A year ago, my wonderful husband gave me a Fitbit, which, according to its website is a device that helps you “stay motivated and improve your health by tracking your activity, exercise, food, weight and sleep.”
I loved it. I loved the little blinking lights on the band that measured my steps every day. I loved logging into the website and seeing the calories I burned and “Badges” I earned. That clever device even calculated the quality of my sleep by counting the shocking high number of times I woke up every night. For a short time, I even logged in every bite of food I ate, until I succumbed to the guilt factor that automatically occurs when you pay close attention to every bite of food you eat. It wasn’t long before I fell back on my favorite food consumption philosophy: if it ain’t broke, don’t eat it, and if it is broke, definitely eat it because it doesn’t have as many calories. (This works particularly well with cookies.)
There were only two times that I got miffed at my Fitbit. The first time was when my website account showed all my activity as “light,” as opposed to “moderate” or “intense” even when I was running. All right, I know that my hill-running pace is roughly equivalent to my hill-walking pace, but come on… I try.
That problem only lasted a few days. But then on the day I ran a full 26.2 marathon, my tracker congratulated me for my 53,000 steps that day, but taunted me with a friendly message that said I was SO CLOSE to 55,000 steps. Unfortunately, when I read that, I was tired, sore and my toe was bleeding, so I was in no mood to walk another 2,000 steps. I was, however, briefly tempted to throw my Fitbit out a window.
I got over it.
And then my Fitbit broke. Actually, it just started to act weird. The light display kept blinking erratically and it wouldn’t charge properly. Then I lost it… literally, not figuratively. The band fell off my wrist and for several days I had no idea where it was. For several days, I missed tapping my band to see how many more lights I needed to achieve 10,000 steps for the day. I missed seeing all the calories it calculated I burned, especially after a good, long run. I stopped logging into the website, knowing that it had stopped recording any activity, except for its miraculous ability to estimate calories burned even without recording any activity.
I eventually found it when I was making the bed a few days ago. It must have fallen off my wrist while I slept and somehow found its way to the foot of my bed and was sandwiched between the blankets. I immediately plugged it into the charger, hoping it would still work.
Good news! I just logged into my account and it’s counting steps again, so my Fitbit didn’t bite the dust after all.
I’m so happy I’m going to eat a cookie… as long as it’s broken.
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Ann K. Howley is the award-winning author of Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad.
Please visit her website at http://annkhowley.com/#about-ann