I got a Fitbit

I'm not sure why this never got posted because I did this over a week ago. So here it is finally



I got this for my birthday. I have the Fit Bit Zip model. It is very small. Certainly is a step up from the regular pedometer I’ve been using. There are all sorts of things the Fit Bit monitors. Calories, distance, steps (of course) all of which a regular pedometer keeps track of but the Fit Bit sets up an account on-line. This way you can keep track of all these things over a much longer period of time.

It also has a category called very active minutes. This is when you are doing exercise at a higher level. In walking it means when you are really out for walk as opposed to walking around the house or office. So when I walk from my house to the subway and the subway to my office these are counted as active minutes. I haven’t found out exactly when very active minutes kicks in. I’m assuming after you’ve walked so much time without stopping that’s considered active minutes. It’s very easy for me to meet that goal because of the walking I do to and from the subway.

The program sends you emails in the course of the day as you start reaching your goals. Usually with around 2,000 steps to go is an email telling you that. Then one when you reach the goal. Then if you surpass the goal by a large margin you get another email. My step goal started at 10,000 steps a day. I can usually reach that by the time I get home from work. I’ve raised it to 11,000. I still think that will not be too hard to reach.

Then there are badges you get for reaching a certain number of steps walked. They are in 5,000 increments. I have all of them up to 30,000 steps. I was going to try for 35,000 on Sunday but didn’t make it.

There is also an area on the site where you can record the food you eat. It’s divided up by meals. There are also sections for snacks and then a category called anytime. You type in the food you want to record say banana and it will list all sorts of options for banana. You pick one and the calories are added to you food total. There’s a section called food plan which shows the number of calories you can consume for the rest of the day.

This total varies. It’s based on the amount of activity you do in a day. In fact it goes up as the day progresses because of course you are being active. That seems just a little strange to me. I’ve left a thousand or more calories uneaten, so speak, in the course of the day.

The food plan is very helpful. But some of the totals are a little off. Most of the calorie counts are pretty much spot on. But the amount of sodium seems to be very much a hit or miss proposition. Sometimes being accurate and other times being way off. It took me awhile to find the right listing for tuna because the sodium count for several of the choices were like two to three times the amount on the can.

It's a fun thing to have. Keeping track of the food really helps. I'm hoping it helps enough so that I actually loose some weight and keep it off. Fingers crossed.