FitBit

[Amanda_George]

I've bought 3 fitness trackers this year.  The first one lasted 3 months, the second one arrived without the charging cable and didn't have enough battery left to even turn on, so I decided I'd give the fitness trackers one last chance and splashed out on a FitBit yesterday.  It arrived just before lunch and I've been wearing it for about 5 hours so far (took almost 2 hours to charge up from new).

It said in the app that the normal steps count for a healthy adult was 8000 steps a day.  There is no way I thought I could even approach that so I took it down to the minimum target which was 2000 steps which seem waaaay too much for me so I was already starting to give up.

I managed it in about 4 hours though!!  I've cautiously increased the target to 3500 steps to try and stretch myself a bit.  It seems to count side steps too, which is awesome and it's even motivated me to walk the puppy after she came home this afternoon... something I wouldn't have done even yesterday!

It also keeps track of your liquid intake, calorie count and a variety of sports.  According to the app I've drunk 1750ml since lunchtime, I've burnt 1150 calories in those 5 hours.  It apparently logs your sleep too which will be interesting and it automagically resets at midnight too as well as automatically emailing you a report of the previous day.  I obviously can't comment on that yet because I haven't worn it past midnight and I haven't slept yet either.

So far so good though!

Tomorrow will be interesting 'cos I'm getting my hair cut as well as walking the puppy so I'll be walking even further!

As long as it lasts beyond 3 months, it'll be getting a five star review from me!

[Pip]

That sounds really good  I had a Tomtom and I had it set to count my steps which I got a lot of pleasure out of when we went on our holidays.  The most steps I did on one day was around 23000 - I couldn't do anything for the rest of the day but my average was about 12000 a day.

Rick and I have started renting Myzone belts with a gadget that clicks on to it at £5 each a month.  They connect with an app on our phones and tells us things like how many calories we burn a day, lets us know if we're overdoing it with exercise and so on.  I'm just getting used to it and the up.   

[Amanda_George]

That's an incredible amount of steps, Pip!  I've upped my daily target to 3000 steps and 1.5 miles and I think I'm starting to get the hang of how the app works now, just wanting to find out where the setting is for the active minutes now, 'cos that's still showing as 0 despite wearing it for about 26 hours now.

I hope we both figure out how to get the best out of our fitness trackers soon!

[Pip]

So do I  particularly as we go to Poole, Dorset tomorrow.  Even though Rick and I need our breaks when walking we love being out and about with the dogs on holiday.  They and the cats give us a reason to get up in the mornings and when we go on holiday we need to get the dogs out because we stay on caravan parks.  We go to Parkdean Resorts parks as they have dog friendly caravans and charge £40 extra.  Apart from being cheaper than putting them in kennels we couldn't put Cassie in one as she is the one we rescued after being in kennels most of her first four years.

[Amanda_George]

Got 13 "active minutes" on Mitzi's walk this morning for the first time in 3 days.  Be interesting what it says on Monday when we go for our marathon walk 'cos it's almost double the distance and we only do it on a Monday so that we can both recover from it before the shopping comes in the evening lol

I hope you enjoy Poole... I hope it's not too cold and wet for you down there!

[lostmyway]

I have an app called Footsteps on my iPhone which I use.  I find these trackers are expensive (well, some of them).

[Amanda_George]

I very rarely take my phone out of the house, but when I do it's in my neckbag so having an app on my phone wouldn't register any steps let alone the ones I'd actually done lol  My Fitbit is around my ankle so it really does count the number of steps I do as well as logging what I eat and drink, my sleep and my exercise minutes.  Current total just for today is 2112 steps, 2 litres drunk, very nearly 10 hours sleep last night and 954 calories eaten.  I've started a new page with a weekly report of my health as well as a spreadsheet with info about each day, so it's been well worth it so far for me!