So as the title says, I caved and bought a Fitbit. It all kind of started because my girlfriend, Megan had one for work. It was the clip to your waistband kind and she ended up losing it and was looking for a new one. We came across the Fitbit Flex 2, which is worn on the wrist and is very small and lightweight. I decided I’d go ahead and get one as well because this one is waterproof and it tracks your swimming. I typically swim 2-3 times per week, so I thought “what the hell”.

I’ve only been wearing it now for 3 days, but as far as I can tell, the following are my takeaways so far:

  • It’s really lightweight and small. I usually wear a watch on my left wrist, so I decided to put this on my right wrist. I thought it would bug me or get in the way when I’m say, typing on a keyboard. But you know what? I hardly notice that it’s even there. Well done, Fitbit.
  • It can tell that you are swimming. I thought I’d have to plug in some shit to get it to know that I was about to do laps, but it automatically could tell (via accelerometers I assume) that the way it was moving, I must have been swimming. And not only that, but it was “to the freaking T” accurate in how many laps I’d been swimming. To be frank, that was pretty awesome… or was it creepy?
  • As accurate as it was for the swim, it’s kind of wishy washy in terms of tracking steps. For example, I had the app open on my phone and walked around and counted the steps in my head as the ticker on the phone also tallied them. That part was fairly accurate. However, I did the same thing while sitting and just waving my arm around and it counted steps too, so it’s not perfect. This is cheatable, no doubt about it.
  • Somehow it knows how you sleep. Again, I thought this would bother me by having to wear it to bed, but I didn’t notice it. I’m guessing it knows you’ve gone to bed when it stops moving for a while? Anyways, I’ve only worn it one night because I needed to charge it for another night. The battery life is just “meh” in my opinion. I’d like to see it go straight through for at least 3 or 4 days, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Anyways, the night I did wear it, it said that most of it was sound sleep. I was “restless or awake” for something like 16 minutes total. I guess that’s pretty good. The second part was how long I slept. Now, I have a good idea of how many hours I get and the Fitbit essentially verified that. And i’d imagine that if you’re a parent to young kids, the number will piss you off,  but I got 8 hours and 16 minutes of sleep. And I feel my best when I get at least 8, but 9 seems to be my best number.
  • Last, but not least in what I’ve noticed in these last few days is that I get more steps in than I thought. Yes, I do own a small gym, but a lot of my day is spent sitting, unfortunately. Or so I thought, anyways. I truly believed I’d maybe rack up between 4,000 and 6,000 steps a day, or the equivalent of 2 or 3 miles. So far I haven’t had a day under 12,000 steps. And I haven’t worn it on a run yet, so that was pretty eye opening.

So there you have it. My take so far on these wearable fitness doohickeys. Overall the technology is pretty neat. And I didn’t think I’d ever wear one or care for them, but here I sit (or maybe I should get up and start walking….). One last thing of note though before I get off my butt. If you are looking to become healthier by walking more, then you absolutely should because as I’ve written about before, it’s one of the best things you can do for your body. However, with that said, if you are looking for walking more to really make changes to your body (at least aesthetically) then it probably won’t do too much. Hit the weights, hit the pool, or hit the pavement with some gusto for that.

Ok, that’s all for today. I’m gonna go for a short walk because it’s beautiful outside and I’m going to Costco tonight for pizza. Seriously. And I’m excited about it.

Til next week!