#fitbit #listfreak #bobblog #randomthoughts
I’m a weirdo in a number of ways but one of the many is my proclivity
for tracking things. In 2011 I wanted to
keep track of how many chickens I ate.
Fortunately, this only lasted a couple weeks because things got really messy
when I added eggs (chickens that could have been) to the mix. Fried eggs, even scrambled could be ball
parked pretty accurately, but what about eating a piece of cake…how many eggs does
this count for? Anyway, I get it
naturally as my dad was a total list freak as well. He was very committed to keeping a log of
where we ate our family dinners, who ordered what, etc. and filing all of this
valuable information in the cigar box in the kitchen just in case someone had
questions at a later date.
So with this nice back information shared, it won’t be a
surprise when I tell you that I have become very obsessed with my latest
purchase. I bought a Fitbit Surge. It looks like an old school Casio watch I
would have worn in high school but it does a lot more than just tell time. It also counts how many steps you’ve taken
(the daily goal is 10k steps. This doesn’t sound like a lot until you start counting
them…trust me, it’s a lot of steps. But when you take that ten thousandth step
for the day, you get a little party on your wrist. Things start vibrating and
blinking. It’s really quite a celebration.); calories you’ve burned; flights of
stairs you’ve climbed; active minutes of exercise you’ve had; what your heart
rate is; how many hours you’ve slept; how many times and when you woke up during
the night (my wife also has one and loves to share her “restless” stats every
morning while casting the blame on my snoring.
Nice.); oh, and it also tells time and displays your incoming
texts. All of this stuff happens with
just the wrist watch part. The real fun
begins when you download the phone app and log into the website on your
laptop. From here you get really obsessive
by logging all of your food and drink intake.
When you take this extra step (and you will want to take a lot of extra
steps if you get one of these things) you get a little more results oriented
info like how many calories you’ve taken in versus how many you’ve burned. There is even a daily goal for water
consumption. So far this is my favorite,
as it is the only goal I have been able to consistently hit. Yep, proud proud proud, look at that little
bastard drink that water!
Now let me give you a word of warning. When it comes to logging your food and drink
input, things can get real in a hurry. For
example, my New Year’s Eve daily log is horrifying. I was
moving along pretty good with a 785 calorie intake going into the evening. But an over the top fondue dinner slapped me
with roughly an additional 2300 calories!
Yikes. I blame the cheese…and the
chocolate…and the Manhattan…and the wine and beer. Needless to say, I was a little over budget
that day. But I did hit my water goal!
I am sure my obsession with this thing will fade over time
but for now it’s been fun. And it does
motivate you to walk more and eat better.
So hopefully I will keep up with this to some degree and it won’t find its
way at the bottom of some drawer next to a cigar box full of dinner documents…
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