Interesting Fitbit walk

Honestly, I love it and I have the Fitbit Ultra. A year or so ago, I wanted one to try out, but at the time, they were hard to come by, i.e. the manufacturer couldn’t keep up with demand, so it could be months of waiting. And that’s one reason I ended up with the GoWear Fit. But I feel like this device is so much easier, so much more comfortable and more motivating. It’s addictive in a weird way. I find myself looking for opportunities to increase steps, or floor counts. I *like* earning the silly little virtual badges. I really LOVE the weekly progress report emails, so useful to see how one is doing. And of course, the fact that it just uploads any time I am near my computer is very nice indeed.

It’s a funny thing, it is pricey, and if you read on the Fitbit forums, lots of folks either lose ‘em or wash them with their clothes (sometimes they get saved by sticking them in a jar of rice to get the moisture out), but most folks go right out and buy another, even if they have to buy used on eBay.

I’m sure that there are a number of people who still won’t be motivated by the device, but I really like it. My GoWear Fit from BodyMedia is a good tracker, but it doesn’t offer all the little things like the badges and leaderboards and forums and weekly emails.

I didn’t pay full price, as I had a $10 off code for using my Mastercard that I’d gotten during a Christmas promotion. I bought a cat tree, gotten $10 off that, but the deal was that you would get another $10 off code to use later, only you had to buy at least $50 worth of goods and you had to use a Mastercard. So I used the second promotion code for my Fitbit Ultra. And the MC also gives cash back, and was on a 5% promotion that month (usually I only get 1% cashback), so I got a little more off. The cats love the second cat tree (in our dining nook) and I love my Fitbit!

The Ultra model has something they call “motivational chatter”. Which, honestly, I thought was just a “fluff” feature. The funny thing though, is in a world where we often DON’T tell ourselves often enough that we love ourselves, having the little device pop up “Luv ya” or “I like you” and then your name on its little display is actually a fun and cool thing. Who knew? Even if it’s just “Hello” or “Bonjour” or “Let’s go” or “Climb it”, I enjoy it when I see a message. The only trouble is I often don’t catch the first part of the message when I’ve picked up the device after setting it down to get dressed or take a shower or whatever. So it may have more than those phrases, I don’t know. But I enjoy the feature much more than I would have guessed. Hubby of course, thinks it is rather silly!

Anyway, working on writing up a comparison between the two devices before sending my GoWear Fit to ebay. For walking activity over a 24 hour period, calorie burns from both devices were very close, less than 15 calories different. I suspect that overall, and for more active use, the BodyMedia device would be more accurate, but I’m not that sort and I just can’t stand wearing it.

Last night, at about 20 minutes to midnight, I asked myself if I wanted to earn a climb badge. And I trudged up and down the basement steps six times to add enough floors to get one. Then, I saw that I was close to exceeding a previous best in step numbers, so I started walking around the house. THEN, I saw that maybe, if I walked fast, I could squeeze in enough steps to make my first 8K day before midnight with two minutes to go. So I just walked until the clock turned. That sort of thing doesn’t happen every day, but I do find myself more aware of getting some steps in.