the city on a bus during peak hour is a crawl anyway. So I get home around the same time but I can add another few thousand steps to my day.
Because of our lunchtime newsletter send, between 8.30am and 12 noon I barely move from my desk. Once the newsletter is sent I get up, head out and start making phone calls. Walking around the block clears my head, allows me to move through my to-do list and clock up extra steps.
Now that I have Fitbit I notice them everywhere and most people I talk to who have them, use theirs in a similar way to me. The app on their phone or the numbers on the display keep them focused on moving more. It’s helped them build more activity into their regular routine, and soon enough these positive changes have become habit.
Despite the proliferation of the fantastically lucrative weight loss industry, and the similarly burgeoning health and wellness industry, the basics of losing weight and staying healthy are simple. Eat less (and better) and move more.
If you dig into the research about sitting being the new smoking it’s pretty compelling. I hadn’t realised the extent to which, on certain days, I was chain smoking at my desk.
That’s why I reckon, fad or not, the Fitbit bandwagon is worth hitching on to. Are you on the bandwagon already? Thinking about it?