#1491life with the FitBit

I got a FitBit ChargeHR for my birthday in June. I've been wearing it every day and night since I got it. I wore it in Hawaii. I wear it to the gym. I wear it when I sleep. It measures lots of different things and there is a cool app for my beloved iPhone that I gaze at several times a day. What I love about the app is that each category has a graph that shows you what you're doing. I love graphs.

Here's what I have on my FitBit app that I see every time I open it:

The number of steps I've walked in a day. My goal is 10,000. Sometimes I get it and lots of times I don't. When I do hit 10,000 steps, my FitBit vibrates on my wrist and I feel a terrific sense of accomplishment. I can open the Steps to see how many I've taken in the past seven days. Sadly, from last Tuesday through today, I have only walked 10,000 steps one day, on Thursday and I went to Zumba that day. There's a lot of stepping going on in Zumba.

My heart rate.  The Charge HR monitors the heart rate at all times. It also shows your resting heart rate - that is, the heart rate when I am sleeping.

Miles walked in a day. I think I have a goal of five miles a day. Maybe that's not realistic because I don't get it very often. I think it was a default setting. Or maybe I should just walk more (see Number of Steps).

Number of Calories Burned. I think the default goal is 2,500. I'm usually right around there. If I did just a little more walking/physical activity, I'm pretty sure I could do it. I don't worry too much about calories though because of Weight Watchers. I just stay in my Points Plus.

Floors climbed. It actually counts the number of times I go up the stairs. The default goal is 10. I usually achieve that since my bathroom and bedroom is upstairs. Also, my washer and dryer are in the basement, so there some more steps and stairs.

Active minutes. Whenever I exercise, that is, my heart rate is elevated enough for the FitBit to acknowledge that I am doing some physical activity, it counts the minutes. My goal is 30 minutes. Last week I only had one day with active minutes. I was pretty lazy Three or four days of 30 minutes of activity is a good goal. 

Exercise. The FitBit Charge HR shows how many times I exercised and gives me the option to categorize the exercise. Tonight I went for a walk after work. I walked for 31 minutes. It tells me how far I walked (1.42 mi), the pace (22 minute mile - I'm pretty slow, but I have an arthritic knee and a surgically repaired knee. I'm glad to be moving at all!), and the average heart rate (mine was 112 bpm). The impact on your day is also shown: I had 3,374 steps in that 31 minutes, I burned 269 extra calories and had 31 active minutes.

Sleep. This is a big one for me. I love it and I hate it. Last night I went to sleep at 10:39 PM and woke up at 5:34 AM. You'd think that would be about seven hours, but NO. The FitBit ChargeHR says that I woke up one time (true - I went to the bathroom) and I had 23 times that I was "restless" and calculates that to be 43 minutes I was awake/restless so I only got six hours and six minutes of sleep. I have set my sleep goal at seven hours because after nearly two months of wearing this thing, I can tell you that I have not come close to eight hours EVER. I used to think I was a good sleeper, and then I decided that I wasn't and now I know for sure that I am not a good sleeper. That's why I love and hate the Sleep category. 

There are several other categories you can show, like amount of water consumed and your weight and probably other stuff too. You can also find friends that have a FitBit and do challenges with them to keep yourself motivated. I don't really like to compare with others because we are all doing different things and have different goals. I like to challenge myself, but it's fun to see what others are up to.

I won't say that my habits have changed since I got the FitBit, but I am definitely interested in the stats it gives me every day!