A new fitness device

About four years ago, I got a Jawbone Up (wrote about it here). Pretty quickly I realized that I didn’t like the interface or the looks so I returned it and got the Fitbit Flex I’d originally planned to buy. I wore my Fitbit faithfully, and manually entered my runs and workouts online. Last summer, it quit holding a charge so I got a new one. I (briefly) considered getting one with more bells and whistles but went with what I knew and was already comfortable using.

But over the last year or so, I’ve gotten frustrated with the Flex. It’s not designed to provide anything more than a relative scale of activity—you get your steps, you get some sense of whether the steps were light, moderate, or intense, and you get a very rough guide on the amount of time you spent doing your steps at that level of effort.

When I say rough guide, I do mean rough. For example, in Yuma I ran the same route twice; the first time Fitbit thought I ran 3 miles, and the second time, Fitbit thought I ran 2.65 miles. That’s a pretty big difference. It's the same with the amount of time; the Flex tracks in 15 second slices (I think?), so if you stop a run at the beginning of a slice, you'll look like you took more time. And you have to do the math to get your average pace per mile (assuming your mileage is tracked halfway accurately), and you still have to enter the info yourself.

So I’d been thinking about other fitness device options. While we were in Yuma, Jen showed me her Garmin Vivosmart HR+ device, and I was intrigued. Turns out Ben had done a lot of research to find a device that would do what Jen wanted it to do, and it turns out that what Jen wanted was pretty much what I was looking for. AND it turns out that I was able to buy a refurbished one for about $80 less than new. Although honestly, this device sure seems new to me—I’m pretty sure whoever bought it didn’t use it more than once and then returned it.

The verdict? I love it. I love that the device is fully synced to my phone, that my runs get uploaded automatically, and that I can enter something manually if I need to. I love that I know what kind of elevation gains I had on my runs in Provo (49 feet if you’re curious, there was an overpass I ran up and over every day), and what the starting elevation was too (4498 ft). I love that I can see my total average pace per mile, where I was slower and where I was faster. I love knowing my heart rate, resting and while working out, and I love that I can set the device to alert me if I'm not in my target heart rate zone, or I can set it up for running sprints.

All in all, I’m very happy I made the switch. Now I need to figure out what to do with my Flex.

Well this is weird

I’m not entirely sure how Fitbit calculates steps. You put in your height and your weight in the dashboard, and pick the hand you’re wearing the Fitbit on (dominant or non-dominant hand).

The reason I bring this up is I’ve noticed a difference between the results from my old Fitbit and my new one. It might be that they’re just slightly different in how they read steps.

I also wondered if weight is part of the calculation, maybe more than I realized. When I got my first Fitbit, I picked a likely number for my weight (I don’t weigh myself, since knowing the actual pounds I weigh tends to trigger my eating disorder—no thanks on that!).

Last month, right before a medical test that required sedation, the person gathering my health information told me what I weigh (I’ve been doing my best to forget ever since). So I put that weight in the dashboard for my Fitbit when I set it up.

Normally on non-run days, I’ll get between 5 and 6 thousand steps just going about my normal day. Now I get in the high 4 thousands. Runs are clocking in slightly less also, but my running route hasn’t changed.

In a way, I don’t care—I use the Fitbit as a relative scale that I’m staying active (and I rely on the silent alarm every work day, love that gentle buzz). But I do find it kind of strange that weight—if that’s the reason—changes my step count so much.

My Fitbit and me

I got my Fitbit in June, 2013—I wasn’t sure how much I’d use it, or if it would change my workout behavior or activity levels. But I was willing to spend $100 to find out.

Turns out I loved it. I like the days when I hit the 10k mark for steps and get the light display and buzzing wrist, I like seeing my friends and where they are in their steps (I’m always third), and I love, love, love that I can set a daily alarm. There’s something far more civilized about waking up to a buzzing wrist rather than the abrupt loud blatting of an alarm clock.

Two weeks ago, my beloved Fitbit quit taking a charge. I went through all the recommended steps to troubleshoot the issue, and ended by calling customer service (the last step when nothing else works). The conversation was a bit surreal. The customer service rep didn’t speak American English as a first language so the tone of the exchange was beyond polite, especially the way he said my name (Ee LIZ ah beth, very precisely).

He walked through all the trouble shooting options and then looked up my account. There was a longish pause (long being relative when you are talking to a call center employee and they are measured by call handling times).

Customer service rep: Elizabeth, you bought your Fitbit in June of 2013.
Me: That’s correct.

Pause

CS: So you have had your Fitbit, Elizabeth, since June of 2013.
Me: Yes, that’s correct

Pause

CS: Elizabeth, the warranty period for the Fitbit Flex is three hundred sixty-five days.
Me: OK

Pause

CS: Elizabeth, that means your Fitbit is no longer covered by a warranty.
Me: OK

Longer pause

CS: Because the warranty is for three hundred sixty-five days, Elizabeth.
Me: Yes, I understand.

I think he thought I was going to get mad. But honestly I called because the website said if you do all these troubleshooting steps and still have issues, then call us.

Long story short (with much more exquisitely polite conversation), he offered me 25% off the purchase of a new Fitbit. I hadn’t asked for that, or asked for anything actually, but I was sure pleased to get it.

Thank you and good-bye

Once the new one got here, I told Kent I felt a little sad just tossing the old dead one. After all, I’ve traveled to three continents with it, and gone to seven countries and a whole bunch of states. He asked if I needed to thank it for its service a la Konmari and I realized that yes, actually, I did.

So that’s what I did, I thanked my dead Fitbit for its service and moved on. My new Fitbit is performing like a champ, my wrist no longer feels inappropriately naked and I’ve got my preferred morning alarm all set up.

All the cool kids are doing it

I don’t remember where I read the article, I just remember that it described the power of peer pressure on things like weight, dietary habits and exercise routines.

The article provided the results of some research study that essentially said we drift toward the norms of our social groups – so if we hang out with sedentary people, we are more likely to be that way and if our friends are a few or more pounds overweight, that becomes our normal and we will end up there also.

In the last four or five months, I’ve been able to return to my previous workout habits because my lungs are finally well enough for me to do so. I also have a FitBit now (which I wrote about here), and as my real life friends can attest I talk about pretty frequently. The upshot of all of this is that I’ve become the change agent in my circle of friends. Now they are being more mindful of the foods they eat and they are the ones choosing to find and actually do exercises they enjoy. One of my friends has started running, and I’m so proud of him because he really likes it a lot and has decided to enter a 5k race because he wants to see how he’ll do. He knows I don’t run races because (a) I’m way too competitive already and (b) I need running to be fun, but that’s not stopping him.

I have to say this feels pretty good. I don’t know that I’ve ever really been a positive influence like this before but I like it. I like it a lot.