Fitbit

At the end of April, as a gift to myself (and as a motivator to keep active and moving), I decided to invest in a Fitbit. A Fitbit is basically a pedometer on steroids.  It tracks your steps, the distance you've traveled, has a 3D sensor, an altimeter (to gauge how many flights of stairs/hills you go up), gives you an overall score for how active you have been for the day, tells you how well you are sleeping and how much, and estimates how many calories you've burned based on your height/weight and your activity levels.  It does all of this, and is small enough for my to slip onto my bra so that no one even knows that it is there!  Other options are on your pants or in your pants pocket--for those who don't want to reach down their shirt during the day or for those who don't wear a bra.

You can look at how you're doing throughout the day by checking the Fitbit, but you can also log food, activities (if you'd like to or if you are doing an activity that isn't tracked well by the device, like yoga, weight lifting, or bike riding), weight, heart rate, blood pressure, and glucose on the website.  You can set a weight goal for yourself or change your goals for how many steps you'd like to take, flights of stairs, distance, activity, and how many calories you'd like to burn.  If you choose a weight loss goal, you can also put when you'd like to achieve your goal and it will tell you how many calories you can eat during the day based on your ongoing activity levels, which I think is really cool.

The website tracking is easy to navigate and fairly intuitive, as long as you are at a computer often enough to track things.  The fact that it is a website is convenient because that means it is easily accessible if you use more than one computer throughout the day.  You can also get a free app if you have a smartphone that will allow you to track your activities, food, or weight on the go.  I actually have not partaken in a lot of the online or smartphone tracking of how many calories I've eaten or the other metrics, but I've really enjoyed looking at how active I am (or am not) throughout the day and challenging myself to keep moving.  I have also been able to see how much I am truly sleeping at night (which generally has not been as much as I thought, either).  I have been able to see myself being a little more proactive and motivated as far as getting more steps throughout the day or taking more little walks to make sure I hit or get close to my 10,000 steps a day goal.  It was amazing to me to learn that in an average day, I was generally at least a couple thousand steps away from my goal if I don't make it to the gym (If I'm being honest, I haven't been that great about it lately!).

Yet another really awesome thing about the Fitbit is that if you have friends who also have a Fitbit (I am currently at only one), you can see how they are doing and even get a little bit of competition going.  I personally do not see it as a competition *cough cough* Peter *cough cough*, but it is really cool to be able to connect in that way if you want to be encouraging or know how others are progressing on their goals.

I would say that for $99, the Fitbit was an excellent investment for me, and I hope that some of you who are reading this consider getting one, as well.  I think it is a great tool no matter what your goals are. Whether your goal is to lose weight, get more active, or even just a cheap way to monitor your sleep, I would highly recommend the Fitbit.  The only thing that I hope changes in the future is that it starts to support syncing with your cell phone throughout the day so that you do not have to be near your computer (a USB dock/charger comes with the Fitbit and will sync the Fitbit with your computer within a 15ft range).  However, this is not a deal breaker for me, because the only thing I truly need to look at during the day that I cannot see on the actual device is how well I just slept, which is not a huge issue.  Not having support to sync the Fitbit with my phone also does not change that I can still log activities or food with the app throughout the day if I so choose.  A small inconvenience for such a handy device.  GO BUY ONE...NOW (you know, if you can afford it and whatnot)!

Here is a video about Fitbit:

graduation and growing up.

I am starting a completely new chapter of my life.  Or, well, it's started and I just haven't really accepted it yet.  Or I'm in this limbo where I have no idea where I'm going to work, which has an impact on just about every other facet of my life.  So, I was sitting at my laptop this morning and thinking about something productive I could do with my time.  I thought, "I have always wanted to really keep up on a blog.  But what would I blog about?  I really can't be all that interesting."  I have decided, after much contemplation, that I don't care if I'm not that interesting to that many people.  I'm just going to go for it because I have nothing better to do right at this very moment.  What will I talk about?  I will talk about my life, news, books, movies, TV, gadgets I want/got/feel like I reallyreallyreally need but probably don't.  That being said, I hope you really enjoy what I have to offer.

I was having a conversation with a friend about what it means to be a grown-up and how you know if you're a grown up.  His theory was that if you can look back about three years and not think you were a complete idiot, then you're a grown up.  That's slightly simplified (but only slightly), and I didn't write down exact quotes, so I'm sorry if you read this and feel like I butchered your theory.  And then I watched a video that seemed incredibly timely:

Hank says it really well.  There are no hard lines, nothing concrete to define what is or isn't an adult, and you can still pay your taxes, have good credit, have a job, have a social life, and be silly.  I don't want to lose my silliness or nerdiness.  I want to watch my TV shows, cry at them, read lots of books, play lots of video games, and still manage to pay my bills and generally have my crap together enough to buy a house and have nice things like a good car and be able to take a vacation every now and again (and be able to afford my technology habit).  It has been important to me to do all of those things that keep me me and not get bogged down by everything else that has been going on.  This has been difficult, but I think that so far I've managed to find a good balance and think that I have a good hold on things.  I think about things from multiple perspectives and try to balance logic with emotion when I am making my decisions.  My point is that I will probably never know, and I will probably never just call myself an adult without cringing just a little, but not because I think being an adult is bad.  To be human is to be fluid and is contextual; in some situations I will probably be way more adult than the people I'm with, and in other situations, I will probably regress to childhood depending on what triggers me.  

Since I am presently in a transitional stage of my life, I have also been considering my support system and how I still fit into the world I have created for myself.  What still works, and what doesn't work?  What do I need to change?  I feel like since things are in flux, I have the ability to make things into what I want them to be (to a certain extent).  This has been really important to me.  However, I have also lost a sense of control over my life and I like, which has provided me with a lot of anxiety.  I would like to say that I can go with the flow, but the unknown is just really freaking me out.  This is not to say that I am not still an adaptable human being; I feel like I have shown my adaptability and resiliency through many of the experiences I have had throughout my life.  I just have to keep in mind that those are very different concepts.  For years and years now, I have been wanting my life to settle down.  I want to live in one place for longer than a year, I want to have a job, I want people who are permanent fixtures in my life.  My life up until this point has not really lent itself to that; people are constantly moving away and things are always changing.  I accept the change, but I wonder if it is ever going to slow down.  People will always come and go, homes will always come and go, jobs will always come and go.  Am I naive to think that the change will slow down at all?  I haven't decided yet.  Even if some of the changes slow down, there will be other changes and transitions to go through.  I guess I'll just have to wait and see.