A true story of a girl that was obsessed with getting her “steps.”
Hello all! 🙂 Today’s post is a little different. It’s not a workout or a recipe, but instead a look inside my journey/struggle with wearing a Fitbit.
I’m a little type A, hence my (healthy) obsession with eating food and working out, and I like a little competition. So as you can guess, fitness trackers are not the best for people like me.
Here’s how I finally took off the Fitbit and started enjoying life again.
About two years ago, I stole my mom’s Fitbit and it was the start of an unhealthy relationship.
My goal was to get 10,000 steps a day, so I made sure to get 12K – 13K and nothing satisfied me more than to see the green bars in a row for every day I hit my calorie target.
I found myself constantly preoccupied with getting those damn steps. The first thing I would do in the morning, before even putting my feet on the ground, was put on my Fitbit. I started taking walks over lunch, no matter how hot it was outside. I’d march in place at work and at home. I’d take the dogs on a walk, even though I just got done working out. I’d carry everything in my right arm, because god forbid I took a step without swinging my left so the Fitbit could track it.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’d add in activity to make up for it not tracking my steps “right.” I’d add in a 3 mile run for a 30 minute tabata workout because I thought those should equal the same amount of work. It came down to me just entering all this information to make it seem like I was hitting my goal every day.
I so badly wanted to stop wearing it, but I couldn’t…
Looking back it all seems quite insane, but at the time, it seemed like something I had to do. The gratification of the little buzzes notifying me when I hit my goal was something I looked forward to every day.
Nick would tell me to just stop wearing it and to sit down when I was marching in place, and I thought he was crazy because he didn’t understand. Now I see who the crazy one was 😉
The best thing that ever happened to me was my knee injury this past winter (probably due to all the walking/marching/movement I was doing). It was my one chance to finally break free. I knew how anxious I would feel not being able to workout and not get all my steps in, so I decided to take it off, put it in a drawer and never look back.
If I could put into words how freeing it felt, I would. It was like taking off a prison bracelet or something. It took a week or two to get used to, but I stopped worrying about getting all my steps in and I stopped logging my food intake. Eventually, I forgot about it completely. I started living my life again, I wasn’t worried about going on a business trip and sitting in the car all day, or going out to eat, not to knowing how many calories was in the salad I ate.
I’m probably making this sound worse than it was. I still had lazy days when I wore the FitBit, I still had cheat days (pretty much every Friday and Saturday) and I weighed and looked the same as I do now. But getting rid of it, stopped my anxiety over those things.
Long story short, fitness trackers are not good for Type A-ers (at least not us extreme personality types).
The truth is, it taught me good practices, like getting up and walking around the office instead of sitting all day, or being cognizant of what I was eating, but in reality I was going to workout and eat healthy either way.
And that’s what it all came down to – making healthy lifestyle changes – taking the stairs, getting up from my desk periodically, eating more lean meats and vegetables, relaxing and having fun! (the later two, being the most important! 😊)
I know I’m not the only one who’s been obsessed. I think just about every one caught the Fitbit bug at some point or another. I’m just glad I can look back on this experience and laugh, because in the end it’s all about BALANCE. If you need a reminder to eat healthy and workout, Fitbit on. And if you don’t, stay away, far, far away!