My daughter bought me a Fitbit; I’d already inherited one from my son, but the one my daughter gave me had more features. I’m very aware that because i do so much writing I do a lot of sitting; I did try t work standing up, but it didn’t quite gel with me – maybe the set up I had wasn’t the right height, maybe I wasn’t as committed to trying as I could have been… so as I still do a lot of writing, I do a lot of sitting. I do also have a Wii Fit which I’ve used to try and be more active, but this Fitbit just seems to have been more successful.
It counts he number of steps I take each day and also other things such as how active I am, how long I sleep – and loads of other things if I wanted. The idea is you set a target of so many steps – I think a lot of people aim for 10,000 steps… That would be no good for me, I just wouldn’t achieve that regularly enough. So I set mine at 6,000 which seemed a lot to fit in during a day. I’m very busy, but most of my activities aren’t what you might call energetic – writing, writing groups – teaching and as a member, reading groups, French class… yes busy, but not active.
Since I’ve had the Fitbit I have tried to walk more, so a lift into town and then walk home; visit a friend and walk there and back, go out for walk with family, just little adjustments. I had a great success recently when I went to the Mavericks gigs – all that dancing!! Now our lives have changed because we have a dog, and a dog means walks so my Fitbit is exceptionally pleased with me each day now. Yesterday after much thought, and after several weeks of exceeding my target each day, my daughter told me my average was actually over 8,000 steps a day… I decided that maybe I should raise my target… I would continue, for the time being to try to achieve 8,00 a day… who knows in a couple of months I might raise it again!
Here’s a song I thought was called ‘Footsteps’ but it seems it’s actually called ‘Teardrops’ –
Lois Elsden 