Ed on Body Maintenance

I wrote an earlier post on my FitBit and must say that it has changed a lot of things in my life based on having it strapped on my wrist. 

First, I'm more accountable to my activity level. It doesn't count steps entirely accurately, but is a good general indication of the amount of movement and activity you enter into each day.  I said that my goal is 10k steps per day.  That was pretty challenging to achieve at first.  Now, I'm making it with relative ease and shoot for a much higher number on my weekend days. 

The FitBit has a friend feature and that gets my competitive juices going.  Yes, I'm friends with a few work colleagues (many of whom are women) and then a few swimming parents and then my racquetball partner.  There is only one person who consistently gets more steps than I do.  I'm averaging between 90k and 100k steps per week and I feel pretty good about that.  10k to 15k per day during the week and 15k - 25k on weekend days.

The FitBit has also adjusted my view of activity.  I don't participate in much rigorous exercise.  But I walk A LOT more.  It has become very typical for me to walk with Holly and Rocky for 45 minutes to an hour almost every evening.  That's good for me, good for Holly, and good for Rocky.  Is that exercise?  I don't know but it can't hurt and I feel good about the statistics it racks up on my FitBit. 

I learned last week that unbeknownst to me, every person in the company that has a FitBit has their results posted on the company intranet.  It was brought to my attention by someone in my team who asked "how do you get in all those steps?"  I asked her how she knew and she directed me to the site.  I've never gone to it before, and didn't know it even existed.  Turns out that of the 126 employees in HQ that have a FitBit that I'm #2.  Behind only the facilities guy who is on his feet all the time.  And against the 1,400 who have a FitBit across the whole company I'm #15.  That gave me the motivation to make sure I maintain the effort I'm putting into getting my steps.  One more fact and then I'll close on this topic.  I wanted to make my 10k goal every day for a month.  The last time I didn't make it was April 6th.  So I made that goal too. 

The FitBit is a great way for you to set goals, track them easily, and achieve them. That's the marvel of these little gadgets, nothing more.  They track sleep patterns as well but I won't go into that.  But I use that feature as well.  The features I don't use are the food plan and the water plan.  Those scare me for different reasons that I won't go into here. 

So as I age suddenly walking as entered my roundhouse in terms of "working out".  It may be a bit premature but it is keeping me focused on maintaining a low impact, moderate exercise routine.  My knee still bothers me occasionally, and I'm still playing racquetball about three times per week.  But other than that and the walking I haven't done much of anything. 

Haven't been on the bike, haven't climbed a fourteener (still in my plans this year) and definitely haven't put on the running shoes.  But I am at a steady and reasonable weight (sure, I would like to be 5-10 pounds lighter) and reasonably happy with the fact that my fitness regimen is reasonable and achievable. 

Have a lowered my expectations?  Perhaps.  Have I acknowledged (not accepted) that I'm getting older.  Yes.  But I've got to do something that manages my mentality about my physical health.  And based on a $100 piece of equipment I have strapped on my wrist I feel I've found it, at least for now. 

Would love you both to get one as well.  Would be fun to benchmark myself against my two healthier and younger brothers!