Why I’m Happily Addicted To My Fitbit!

Manic:  My fitness routine when I try to incorporate a healthy lifestyle into my busy schedule…with this blog and my freelance career, I do a lot of sitting at this keyboard, which we are hearing more and more now, is quite unhealthy for us.

Managed:  Finally bought myself a Fitbit after hearing several friends rave about how much they love the Fitbit that they sport on their wrist.  I purchased mine at Bed, Bath & Beyond for just under $100 (I used my 20% off coupon that the store texts to those who sign up for the savings) and that saved me a few bucks. Has my new fitness bracelet been worth the money?  Do I feel chained to my Fitbit tracking or empowered by it? Read on to see my review of the Fitbit that is gaining popularity daily it seems. There it is placed comfortably on my wrist and I even wear it to bed.  I like the Fitbit because it makes it easy for me to track my daily steps.  A healthy goal to strive for daily is to take 10,000 steps and the majority of Americans take around 5,000 so I was curious to see just how short I was falling since I spend a lot of time on my keyboard.  The good news for me is that most days I was averaging 8,000 steps and this lightweight pink bracelet encouraged and reminded me to get up, go up and down my stairs, put laundry away, go grocery shopping, park further away and do other activities to get my steps quota in for good health.  With my Fitbit accompanying me I am gently pushed to reach that 10,000 step mark and I definitely have felt better since I became a Fitbit gal.

I am happy to report that I now easily reach 10,000 steps a day on most days and on even more days, I am hitting 15,000 steps a day with my gym workouts also factored into my daily activities.

I also love Fitbit because the accompanying Fitbit app and desktop site is simple to use and enables me to jot down what I eat, how much water I drink and even how many hours I slept and what quality of sleep that I had on any given night.  Here is what my personal Fitbit screen looks like that lets me track my daily exercise, eating and more….

So for right now (it is almost 12 noon as I write this) I have walked a little over 4,000 steps and this encourages me to finish writing this article so that I can get up and get some more steps under my belt or I should say, under my shoes.  It also keeps track of my gym workouts and you can see that I had a good 45 minute session two days ago, but not yesterday, so it is time to get back to my gym later today and I plan to do just that this afternoon.  It also shows me that I slept 6 hours and 45 minutes last night and I tend to be at my best at 7 hours, so I will make myself get to bed a little earlier tonight.  By wearing the Fitbit at night, it tracks my movements to tell me the next day how well I slept, when I woke during the night and more.  That knowledge encourages me to improve my sleep habits by figuring out why some nights I didn’t sleep as well.  I was able to figure out that I needed the room to be cooler or that the extra glass of wine I enjoyed the night before ends up waking me later in the evening.

That is the top half of my personal page and here is the second half….

The second half of the page shows my calorie consumption so far and how many calories I have left to eat based on what I set it for when I signed up and assigned myself my personal goals.  It also shows that I’ve had 29 active minutes and that happened when I climbed the stairs multiple times this morning to clean, put laundry away and other little jobs that I previously would have put off or put in a pile to carry upstairs just once later in the day before the Fitbit came into my life.

My pink little Fitbit gives me the visual push to push my body up the stairs or to take a walk or to hit the gym.   This thing works for my self motivation and that makes me happy!

The screen also shows me how much water I have downed and reminds me to drink more H20 throughout the day.  It also celebrates me with my best day yet, that happened two weeks ago, when I reached 20,000 steps in one day.  I plan to go for that again this week.

So how does the Fitbit tell me how I’m doing all day?  It is super simple.  It lights up as I accumulate steps. Here is what 4,000 steps taken looks like…For the 4,000 steps I have taken so far today, you can see that three bars of lights are illuminated and when bars fill the entire screen and the Fitbit vibrates a little to celebrate, I will know that I have hit my 10,000 steps.  And that feels great in more ways than one! Although I chose the pink Fitbit, they come in lots of different colors and tomorrow I will share an article about where you can get a fancy Fitbit bracelet holder that is actually attractive and works for a nice night out.

I have the Fitbit Flex but there are several other varities that do more like track your heart rate.  You can see more about the Fitbit and the different Fitbit items offered at the Fitbit website.  I absolutely love my Fitbit and as I continue to push the big 50 I am trying harder than ever to be as fit and healthy as I can to keep up with my two teenagers and to feel young myself.  The Fitbit is a good partner in this journey for me at this stage in my life.   This was me smiling after a gym workout because my Fitbit had just hit my 10,000 daily steps.  Love it!

No compensation or product was provided for this review.