3 Reasons Why I Love My Fitbit

**This is NOT a sponsored post. I just love how the Fitbit helps keep me active on a daily basis. 

It’s been about a month since The Broad Street Run, my first longer race. I enjoyed taking a break from running after the race. It was an intentional break, catching up on things that had fallen by the wayside. I am finding that Newton’s first law of motion is indeed true in my exercise journey. Without the focused goal of the race, I haven’t had the drive to continue to run or really exert myself physically.

My exercise journey, however, doesn’t focus solely on achieving the “next big fitness goal”. I’ve learned that slow and steady in exercise (and decluttering) add up to big gains. That’s why I love my Fitbit Flex Wireless Activity plus Sleep Wristband* (affiliate link – please see below). Walking 10,000 steps a day is a daily goal that I have that is realistic and achievable. The Fitbit helps me achieve this goal – that’s why I love my Fitbit.

I was fortunate to have had enough “bravo” points in my employer’s incentive program to get mine through this employee benefit. I ordered it to help me track my activity during a wellness challenge at the beginning of 2015. A group of coworkers and I signed up to be a team – collectively committing to eating healthier, drinking more water, and increasing our movement.

3 things I love about the Fitbit:

1. It is automatic. I don’t have to turn it on to track my activity. I used to use the app Map My Run to track my walking, but I would frequently forget to turn it on (or off!). The Fitbit also automatically syncs to my employee wellness account. The benefit to this is that as I continue to track activity, I earn wellness bucks that I can use for qualifying health expenses.

2. It is simple and keeps me motivated throughout the day. When I track something, my        awareness increases, and my behavior changes with the awareness.

There are 5 LED lights on this particular Fitbit. Every dot represents 20% of your goal achieved. If you tap on it twice, it will show you how many dots you’ve achieved so far. Before I had the Fitbit, I rarely used the stairs at work. Now that I have the Fitbit, I take the stairs at least once up 8 flights of stairs, and always use the stairs instead of the elevator going down.

3.  I now know what my normal levels of activity are. It tracks steps, distance, calories burned,  and active minutes.

On the days that I work – 10,000 steps is no problem. I usually walk to and from work which is about 3 miles roundtrip, and am constantly walking around while at work so I usually exceed the 10,000 step goal.

On the days that I don’t work – 10,000 steps is hard to reach if I don’t go for a run or am very conscious about adding extra movement to my day. On these days I intentionally go up and down the stairs a lot if I’m in the house working.

Two Features I Don’t Use

My particular Fitbit has a sleep tracker which measures how long and well you sleep. I personally don’t use this feature much. I tried it the first night, but found it bothersome to wear while sleeping. It was pretty interesting to see the graph of when I woke during the night, but I couldn’t help but wonder if it was because I was wearing the Fitbit! To turn sleep mode on and off – you tap it 5 times quickly.  It also has a silent alarm which could be useful to someone who isn’t bothered by wearing it while sleeping.

It’s a Family Affair!

My sisters and I bought my mom the Fitbit Zip Wireless Activity Tracker * (affiliate link – please see below) for her birthday this year. She is an avid walker so this was the perfect present for her. My sister loved it so much she ordered herself one! This one is great because it can be low tech or high tech. My mom doesn’t currently have a smartphone so she can use this as a regular pedometer, but has the option to use it with a smartphone in the future.

My sister and I now get each other’s weekly stats and have a friendly competition challenging each other to keep moving!

Do you have a Fitbit or any other device that keeps you motivated to move throughout your day? I’d love to know!

*This is an affiliate link, which means that at no additional cost to you, if you purchase this item, I may get a small percentage of the sale if you buy through these links. Thanks for your support!

This post was shared at these fun and fabulous link parties: Let’s Get Real, Merry Monday, Women with Intention Wednesdays