I Love/Hate My Fitbit

I have been wearing a Fitbit since April 16^th, and I am happy to report that I have lost 5 pounds.  That may not seem like much, but I have had a creeping weight gain going on for about 13 years….just two pounds a year, but that has added up.  In April, I decided this had to stop, because some of my clothes were getting tight.  I figured a Fitbit was less expensive than buying a closet full of new clothes.

I have tried to lose just a little bit gradually during the past 13 years.  I tried cutting out chips with my lunch, eating only half a sandwich, not having a morning cappuccino, eliminating ice cream at bedtime.  No luck.  The two pounds a year just kept coming.  Every time I took a few calories out of my diet, they snuck in someplace else.

I like the Fitbit, because it keeps track of the energy I have expended and tells me how many more calories I can consume and stay within my weight-loss budget.  When I set up the account, I told it I wanted to lose 15 pounds and that ½ pound per week was an acceptable rate.  Fifteen pounds won’t get me back to my 25 year-old weight or even my 45 year-old weight, but it will be a quite agreeable weight for a 71 year-old.  Supposedly an old lady like me has a higher risk of osteoporosis if she weighs under 126, so I have no plans to get too close to that.  I have also noticed that senior ladies sometimes get to a point where they just seem to shrivel up and look frail.  I figure that a little padding might be a good idea before I get to that slippery slope.

So, my Fitbit reminds me if I am over, under or in range of my intake goal as compared to my output.  If I am under my calorie budget in the evening, I have a low calorie bedtime snack.  If I am over my budget, I go for an evening walk.

However, sometimes my Fitbit makes me downright angry.  For example, I got my husband a top-of-the-line Fitbit, because he is a runner.  It tells him how many stairs he has climbed each day and seems to do a better job of taking note of his physical exertion.  My Fitbit is a pretty basic one.  It has no clue that I have spent an hour and a half vacuuming, 2 hours raking, 2 hours digging in the garden or most of the day washing windows.  It doesn’t even give me any “active minutes” for these exhausting, perspiration-inducing activities.  Apparently, it doesn’t count steps if one has their arms up pushing a grocery cart.  This hardly seems fair.

Sooooooooo…..when I worked all day washing windows, vacuuming the screens and was up and down the ladder doing all this, I got even.  I had a lovely crème de menthe soft ice cream cone in the evening, and I didn’t tell it!