My New Fitness Friend

In the last six months or so, something happened that took me by utter surprise.

Looking back, it shouldn't have been so shocking but it was.

I had moved firmly into wearing my "one size bigger pants" full time. It wasn't an occasional visit with them when I had too much pizza the night before. It was an extra 10 pounds that I had never seen before.

I decided I needed to do something about it, but with an hour commute one way 5 days a week, a tendency to avoid fruits and vegetables and a deep love for watching bad reality TV shows at night, it's hard.

I have to admit, I haven't hit my fitness stride yet.

However, with the appearance of this new fitness friend, I've made some initial progress...

Meet Fran, my Fitbit One wireless activity and sleep tracker! 

Cris over at Goodeness Gracious introduced me to the Fitbit through her Year2Change challenge.

Fran not only tracks my steps...as you can see I need to start moving today.

She also tracks the floors I climb, miles I travel, and calories I burn. If you have later model iPhone or iPad, it has some great additional features. I don't but I do have the ability to update my Dashboard wirelessly on my laptop.

I deliberately did NOT change my activity level during my first week with Fran. I wanted to have a realistic baseline of how much I do actually move in the course of a week.

As you can see my Monday activity level was embarrassing! I definitely need to learn to get up and take a couple of laps around the office during the day!

 Monday

Wednesday was MUCH better because I had a couple of events outside the office that kept me on the move, as well as up and down some stairs.

 Wednesday

My Saturday was OK. I didn't break the 10K steps mark but I did go climb some serious stairs (more on that later).

Saturday

It's been interesting tracking all of this and it's definitely a wake up call that I need to start moving more.

For now, I need to come up with a solid, workable plan to get 10K steps several days a week. Once I have that established, I think I'll tackle the food tracker that the Fitbit Dashboard has...oh I'm not looking forward to that!

Fran, the Fitbit 1, is not a cheap new friend (I had some Amazon points to burn) but I think she'll be true friend for many years and be the support system I need to get my act together so I can retire my "one size bigger pants" once and for all.

NOTE: The link to the Fitbit One in this post is an affiliate link. The opinions in this post are my own - no one else wants to claim them.