Getting to Know the FitBit One

The time had come in my fitness efforts to gain some more insight into my daily activity. With only 5 pounds to lose to hit my goal (and several more waist inches), I hit a plateau. I mean, I'm running two to three times a week and am very active with the kids on weekends. We walk a lot. Or, so I think we do.

So, I started looking at getting a simple pedometer. I tried a few apps for my smartphone, but they all seem to require either an arm or waist band or open hands to capture motion. For the bulk of my day at work, my phone sits on the stack of my tablet and printed documents in my arms; no swinging motion at all. Then, they crashed my phone. Blah. At first, I thought I just wanted a $10 pedometer I could hook on my pants and go, until eBay returned some cheap wrist band pedometers in my search results. I remembered reading on MyFitnessPal how much people love their FitBits and Polar bands.

Before I buy a knock-off cheapie, I always look to see what the brand offers. In this case, the brands offered more features. Initially, I was looking at the Jawbone Up, which seemed really cool. I really liked that it tracked sleep. I could really use that information because I never feel rested enough. Of course, the next thing I do is look for reviews and comparison of the product. It was this one on PopSugar that got me thinking about FitBit, including the brand's clip-on versions. Afterall, how would a wrist band track movement if I was carrying my usually armful of meeting materials at work? That's why, despite reviews like this one from Shelly Palmer at Huffington Post, I opted for a clip-on FitBit. In the end, the right device for a person is really a personal choice, isn't it?

Originally, I looked at the FitBit Zip. It's essentially a souped up pedometer, tracking steps, distance and calories burned. On Amazon, you can buy one new for around $50. Reviews for this product are generally favorable, so I was prepared to buy one when I went to the official FitBit website to get the full low-down on it. While there, I looked at the brand's other clip-on products and quickly decided that I had to have the sleep tracking and stair-climbing functions. I climb a lot of stairs throughout the day and I'd like to get credit for them! The answer: FitBit One. This one is a little more expensive (on Amazon for about $90), but I watched eBay for a couple weeks, too, and ended up getting one for $71. You either have to have the patience to bid and lose a few times, or to watch the Buy It Now auctions until you see the price you want. Generally, you can expect to pay between $75 and $90 for a new FitBit One on eBay, too.

I read a lot of reviews and tips before my FitBit One arrived, noting the following:

• Driving in a car with your FitBit can log faux steps and stairs. To fix this, you're supposed to set the activity stopwatch before the car starts moving and turn it off when you park. This allows you to change the time on the FitBit website/app to "driving" so that steps aren't counted.
• The FitBits apparently have a knack for slipping out of their rubber clip cases and getting lost. Some people wrapped small rubber bands around the whole case to prevent the device from falling out. (For what it's worth, I've been using my FitBit One for three days, including on runs, and my seems snug in its case. This is probably because I have yet to remove it from the case. At night, I slip the clip and all in my sleep band.)

Unpackaging the FitBit One
Of course I was excited when my FitBit arrived. I was a little surprised, however, that it doesn't come with any kind of instructions other than a trifold pamphlet that tells you to go to the FitBit setup site to setup your device. Once you create an account and sync your device (not difficult, but it would have been nice to have some expectation on the process before I got started), there is a quick tutorial that shows you to to navigate your screens. As you explore the website, additional tutorials display.

I then went to MyFitnessPal account and synched it with my FitBit One account. If you're interested in learning how to do this, go to the Apps tab in MyFitnessPal and click the Connect button for FitBit. 

Day One (Saturday, August 23)
The first day was already half over, but the FitBit starts off with some calories burned. A little research reveals that these would be the calories you burned so far that day without taking any activity into consideration, or your resting energy expenditure. At first, it didn't seem to be picking up when I walked up the stairs and it certainly wasn't picking up any extra steps or floors in the car. It did pick up my regular steps, however, and did a fabulous job tracking my sleep. I was really impressed with how it picked up my restless times. I know I wake up a lot at night, especially as morning approaches and the graph, in my opinion, was about as accurate as you could get without hooking nodes up to my head in six places to track brain activity.

Day Two (Sunday, August 24)
This was my first day wearing the FitBit One all day. At first, on our way to the grocery store, I wasn't getting the phantom steps in the car again, so I started to wonder if my device was somehow special. On the way back home, however, it did start picking up extra steps that I wasn't taking. So, when we headed out later in the day, I tried turning on the stopwatch activity tracker. I was pleased that marking these time periods as "driving" on the FitBit website deduced any accumulated steps from my total daily count (not on the device, only on the website).

What made me even happier was that the integration between MyFitnessPal and FitBit automatically adjusted my calorie intake on the MyFitnessPal website. Awesome. I got credit for the 5,781 steps I took.I only took 5, 781 steps?!  That's a long way from the 10,000 steps we should be taking, and I was on my feet a lot this day.

The FitBit Dashboard is pretty cool, too. This device understood when I was at the park playing with my boys and marked the time as "active minutes." It was also accurate at tracking the 12 floors I ran up at my house. I guess it pays to only have a bathroom on the second floor and to have my master bedroom on the third!

So far, extremely impressed with my FitBit One. Stay turned as I provide updates through this week.

Day Three (Monday, August 25)
I did my 4-mile run this morning and am happy to report that I logged more than 8,000 steps and 51 minutes of "very active minutes" doing it. Yay. FitBit, however, is not very generous with its calorie burn credit. That's probably better for me in the long run, but MapMyFitness, which I previously used to estimate my run calorie burn, gave me an additional 50 calories. I'm going to miss those 50 calories.

Speaking of synching, I forgot to sync my One before leaving for the office this morning, so I was really bummed that I'd have to wait to get home before checking my stats. My Android smartphone apparently isn't compatible with the bluetooth synching capabilities of the One and my work locks down its computers so no installing the software there. Besides, I don't want to have to carry around that tiny little wireless dongle from work to home in order to keep on top of my stats. Fortunately, my Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 table does sync with the device and I was able to get all of my stats synchronized throughout the day. Win.

What I'm not impressed with is how many floors this FitBit logs when I haven't walked them. Seriously, I'm beginning to wonder if the simple act of dropping and raising my pants to go to the bathroom counts as a floor. Every time I go to the restroom, I end up with another floor, and I'm only 5-feet tall, so 2.5 feet does not a floor make according to FitBit's definition of 10 feet per floor. I totally understand that, during my run, it picked up some elevation changes and created a couple floors for that. At this rate, however, the stair counter is a bit useless if it's going to be this inaccurate. Apparently this is a known issue and relates to air pressure, so not much you can do about it. People have even reported that wind will make your FitBit think you're climbing stairs.

It also seemed to pick up some "very active minutes" when I wasn't exercising. Perhaps I was walking fast to the restroom or printer, but it seems weird to count that as "very active." I spent a good bit of time today on FitBit One's Help site looking for answers. I suppose this is the normal course of learning to use a piece of technology like this, but I would have much rather received a manual or FAQ from FitBit since these seem to be common issues that people have with the device.

Here are some quick links for you:

• What are "very active minutes"?
• How does my tracker count floors?
• How do I measure and adjust my stride length?

Day Four (Tuesday, August 25)
OK, I was totally sick this day and only logged 2,000 steps because I had a doctor's appointment. No real information to add because I didn't move from the couch much.

Day Five (Wednesday, August 26)
Since I'm still recovering from my cold, I didn't go running this morning, but I did use my under-desk mini-bike to both warm up and burn some calories. Before I started, I put my FitBit in activity mode. However, in this case, the FitBit did not play nicely with MyFitnessPal. It put my activity records on the Sleep tab at first. It was easy enough to move (just edit and click the link to move to Activities). But, it didn't seem to credit even close to the correct calorie count. Really, for a 40-minute session, it was giving me a 40-calorie burn. So, I deleted those activity records from the FitBit Dashboard and entered my exercise in MyFitnessPal. The FitBit Dashboard picks up your MyFitnessPal exercise, so that works for me.


Speaking of MyFitnessPal, I set up my FitBit to apply negative calorie gains to MyFitnessPal, too. You see, FitBit will apply an adjustment to you MyFitnessPal account if  you take a lot of steps or, in my case, if you're not taking enough. You can turn off this negative calorie adjustment and only apply positive adjustments. I feel it's not really holding me accountable if I don't allow negative adjustments, too, so I turned it on through MyFitnessPal settings.

I have to admit that it doesn't totally make sense to me how these two sites interact and come to the correct conclusion. The information popup on the FitBit adjustment in MyFitnessPal (just access your Exercise tab and click the "i" next to FitBit) indicates that the adjustment equals the difference between the FitBit calories burned and MyFitnessPal calories burned, including all exercise. If FitBit says you've burned more, you get a positive adjustment (more calories subtracted from your intake), but if MyFitnessPal calories are higher, you'll get the negative adjustment. It's all very confusing because this number changes throughout the day, making it extremely hard to eat to your available calorie balance.


For today, I got a good burn with two 40-minute pedaling sessions on MyFitnessPal so, of course, I ended up having 51 calories deducted from that burn because FitBit doesn't think I burned that much. There again, that number changed multiple times before I went to bed and seemed to all balance out at the end. I did stalk the numbers all day at work, where I sit at a desk most of the time. I'm scheduled to run again on Friday, so we'll see how it manages this balancing act when I start my day with a good burn.

Day Six (Thursday, August 27)
Today I definitely felt like I was picking up some useful habits in working with my FitBit, including putting it into activity mode before I start driving or doing some activity that it won't track (like pedaling). I'm using the stairs more because I want those floor credits and I'm making an effort to get up and walk to the bathroom or the water fountain a little more often. I'm taking the long way around to these things, as well. 

Oh, and I realized that FitBit also syncs with MapMyFitness. I was manually adding my daily steps into MapMyFitness, but it's nice to see that it can collect it on its own from FitBit.com. Awesome. I did, however, remove the link between MapMyFitness and MyFitnessPal when I started using FitBit because I didn't want to double up on calorie burns. I don't know if I'm ready to figure out a three-way sync! Actually, that also means that I can't log my runs separate from my daily walking steps on MapMyFitness if I'm allowing FitBit to provide step information. That means I don't think I'm getting the appropriate calorie credit for those "very active minutes." I'm not mathematician, however, so getting the right numerical picture would take me hours with a pen and paper to figure out. I may just try this tool instead. ;)

I'm not sure if I'll keep up FitBit synchronized with MapMyFitness. I'll decide at the end of week one because I want to give FitBit the benefit of the doubt. Seeing such low calorie burns makes me want to burn more somehow, but I know I'm not consuming a lot of calories so I want to be careful I don't end up doing extreme weight loss.

Day Seven (Friday, August 28)
For the first time, the FitBit fell out of my wrist band overnight, which means it didn't appropriately log my sleep.

You know what impresses me about this device? I've yet to charge it after that first day and the battery level is still high.

As for logging, it picked up 13 floors while I was doing my morning run/walk. I suppose us FitBit users just have to get used to the fact that the floor count will almost never be accurate because the device isn't smart enough to know whether you're moving up a hill or a staircase.

Now that I'm pretty good at putting my device in activity mode when needed, the step counts are pretty accurate. I'm not going to complain, anyway, because they're pretty close to the actual number of steps I take. Since I still have a bit to learn about synching, I may do one more update next week after I've had a chance to play around a bit.

My At-Work Exercise Program: Fitting In Fitness at the Office

A Workout Plan That Tackles the Problem of Sedentary Jobs

After having gestational diabetes during my second pregnancy, I didn't fully shake it postpartum. I was "pre-diabetic" for more than a year, teetering on the fine line between diabetic and not. Something had to give, and since a junkfood junkie like me could never give up chocolate, I had to come up with a physical solution.

Being a busy working mom means I don't get a lot of time to myself when I'm at home, so it's hard to commit to DVDs or working out in the basement. Plus, I really can't see myself spending less time with my kids during the week. I only get a couple hours in the evening with them, half of which is spent feeding dinner, cleaning up dinner, getting baths and nudging the boys through our bedtime routine.

There is one place, however, where I spend a great deal of my day five days a week: the office. I decided that if I was going to make lifestyle changes to improve my health, I was going to have to find some ways to combine exercise and work. Through small changes, I was able to lose 15 pounds in 4 months. Here is how I did it.

NOTE: Before bringing any exercise equipment into the office, check with your supervisor. Explain the consequences of sedentary jobs and the benefits of moving throughout the day. Before you implement any exercise program, talk with your doctor.

Under-Desk Mini-Bike
You will find plenty of people who snub the under-desk mini-bike because they don't feel it burns enough calories to make difference. But any movement is better than none. Even fidgeting in your chair burns more calories than just sitting there. I purchased an under-desk mini-bike for about $30 on Amazon that doesn't have a ton of bells and whistles, but does have a small LCD screen that displays information such as total revolutions, calories burned, and time.

With a little practice, I now easily pedal and work at the same time, burning anywhere from 200 to 400 calories a day, depending on the number of meetings I have. At the end of the day, I usually log between 45 and 120 minutes of exercise. I've also noticed that my focus and productivity seems to be better when I pedal, probably because of the extra blood flow to my brain.

A couple things to note:

• The calorie-burn feature is only an estimate. I'm a small person to begin with so I don't believe I burn what the pedaller tells me I do. I wasn't losing weight when I followed it. I shave off 5 to 10 minutes for each session when I log the exercise into my calorie tracking software and that seems to work best for me. You may get more accurate readings if you use a heart rate monitor. Otherwise, you'll have to use trial and error to estimate your calorie burn, too.
  
• While working and pedaling, it's easy to lose track of what you're doing. This can lead to overworked muscles and, well, getting quite sweaty. Take breaks and be sure to keep yourself appropriately hydrated and fueled. Set a timer if you have to, and keep some baby wipes and deodorant handy, just in case.
  

Wrist Weights/Dumbbells
When you are processing information (either on your computer or in your brain), pick up some hand weights and put in a 15- to 20-repetition set. When a colleague comes in to talk about anything, pick up your hand weights and do another set. Basically, anytime your hands come off the keyboard, take a minute to strengthen your arms, chest, shoulders and back. Just make sure you are using slow, deliberate movements from the beginning to the end of the motion.

Here are a few weight exercises you can do right at your desk:

• Seated shoulder presses - Hold your hand weights out to the sides of your body with your hands facing forward. Raise your arms up over your head and return to the start position.
  
• Seated bicep curl - Hold the hand weights at your sides with your palms facing in. If your chair has armrests, you may have to modify this exercise a bit by moving the arm rests and/or sitting on the edge of your seat. As you lift both arms up, turn them so that your palms face your body. Pull all the way to your chest, and then reverse the motion to return to the start position.
  
• Seated tricep press - Hold one weight with both hands above your head. Keep your elbows close to your head and lower the weight behind your head. Return to the start position and repeat.
  

Stability Ball Exercises
When I'm not peddling my under-desk mini-bike, I'm sitting and bouncing on my stability ball. I have an adjustable keyboard tray installed at my desk, which allows me to transition from my chair to an appropriately sized fitness ball without changing the way I type. While simply sitting on the ball isn't likely to make drastic changes in your wellness , you can do some exercises to strengthen your core.

• Ball Crunch - Roll forward so that the ball is positioned at the small of your back, and then do some abdominal crunches.
  
• Reverse Crunch - Slowly lean back until your abdominals are fully engaged, and then hold the position for a count of 10.
  
• Sitting Challenge - Balance on your ball and slowly lift your legs out in front of you, maintaining your balance.
  
• Figure 8s - Isolate your hips to roll forward to the right and back, through the center to the front left and back to create an "8" motion.
  

Chair Exercises
If you don't have a stability ball, there are other exercises you can do in your regular office chair. While many chair exercises are designed for seniors or those with limited mobility, they can provide adequate resistance training for desk jockeys, too. Here are a few exercises to get you started.

• Hinge and cross - Work on your abs by sitting with knees together and your heels off the ground. Place your hands behind your head with elbows out to the side. Tighten your abs as you bring your right elbow to touch your left knee, return to the start position, and then repeat by bringing your left elbow to touch your right knee. Do not move your shoulders. Repeat for 20 repetitions.
  
• Seated leg extensions - While sitting on the edge of your chair, keep your back straight as you extend and raise one leg. Pull your toes toward your body and raise your leg as high as you can. Hold that position for three seconds, and then return to the start position. Repeat with your other leg.
  
• Seated press up - Sit toward the edge of your chair with your palms on the sides. Keep your feet flat on the ground in front of you. Push down with your arms to raise your body up and slightly forward. Hold for a few seconds and return to the start position. Repeat this motion.
  

Additional References:
NBC: 50 No-Sweat Ways to Burn Calories
Forbes: The 10 Best Exercises to Do at Your Desk

 

Changing the Way We Think About Food

I read in quite a few places that us junk-food junkies can get to a place where sweets just aren't that important to us. Of course, I was one of those people who couldn't walk past ANY cake, cookie, chocolate-whatever or other sugary snack without having some. My taste buds demanded--commanded that I eat, eat, eat. That is, after all, what makes me a junk-food junkie.

At work, someone brought in doughnuts and, as I chowed down on a chocolate-covered pastry with jimmies, one of the other ladies took a look in the box and said, "I am not going to sin for that." I admired her. I wanted to be her, to be able to walk away from sugary goodness without feeling deprived. But, I'm a junk-food junkie.

Well, in case you don't recall, one of the first things I did was try to find recipes for the lesser evils. That is, I sought out recipes for cookies and cakes with substituted ingredients that would trick my taste buds into thinking they were getting what they demanded without the fat cells on my body swelling. I did find some great recipes and dedicated myself to those.

Then, I had to tackle that monster at work: the vending machine. I had to find some way to alter my thinking about them. Then, it occurred to me that I needed to stop just looking at calorie content in isolation. I needed to take things a step further and look at each snack as "x" number of minutes doing "x" exercise to rid my body of the "sin." After three months of making better choices at the vending machine, I--a certified junk-food junkie--walked away from the grocery store bakery counter without getting a single cake or cookie for myself. When I look at these things now, I don't think of how great they taste (OK, I don't just think about that), but I think about how much effort it takes to get it back out of my body.

Here's an article I wrote that can help you change your thinking, too:
Burn Off Candy Calories in an Hour or Less 
Diet denial means ignoring the amount of physical activity it will take to burn off the calories from those not-so-good-for-you vending machine snacks you eat. Men and women can explore exactly how much time they’ll have to invest in different activities.