fitness

100 days of Fitbit

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Yesterday, I completed 100 consecutive days where I recorded at least 10,000 steps on my Fitbit. That means that I had done a minimum of 10,000 steps every day since mid-July.

My previous record had been 57 days, earlier this year. That was forcibly ended when the Fitbit Charge HR that I had at the time stopped working. Before that, I’d managed 32 days last year. Getting to a triple digit number has been a much bigger achievement.

10,000 steps is the default target, and, whilst I can achieve this with ease on weekdays, weekends are another matter. Sunday was a good example – knowing that I wouldn’t have many opportunities to get my steps in, I took advantage of the clocks going back and went out for an early morning walk whilst the rest of the household slept in. This is why I haven’t changed my target to be more challenging; I’d rather it be obtainable with some effort than feel bad about not meeting it.

I’m going to try to keep this steak going if I can, although next week may present some difficulty. Christine and I are both off work all week – we had planned to go somewhere, but left the planning too late and can’t really afford to stay over anywhere. Not having my regular routine may make it difficult to reach 10,000 steps every day, but I’ll give it a go.

Fitbit Alta HR review

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I’ve recently upgraded my fitness tracker, and now own a Fitbit Alta HR (sponsored link). I’ve previously owned a Charge, and a Charge HR, and this review will mostly focus on the differences between the Alta and the Charge. I reviewed the Fitbit Charge in October 2015.

Improvements

Compared with the Charge, the Alta HR is narrower, and the metal bands either side of the display make it feel more solid. I find that it fits my wrist better and it’s lighter, so it feels more comfortable. I feel happier wearing it when asleep than I did with the Charge models.

Battery life is much improved over the Charge HR, with the Alta HR typically lasting a full week on a full charge. You can also view the current battery status on the device itself, as it’s one of the screens that displays along with your step count, calories burnt, distance travelled etc.

Notifications are expanded beyond phone calls; the Alta HR will also notify you of text messages (and show the sender and first few words), and calendar events if you wish. If you’ve turned on Fitbit’s hourly movement tracking, then if you haven’t done 250 steps in the last hour, you’ll get a nudge at around 10 minutes to the hour to get up and move around.

In my experience, the Alta HR was better at synchronising throughout the day with my phone than the Charge models, which would sometimes go a few hours at a time without a proper synchronisation. This may be a quirk with my phone though.

Disadvantages

If you’re switching from a Charge to an Alta HR, you’ll need to turn off the floor climbing tracking. There’s no altimeter in the Alta HR and so you won’t be able to track how many floors you’ve climbed.

There’s no button on the Alta HR, so you have to wake the display either by raising your arm or double-tapping the screen. Also, the screen doesn’t automatically illuminate when you receive a notification. This probably improves the battery life but makes it a little harder to check your status quickly.

The screen is much bigger, and has a higher pixel density than the Charge. But it’s orientated lengthways, so when reading a message you’ll need to twist your arm. It also means that it’s not wide enough to display more than three digits of your step count, so once you hit 1000 steps, it’ll display ‘1.0k’ and then ’10k’ once you hit 10,000 steps. However, below this, a series of five dots shows whether you’re at 20, 40, 60, 80 or 100% of your daily goal.

Finally, your existing Charge or Charge HR charging cable won’t work with the Alta HR. It has a much improved cable that clips on to the device, but it’s incompatible with other models. You may want to order a spare cable.

Verdict

On the whole, I agree with this Gizmodo review – this is probably the best fitness tracker for most people. £10 more will get you the Charge 2, which overcomes some of the limitations of the Alta HR, but is bigger and probably less comfortable. If you’re the sort of person who wants to record their floor climbs, easily view GPS data, or practice relaxing breathing, go for the Charge 2. If not, then the Alta HR is a very good, comfortable fitness tracker.

Fitbit-less

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A photo of a Fitbit Charge HR which is stuck on a firmware update

I’m currently without my Fitbit, as it seems to have died. It looks like a firmware update failed, leaving it basically bricked. I spent about an hour on Sunday chatting to a very helpful support agent called Ulises, and despite trying several methods to get it to reboot correctly, we weren’t able to.

Thankfully, the kind people at Fitbit offered me either a free replacement, or 30% off a new model. I decided to go for the former; though the new models are better, right now I can’t afford the 70% balance that I’d need to pay. Hopefully it’ll arrive soon.

Frustratingly, I had managed to reach my 10,000 step goal every day for the previous 57 days, up to and including Saturday. This beat a record of 32 days that I set in April last year. Reaching 10,000 steps is relatively easy on weekdays; my commute involves around 45 minutes of walking. But weekends can be a challenge, and keeping it up for so long required some forward planning.

Even though I haven’t been wearing a fitness tracker for the past couple of days, I’m still following similar habits. This includes not standing still if I can avoid it, such as waiting for a train. When at work, I still go to a set of toilets a little further away from my desk, and I try to move around at least once every hour.

Since getting my Fitbit in September 2015, I’ve lost around 9 kilos in weight. That’s almost 20 lb, or nearly 1 1/2 stone, if you use old-fashioned measurements. Whilst I am also eating better, having a Fitbit motivates me to do just a little more exercise every day, and it seems to be making a difference. It’s brought my Body-Mass Index (BMI) down to 23.3, which is well within the ‘healthy’ zone; previously, I was straying into being ‘overweight’. And whilst BMI is a very crude measurement, it’s used as a kind-of ready-reckoner by a lot of health professionals.

I’ll be looking forward to my replacement Fitbit arriving, not at least because I don’t currently have a working watch. Let’s see if I can beat my 57 day record, and manage to walk 10,000 steps for a whole two months.

30 days of Fitbit

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Back in February I was lamenting my lack of exercise whilst on paternity leave. And following an Easter weekend where I had some particular sedentary days, I decided to set myself a challenge: meet my 10,000 step goal on my FitBit, every day, for 30 days. Day 1 was the 30th March.

I didn’t blog about it at the time as I decided that it would be better just to do it on the quiet, without public pressure. Not meeting my target would let me down, but I’d have also let other people down if they knew. Christine knew – she deserved to know why I’d disappear downstairs from an hour and do housework on an evening – but I didn’t make a big public declaration.

The good news? I managed it. Day 30 was Thursday, and I even managed to make it to 32 days so as to encompass every day in April. Today would be day 33, but it’s nearly 5pm and I’ve barely managed 3000 steps; I think I deserve a rest day.

Hitting my target every day varied in difficulty. On some days, I could reach 10,000 steps with ease. At work, I could reach 8,000 without much extra effort, but found that walking to a toilet further away from my desk, and taking regular breaks to stretch my legs, helped to push things on a bit. This was helped by a recent new feature added to the FitBit app, which encourages you to take at least 250 steps each hour through a series of red dots. So far, my best is being active 13 of the 14 hours that fall between 6am and 8pm – I’ve yet to get all 14, but it’s a good motivator.

I was hoping for some kind of FitBit badge to appear to reward me for doing this, but sadly there isn’t one. Which is a shame. And whilst I don’t plan to challenge myself again any time soon, I hope that this will ensure that I keep up with some good habits to keep my step count up.

Unfitbit

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A photo of a Fitbit Charge. It's on my wrist and shows the time as 19:16

One side effect of being on paternity leave is the lack of exercise. At the back end of September, I bought myself a Fitbit Charge, as a way of motivating myself to do just a little bit more exercise, and whilst at work I’ve been able to hit my 10,000 steps target most of the time. This is because I commute to work by train, and so that involves walking to and from the railway stations at each end of the journey. More than half of the total steps I take each weekday are through commuting.

So, take away the commute, and my step count plummeted. My daily average halved – whilst some days I could manage 6000-7000 steps, there were others when I wouldn’t need to leave the house. In fact, over the five and a half weeks that I was off work, I beat my step goal only four times. These were:

  • Boxing Day – I took myself off to a local supermarket to get some lunch
  • 22nd January – a trip in to work and an evening out
  • 27th January – travelling down to London
  • 28th January – travelling back from London

As it happens, between those last two days, I clocked up 35,000 steps, and the 27th was actually my most active day since September with over 20,000 steps. This was partly deliberate, as I had some time to kill in Leeds and so went for a walk.

Apart from my trip to London, I didn’t use public transport at all whilst off. Getting a baby in and out of a car is far easier than trying to manhandle a pram onto a bus or train, even if that would make me the ‘family man, manhandling the pram, with paternal pride‘ as per the Divine Comedy song. I’ve even driven to Leeds city centre a few times, which would probably shock the me of a year ago who wanted to drive but would still insist on using public transport where possible. It’s just easier when you have such a small person and all of their paraphernalia.

Now that I’m back at work, my step counts are returning to respectable levels. Since last Monday, I’ve only missed my target twice in eight days, and Saturday (where I had to work for a few hours) saw me overachieve by a few thousand steps. I’m hoping I can carry on meeting my targets from now on.

Fitbit Charge review

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A photo of a Fitbit Charge. It's on my wrist and shows the time as 19:16

I’ve bought myself a fitness tracker – a Fitbit Charge (sponsored link).

My primary reason for buying one was that I needed a new watch strap for my basic Skagen watch. Instead of buying a strap I decided to just get a new watch, as the Fitbit wasn’t much more expensive at the time and it can function as a watch, amongst other things.

There are lots of fitness trackers out there but I went with a Fitbit for a couple of reasons:

  1. Price – I was able to get one for a good price on Amazon at the time
  2. Recommendation – my manager at work has a Fitbit Charge (having previously owned a Fitbit Flex) and she recommended it to me
  3. Third-party integration – Fitbit integrates with Runkeeper, which I use for tracking exercises and walks, and with IFTTT
  4. User reviews – the Amazon reviews of the Fitbit Charge tended to be better then other trackers such as the Jawbone Up or Misfit ranges

I’ve had the Fitbit for 10 days now, which happened to include the time period when we were moving house, and so I clocked up a lot of steps and stair climbs initially. It’s set for five basic daily targets: 10,000 steps, 8.05 kilometres distance walked (that’s five miles in old money), 2,937 calories burned, 30 minutes of activity and 10 floors climbed. I upped the floor climbs to 20 as I was often hitting 10 floors before lunchtime, but I’ve kept the rest at the defaults.

I’ve exceeded 10,000 steps on some days (and 15,000 on a couple) but on other days I’ve missed the target by some way. This is despite my normal daily commute consisting of around 45 minutes of walking, split into four blocks. I was surprised at this, but it’s useful to know that I need to get more exercise during the day. I managed over 80 floors climbed one day as well, although this seems to be because the Fitbit Charge is interpreting some of the steep hill climbs in our area as stairs. Something to bear in mind if you live in a steep-sided valley like I do.

Fitbit app

You can track your progress using the Fitbit mobile phone app, which synchronises with your device via Bluetooth. By default it does this regularly throughout the day but you can turn this down if needed. The all-day sync mode does have an effect on your phone’s battery life, but it’s not too significant, in my experience.

If you have friends with Fitbit devices, then you can also view their progress. The ‘Friends’ view in the app shows the total number of steps taken over 7 days. At the moment, I’m on 54,374 – this is less than the 70,000 that I’m aiming for but puts me fourth out of seven, and only two of my friends have hit this target. You can also take part in challenges – most steps in a day, week or weekend, and also specific goals like stairs climbed. It’s a good motivational tool, although it does result in the app sending notifications when you’re close to overtaking someone, or vice versa, which gets annoying after a while. Thankfully, these can be turned off.

My main reason for purchasing the Fitbit Charge was that it also tells the time. The time doesn’t show on the screen all of the time, but can be illuminated by double-tapping the screen, pressing the button on the side of the screen, or lifting your wrist towards you. It’ll also show your key targets – steps taken, stairs climbed, calories burnt and distance walked, which you can scroll through by pressing the button.

The Fitbit’s battery life is reasonably good – a full charge should last between 7 and 10 days, depending on usage. It charges via a USB cable, but with a custom port on the back of the device. You can’t wear the device whilst it’s charging.

The Fitbit Charge comes in four colours and two sizes. I accidentally bought the small one, which is a bit too small for me but alleviated by an additional strap that I bought separately. Some of the Amazon reviewers had found that their Fitbits fell off easily and so I had bought an extra strap anyway. If you have medium-sized arms, I would recommend the large size though.

Overall, I’m impressed with the Fitbit. It seems to count steps quite accurately, despite being worn on the wrist, and performs well. It’s also good at motivating me to take the stairs rather than lifts, and to get out and walk more to maintain my targets.

The Seven Minute Workout

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Chinese Water Dragon

Last year, some sports scientists found that it was possible to do just seven minutes of high intensity exercise, on a regular basis, and still achieve fitness levels normally requiring lengthy runs or cycles. By doing 12 activities, for 30 seconds at a time with just 10 seconds in between, you can get your daily exercise requirements out of the way in a short space of time. Plus, no special equipment is required – you just need a chair and some clear floor space.

Whilst I’m trying to go to the gym two or three times each week, I thought I’d try the so-called ‘seven minute workout’ to see if it would be worth doing on the days when I don’t have time to go to the gym. I downloaded an app to my iPhone, which I’ll review tomorrow, and made a start.

Firstly, the ‘seven minute workout’ takes longer than seven minutes. It’s actually nearly eight minutes, if you allow ten seconds between each activity. Secondly, you need to be aware that this is a ‘high intensity’ workout. On the discomfort scale, from 1 to 10 where 1 is easy and 10 is ‘why am I doing this to myself?’, it’s about an 8.

In other words, you should already be reasonably fit before trying this workout. And as you will know from yesterday’s blog post, I’m not particularly fit right now. I got part way through exercise number 11, which is push-ups with rotations, and basically collapsed in a heap on the floor. I barely attempted the last one, which is side planking. It took me a long time to get my breath back afterwards and some assistance from my asthma inhaler was necessary.

I’m sure the seven minute workout is great if you’re a busy person wanting to maintain fitness, rather than someone like me who needs to get fitter in the first place. Maybe in a few weeks’ time I’ll be able to do it without nearly giving myself an asthma attack. But right now it’s a bit too extreme for me.

…and back in the gym too

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Tortoise

As well as re-starting driving lessons, I’ve also started going back to the gym regularly. It’s been a long time since I last did regular exercise – certainly longer than I’m willing to admit – and it was showing. My fitness levels had dropped significantly, so on the odd occasion when I’ve been late and had to run for my morning train I’ve ended up seriously out of breath. And I’d been getting podgier around my waist.

One change I made with the staff at the gym was that I would have two different workouts available for me. One is a shorter 45 minute workout, to be done once or twice a week, with around 30 minutes of cardio. Then there’s a longer 75 minute workout for when I have more time, like the weekends, with 30 minutes of cardio and more resistance training, to be done weekly. The shorter workout means that I can be in and out of the gym more quickly on weekdays when I get back from work, and so I should be able to go more frequently.

Going back to the gym after so long away has been difficult. I’m fine on some machines, such as the cross-trainer, as I still walk for at least half an hour a day, but others have been a challenge. I’m supposed to be able to run at 8 km/h (5mph) on the treadmill for 10 minutes, but lately this has been running for 6-7 minutes with a walking break in the middle. My upper body strength is nothing like what it was when I last went regularly so some of the resistance machines are really hard work, even with light weights.

That being said, I’d forgotten how good it feels when you’re able to relax after an intensive workout. And I’m sure the exercises will get easier as my fitness improves again. But I’m mostly looking forward to my clothes fitting better.

Getting motivated to go to the gym

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/66551670@N00/388434590/
Photograph of Mr Motivator by Dave Tett, used under a Creative Commons License.

Since moving to Sowerby Bridge in November, we’ve been walking past a brand new gym and swimming pool which opened the weekend we moved in, with the full intention of signing up at some point. Unfortunately, that intention never progressed into an actual registration. Until now.

In about an hour’s time, Christine and I are off there for our induction. We both need to lose weight; when I lived in Bradford, my walk to work was half an hour each way, but with moving that’s been cut to around 15-20 minutes and consequently I’m getting quite a bit less exercise. Likewise, Christine is overweight and though she has dropped a couple of dress sizes in the time we’ve been dating she wants to go further.

At present, we’re not looking to formally join the gym, and instead pay each time; if we only go once a week it’s cheaper that way. Although I may join if I’m in a position to go 2-3 times a week, but primarily we want to go together and exercise as a couple, for moral support.

With a bit of luck, there’ll be new, slimmer Neil and Christine by the end of the year.

Also, Mr Motivator is 58 years old. Crikey.