From skwigg's journal:
Fitbit thoughts. For me to continue any behavior long term, it needs to be enjoyable, rewarding, and effective. If it's not, see ya! I ditched my first Fitbit several years ago because it became obsessive, discouraging, and counterproductive. In my case, it was because I was tracking input versus expenditure and I went bonkers. Quickly!
Now, through the magic of happy eating, I've lost all sense of calorie awareness. This in itself is miraculous. I don't read nutrition labels or casually tally meals in my head. I don't measure anything. I don't pay any attention to restaurant menu nutrition facts. I eat at other people's houses or make recipes with a dozen ingredients and I don't have a clue how many calories there are. Overall, I don't have even a general sense of how much I eat in a day because every day is so different. My appetite varies based on my activity and meal schedule that day, which means I'm not forcing a certain activity level and I'm not eating according to a clock or a schedule. I get hungry and eat however much I'm hungry for at that time. Again, whoa! If happy eater me and dieter me could somehow converse through the magic of time travel, dieter me would be like, "You do WHAT?!" LOL I'm reminded of Jill Coleman's "control is the opposite of trust" statement. I used to control because I was anxious. I thought controlling the hell out of something (namely my eating) would bring peace and relief but it never quite worked out that way. Trust has brought peace and relief. I trust that wherever I am and whatever food is available or not available, I'm fine. I'll eat the same as always - whatever I like, in a portion appropriate for my appetite at the time.
Ok, so back to the Fitbit. I've lost all sense of the input portion of the equation. The calorie expenditure is consistently pretty high, but it does vary from day to day by 500-700 calories. I never try to even that out or burn a consistently high amount every day. I actually set my goals at about half of what I normally do in a day. So, even if I'm seated in a meeting all day, or compelled to lie on the couch and watch Netflix for 6 hours, my Fitbit is still all like, "Woohoo! You rock! Goal met! Keep up the good work!"
So that's where I am now. I realize it could change. Maybe one day seeing my stats will become annoying instead of fun. Then I'll lose interest like I did with calorie counting. Same with daily weighing. Right now it's a behavior that I find enjoyable, rewarding, and effective. But if it stops being that, it's history. That may be a bit of a trust/control situation too. Seeing the number doesn't bother me anymore because I'm not making any particular effort to control it. I trust that I'm ok no matter what I weigh, and that my body will reflect my habits over time. Even though I exist happily in about a 10 pound range, it's fascinating how my body consistently returns to the middle of it, without interference from me. It likes it there! Pretty cool!
"my body is always right and the Fitbit is drunk"
Haha, I love this!
Yeah, I wouldn’t consider a Fitbit a necessary step for anything. I think of it more like a toy for entertainment. I don’t let it tell me how much to eat, sleep, or exercise. I do what I do and then see if there’s anything interesting or relevant in the data. Sometimes there is. Maybe I can correlate more energy to getting more sleep, or a strong appetite to recent activity, but sometimes it doesn’t jibe at all, and that’s ok too. If there’s a discrepancy, my body is always right and the Fitbit is drunk. I like it because it encourages me to prioritize sleep, eat enough, and recover properly. For someone else (and for me at other points in the journey), it may encourage being a rigid, exhausted, stressed out whackadoo in order to hit certain numbers. If that happens, it’s time to take it off or disable the problematic features. I don’t do calories in, reminders to move, or water, and I only update my weight about once a year.
I have a question about steps and fatigue. I try to do 10,000 steps a day because I have a desk job. Some days I do about 15,000. With all the steps you do, do you get fatigue? Do you find that you have regular days that are lower? If I do 10,000 steps plus consistently for a week say, I find I do notice fatigue in my legs and my knees get crunchy. Just curious whether you experience anything like this? I tell myself I shouldn't worry if I have 1 or 2 days a week where I only hit 6000 or so... (Don't want to be obsessive about it). Just wondered what your thoughts were.
Listen to your body. It knows! How you feel is always more important than the step count. We do this to feel good, right?
I don't experience any fatigue or soreness, but my step count varies depending on how I feel. I also spread my steps across the whole day, a few minutes here and there rather than one long walk. I always set my step goal low, something I could easily hit on a lazy day. I started at 2,500. No kidding! Then I kept it at 5,000 even when I was regularly walking 10,000 or more. My step goal is generally half of what I do on an average day. That way if there's a busy day, or a day I'm just not feeling it, I still get a green bar and a star for meeting my goal. On days I have plenty of energy, I get all the celebratory "overachiever" notifications just for doing what I normally do.
Keep it fun and easy. If you push yourself to do more than is comfortable or practical, you won't enjoy it as much or be as consistent. It's better to feel like you're totally rocking a playfully low step goal than to feel like you're constantly struggling with a too-high one.
I thought about my Fitbit today too. Why is it fine and fun now when it used to stress me out and make me crazy? I realized that Fitbit numbers are a bit like calorie math. When I was trying to hit a specific number every day, whether calories, steps, sleep, it would cause me stress. If I didn't hit the number, I'd done something wrong, or so the story went. I eventually let go of calorie math when I realized that it was stupid and unnecessary to forcefully balance every meal and day. What matters is the big picture of your eating over long stretches of time. One huge meal, or crazy vacation week doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. It won't cause you to gain weight or be out of shape, just like one day or week of eating salad and rice cakes won't make you too lean. It's ok if you're more hungry on some days and less hungry on others. Appetite varies. Well, so does energy expenditure. It's completely normal to be more or quite a bit less active from day to day. It's not necessary to level it out or hit certain magic numbers. If you're generally active over time, recovering well, and feeling good, that IS optimal. Pushing to attain an arbitrary level of activity every day, and feeling worse for it, is not.
So, with that mindset, I don't feel pressure to hit any of my Fitbit goals day-to-day. Over time, I'm active, I sleep well, I recover well, and I feel like the Fitbit helped me accomplish that. It's not something that pushes me to disregard how I'm feeling. That's me though! I understand that it makes others totally nuts. I'm just sharing my thoughts on it.
Note - I no longer find daily weighing enjoyable or effective. It's pointless. I'm happier not doing it. I don't know how much I weigh. I know that I feel great, love the way I eat, and my clothes fit. Putting a number to it doesn't serve any purpose.