HEALTH | FITBIT

About a month ago I took the plunge and bought myself a fitbit flex.

Yep I jumped on the fitbit bandwagon. I was feeling sort of sluggish — well, let’s be honest. I’ve been feeling sort of sluggish for years. It’s the kind of tired I can move through because I have to, but if I had the chance to take sporadic naps throughout the day I would. I’ve lived with it for years so it feels very much apart of my daily rhythm. There are times I will myself not to think about it and the tired seems less pronounced, but sadly it is always there weighing me down. Yes I’ve sought help. I’ve had numerous tests done and the conclusion is my body’s chemistry seems to be a-ok.

With the medical world giving me zero answers I am left to my own devices.

Maybe being tired was coming from not being active enough? I know it’s sounds counter intuitive, but have you ever noticed the days you do nothing, like traveling or an all day movie marathon, when you’re sitting constantly, how tired you feel? Adam and I have talked about this phenomenon several times, how strange it is the less you do the more tired you feel and the more active you are the more energized you feel. It seems lazy begets lazy and active begets active.

So I wanted to figure it out — was I tired because I wasn’t active enough or am I just tired?

That’s where the fitbit comes in. I remember my friend Tory telling me about her fitbit when she visited in February. We were on a hike (we should have been snowshoeing but there was no snow — crazy) and she called out with enthusiasm, “I reached my goal!” Of course, having absolutely no idea what she was talking about, I made her explain. She told me all about her bracelet and how it tracks her movement throughout the day. I thought it was a great idea. If I could track my activity it would give me a more accurate indication of how active I am during my day. (I have always been one to exercised in the morning, but I was curious how active I was the rest of the day.)

I thought about just buying a pedometer, I mean it’s much cheaper, but I liked the idea of being able to track other things, like my sleep which I thought could be crucial when trying to understand my tiredness, so I went with fitbit and have been tracking my movement ever since.

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01) I noticed how much it helped motivate me to stay moving. Just knowing it was on and tracking my steps was enough for me to want to stay on my toes. Instead of taking an elevator or parking as close to a store as possible, I opted to pick the option that would allow me to get more steps.

02) I realized it wasn’t hard to get 8000 steps in a day. On the days I run, which is about 3 times a week, I get about 10,000 steps right off the bat. At first I loved it because I would reach my goal so early in the morning, but then it was defeating the purpose for the rest of the day — I wasn’t as motivated. So I decided I would change my goal each day depending on what I was doing. When I ran I would make my goal somewhere between 15,000-18,000 steps a day. On a slow day, a day I’m traveling or a Sunday, I would adjust my goal lower to about 5000. On an average day my goal is set to about 8000 – 10,000 steps.

03) I’m actually a lot more active than I thought. Even the days I’m home taking care of my duties there I found I’m constantly moving. And on the days I’m more sedentary, the ones where I’m on the computer or working on a project, I make sure to take little breaks and go for a walk or do something active.

My fitbit experiment has been successful. It has helped me to be more aware and motivate me to stay on my feet, but sadly it didn’t help me understand more why I am so tired all the time. It’s definitely not because I’m not active enough. I feel really good about how much I move on any given day, even though some days are better than others.

I’m back to the drawing board and will share with you soon what experiment I did next to get to the bottom of being tired 24/7.

Bur for now, if you are looking for something to help motivate you to move this summer go get a fitbit or look for another like minded device that will help you track it and give you an idea of where you’re at so you can decide where you want to go.

xo amy gretchen