My FitBit Experience: Answering a friend’s questions

April 18, 2012 1 Comment

Today I received an e-mail from a friend who congratulated me on my progress and my new FitBit Blog, and asked me several questions about the FitBit. As I usually do for e-mails of this sort (although usually of a technical nature), I decided to answer her in a blog article.

My friend says that she is trying to lose her excess weight, but has complications that come from being on medicine for Diabetes. She knows that she has to exercise in order to lose the weight, and is not a fan of going to the gym. She has already modified her food habits and knows that if she sheds the pounds she will be able to get off of all of her meds while still controlling the disease. Here are her questions (and my answers):

1) How did you decide to use FitBit?

I started on a diet that I no longer am on and do not endorse (especially for a road warrior) but that did provide me with a cheap pedometer (that looked like one I had gotten from a box of Special K). I wore it most of the time, and occasionally would use it to track my steps. I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania one day and did a good deal of walking, and I must have posted the steps achievement to Twitter. Karen Lopez (@datachick) tweeted back that the next time I was in the US I should head to Best Buy and pick up a FitBit, telling me it was the bee’s knees of pedometers, as it were. Because of the price tag ($99) I pinged Theresa first and asked her what she thought. She told me to pick up two – one for me and one for her.

I got back to the hotel and charged it up. I had forgotten what was involved with that until today, but was just reminded because I just picked up my NEW FitBit Ultra and am looking forward to seeing how many ‘stairs’ I climb in a day. Smile

2) How does FitBit work?

I don’t know… It’s for the most part a pedometer. However it also has an entire site behind it that helps keep track of all sorts of things, from mood and allergies to thoughts, food intake, and calories burned. The device comes with a docking station that connects to your computer’s USB port, and aside from being the charger for the device it will also synchronize with the site wirelessly when you are within range.

According to the site’s FAQ: ‘We’ve tuned the accuracy of the Fitbit Tracker step counting functionality over hundreds of tests with multiple body types. For most wearers, the Fitbit Tracker should be roughly 95-97% accurate for step counting when worn as recommended.’ While I find that it is really accurate on the number of steps, I noticed that when I jog it is off with regard to distances. I am told that you can go onto the site to manually enter the length of your stride, but I have not yet gone to that trouble.

3) How did you arrive at the 15,000 steps per day?

I assume by this she means my self-imposed daily goal. The FitBit site allows you to set your own goals, but I have left mine at the default, which are:

o 10,000 steps per day

o 10 floors climbed per day (this is a new one for me as of today!)

o 5.00 miles walked per day

o 3,663 Calories burned per day

o 1,000 Activity Points per day

I have noticed over the past few weeks, since I started jogging really, that if I jog for 90 minutes per day I will easily hit 12,000 steps, and when accounting for all of the other walking I do throughout the day that means I can easily hit 15,000… as long as I jog. Some days it is harder, some days it is easier. Yesterday (blogged about here) was a disaster, but I forced myself to go to the gym. When Dimitrios told me he was leaving I looked at the FitBit and noticed that I had only taken 6,000 steps all day… and that included 35 minutes on the treadmill. I had no more jogging left in my legs, but I was going to at least hit 10,000 steps. I got back on the treadmill and walked for another 30 minutes, and behold, I went to sleep with 11,000 steps. I didn’t hit 15,000, but these goals are all arbitrary. The point is to work hard and do what you can.

4) Is blogging part of the FitBit?

The FitBit.com website is replete with resources and tools, including community forums, advice, the ability to enlist and compare with friends, and yes – a blogging (Journaling) engine. According to your whim you can do as much or as little as you like. These days I am highly motivated, and find that blogging about my training helps to keep me going, so for me it is a part of it. I will bet that most people who use the FitBit don’t, and that is okay too. It is not a structured program, it is a framework. Depending on my mood I may spend an hour in the Forums, and then not go back for weeks. I have blogged a lot in the last week (and you noticed that their engine allows me to publish those articles to my own blog, as well as Twitter and FaceBook) but doubt I posted one article from the day I started (August 2011) through February.

The FitBit is a great tool for me. I am glad that it forces me to pay attention to things that I normally wouldn’t, and I will continue to wear it for a very long time. However it is not for everyone… is it right for you? Try it and find out. It certainly motivates me, which is a huge endorsement as far as I am concerned! Let me know what you think if you do try it… and don’t forget to add me to your Friends List!

Filed under Exercise, FitBit, Jogging

…and I WILL Walk 500 More!

March 9, 2012 4 Comments

Many of you probably know that I am overweight… but like my wife likes to say, I am a slim man trapped in a fat man’s body. I am pretty active – I worked hard to earn my Black Belt in Taekwondo two years ago, and am currently in training hoping to test for my Second Dan Black Belt in June of this year.

If you ran into me for more than a few minutes in the two months leading up to the first test you would have known that I was ‘In Training,’ which meant that I was in the gym every day, I was on a radical diet plan that was healthy but extreme and unsustainable, and that despite still being a hundred pounds overweight, I was in damned good shape… for a fat man.

Unfortunately after my test, three things happened that contributed to my falling off the diet wagon:

  1. I broke my hand during the test, and had to take a couple of months off of training
  2. The night of the test several friends took me out to Monaghan’s Pub for ribs, wings, and beer. The following night there was another celebration, and so on… I quickly remembered how much I enjoy bad foods and forgot how bad I feel being fat.
  3. Work got extremely busy, and I started traveling… A LOT. Every restaurant was another missed opportunity to eat healthy.

Last year I decided that my ultimate weight loss goal would be to be able to wear my old army uniform again. I finished Basic Training at about 215lbs, and was in really good shape back then. I don’t know how much I weighed when I moved to Canada, but whatever I weighed it was far less than I weighed by May of last year, when I made the decision to start losing weight again.

I tried one diet plan for six months, and was completely disappointed in it. In truth it likely would have been better had I not been on the road as much as I am – it is impossible to follow a plan where they provide the food when you are traveling from city to city, country to country.

clip_image002In September I was in Harrisburg, PA when a friend told me about an electronic and computerized pedometer and system called Fitbit. She was raving about it, so I went down to Best Buy and picked one up. It has, since then, been tracking my steps… but that is not only walking, that is also Taekwondo, golfing, and everything else I do. If I am not in a swimming pool I am wearing it. The on-line system (it is a USB gadget – how cool!) tracks my progress and lets me see where I am at on any given day, or week. The new version – the Fitbit Ultra – also tracks stairs climbed, but I don’t think I’m going to invest in another $99 version for that.

The Fitbit allows me to set goals for myself and see how well I do in reaching them. It awards clip_image004you achievement badges for both daily achievements (and lets you know how often (and when you last earned one) for your number of steps, and also Lifetime Distance awards, which allows you to track… really nothing of value, but it is another milestone.

(For those of you who are wondering, my daily record was on December 4th, my first day in Mexico City. I took 32,019 steps, walked 15.52 miles, and burned 5,287 calories. It is the only day that I earned the 30,000 steps badge. My activity report logged 1h28m VERY ACTIVE, 5hrs15m FAIRLY ACTIVE, and 1h7m LIGHTLY ACTIVE. I have earned the 25,000 steps badge twice… that day, and three days later on December 7th, also in Mexico City. The highest badge that I have earned five times is the 15,000 steps badge (most recently on Tuesday)

clip_image006A few days ago I received an e-mail from them congratulating me on earning my 500 mile badge. That is a lot of walking, even over the course of six months. Still and all, it is a reasonably useless statistic to track – it is not like a car, where I would need an oil change every 10,000 kilometres. It is still nice to know that I did it though… but as the badge (and the song) says, this is just the beginning… I will walk 500 more – possibly by the time I test for my belt in June!

For those of you who keep asking me about my current weight loss plan, YES I am on one, and no, I will not tell you what it is. It is a diet that I do not and would not endorse for anyone because it is an unhealthy way to eat, and I am told that without the strictest discipline when I end the program I will immediately gain back so much of the weight. Needless to say I have tried several diets, and the best plan for weight loss is this: Know what you are eating and be disciplined both in substance and in portion size. Eating smaller meals (or snacks) more frequently keeps your metabolism high (I remember the army served us six ‘meals’ per day in Boot Camp). Exercise wisely and frequently. There is a simple equation: Burn more calories than you consume and you will lose weight. If you exercise, eat wisely. On days that you don’t, eat less. You can rely on your spouse or friends or whoever to support you, but there is nobody responsible for your weight gain or weight loss other than the person you see in the mirror every morning.

More Taekwondo articles to come… but no, until I have lost it ALL I will NOT tell you how much I weigh, only occasionally how much I have lost.

…Now I will walk 500 miles and I will walk 500 more just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door… But for now, have a great week-end! -M

Filed under Exercise, FitBit, Pedometer, Training, Weight Loss

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