During the last few years of my life, my graduate school years to be exact, there has been some struggle around maintaining my weight. With the stress of maintain grades and being the utmost best wife I could possibly be, it was so easy to neglect healthy options when it came to food.
Between scrolling through the feed of unimaginable bodies with perfectly highlighted muscles on #fitfam and seeing my old high school colleagues make monumental changes in their body weight, I knew it was time for me to bring sexy back.
So what was my first step? Buying a FitBit. No, this is not the only way to get fit, but I was coaxed into making it a great tool apart of my new healthy lifestyle. Who knew that 4 months later that my FitBit and I would have an Ike and Tina Turner kind of relationship.
So what did I learn….
1. 10000 thousands steps is not as easy as it seems.
For those of us who have jobs that makes us pretty sedentary throughout the day, 10k steps will not be a cake walk. Sure the national heart organization thinks this is the average amount of steps one person should make in a day, but are you kidding me? That’s literally an hour and 37 minutes of walking at a steady pace! Who does this??? So this simply means you have to do some type of exercise in order to achieve 10k. Simply getting up to use the bathroom or cook amongst the other daily activities will not suffice. Though my tone is alarming it is not meant to be a deterring lecture, it is simple a wakeup call to get up and move!!
2. My FitBit friends fat shame me
Okay no they don’t, BUT every week I am invited by friends on FitBit to do a workweek challenge to see who has the most steps throughout a 5 day period, and trust me these people go hard! It is so easy to say ok, I will meet my 10k a day goal once you’ve mastered the art of time management and movement, but it is a whole other ball park when people wake up at 4am just to get in an extra three thousand steps to make it to first place. I am happy for you but guys you are making me feel horrible. Especially when your end of the week steps are 100k and I am at a measly 50k. Stop making me look bad! However they did help me lose 20 pounds fast!
3. Fitbit offers great support systems
On the days where I feel like I am not going to move any muscles except my thumb to Binge watch the latest 5 star show on Netflix, my FitBit friends have an opportunity to cheer the progress I have made so far. I write about their progress and mine here. I love when people cheer my progress as it gives me more motivation to do even better! However, there are also times where I may cheer someone else’s progress only to realize I am still in the dust and may need to get up and move. If you don’t have friends on FitBit, you can always check the community boards tab, While you are there you can check on the latest experiences people much like yourself are undergoing. I have found some great recipes on there that have become the latest craze for meals.
4. I don’t sleep enough
For the longest time, I did not wear my FitBit to sleep because I just thought it was all too weird for a watch to detect when I am sleeping. Currently, I still don’t wear it often, but the FitBit has great features that track your sleeping habits then creates an outline explaining how much sleep you need to burn calories. For the nights I do wear the device, it shows me that I am highly restless and my sleep patterns aren’t too great.
5. The watch band is simply not a fashion statement
I wear my Fitbit every day during the work week and I take a break on the weekends simply because I don’t like the feeling of something being on my wrist for long periods of time. In the beginning of my weight loss journey using my charge two, I found it difficult to wear everyday as I didn’t think it complimented my outfits, but little did I know that the bands are inter-changeable at an affordable price. One of my biggest struggles with the Fitbit was matching it with my attire, but I found an amazing seller on Amazon named GEAK, where I can purchase different watch bands at affordable prices. Sorry original fitbit website, there was no way I was going to hand out that kind of cash for a band!
6. Having a FitBit is a second Job
All jokes aside, this FitBit is my supervisor. It tells me when to get up, when to eat, when to drink and even when to go to bed! Who knew a FitBit would be so life controlling. Due to my goal to lose ten pounds by June, I have to input everything I eat into the Health diary on the app which is tedious but helpful. FitBit needs to pay me for all this work! Or I suppose my pay is the weight I lose due to my commitment to logging and listening to my FitBit
7. Calories are just calories
As Syattfitness states from Instagram, calories are just calories. No matter if you are eating baked kale or french fries, the calories in each of these items are equal, neither calories are good or bad; and the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume! No I am not saying fries are healthier than Kale but I am saying that the calories in each of these items are just units used to explain the amount of energy the food provides you. For more information on nutrients and calorie balancing I urge you to check out the post linked.
8. FitBit saves lives and solves murders
In short, the FitBit is essentially a tracker that can utilize geolocation. The FitBit really does track our every move and there has been news stories reporting solved murder mysteries because of this same tracker. Look up the stories!!
9. A FitBit will NOT make you lose weight
At the end of the day, a FitBit is only another tool like those dusty weights you have sitting in your closet. In order to lose weight you have to want to lose weight! Pretty simple. If motivation is what you lack find an accountability buddy, and set up a board with some inspiring figures to remind yourself that these goals you have for yourself are achievable!