and Words
When I wake up, well I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the man who wakes up next to you
When I go out, yeah I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the man who goes along with you
If I get drunk, well I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you
And if I haver, hey I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the man who’s havering to you
Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.
It is the holiday season in 2011, and we shopped at the Microsoft Store. We glanced at tech and there was a small device off at the corner of the store. This particular device is an activity tracker called a Fitbit. This model, the Ultra (their second model), came in two colors: cyan and plum. We got one of each color, thinking that we would like some motivation to stay active.
We unwrapped the presents on Christmas Day but neglected to set up the devices. I browsed through the documentation over the course of our vacation and plugged them in to charge. They each had a black base that doubled as both a USB charging station and a wireless syncing antenna. We finally officially activated our trackers on January 1st, 2012.
And since that day, I have yet to go a day without wearing a Fitbit to track my activity. That was over ten years ago, and this week, I walked far enough to have circled the globe.
This song is not in any of my playlists, though I can’t deny its catchiness and inevitably it lingers in my mind for a while after hearing it. It undeniably motivates me to take steps as I think about indeed walking the said 500 miles, which incidentally takes me between two to three months… Never mind the additional 500 more. 😉
Though truthfully, the biggest motivators are my fascination with numbers and my fondness for gadgets. The default daily step goal is 10,000 steps, and that’s indeed what it was on my account for years. Once updated, I changed it to 13,699 steps per day. Why such an unconventional number? It is precisely 5 million steps per year.
The 13,699 daily step goal is aspirational. The step goal that I aim to get every day is the conventional 10,000 step goal. I’ve maintained this step goal since October 10th… of 2015. I was close on that day, falling short by a mere 495 steps. My attention was diverted by a Lego set and the movie The Martian. Had I made my 10,000 steps on that day, the next day where I missed my steps was January 13, 2014, that’s over 21 months before. My most active year? That was 2016, where I averaged 18,800 steps per day; I likely won’t do that again.
I’ve maintained my daily steps through days of air travel and different time zones. Even painful bouts of plantar fasciitis and gout have not stopped me; they only served to slow me down. Truly, it’s a sickness, though I’d like to think that I’m mostly harmless.
If you’re curious, one mile is around 2,200 steps, at least for me.
As for motivation, I’ll also invite friends to a monthly Workweek Hustle challenge (first Monday of each month). This simply tabulates the total number of steps between Monday and Friday of that week. For those weeks, my goal is to reach 17,000 steps for each day, this normally lands me around 90k to 95k total steps for the five days. Many friends maintain that I’m either impossible to defeat or that I’m out to win; neither is true. First, while I do win my fair share of challenges, I also routinely lose them. Second, I set my target for the week and stick to it; top that and you’ll win. Finally (and most important), it’s not about the competition, it’s about the motivation.
I’ll participate in most other challenges, if I should happen to be invited, though I only regularly invite friends to the above challenge. I’ve done Fitbit Bingo, Goal Day, Daily Showdown, Weekend Warrior, Custom Challenge, and of course Workweek Hustle. The adventures (both solo and races) are also interesting; I finished them when they were first released, including the NYC ones which are no longer available. I’ve said it more than once, I’m a Fitbit step whore. Strangely enough, I’ve yet to do an All for One; it’s something to put on my list.
What about collaborative challenges? In some ways those are the most fun. I’ve done these in a number of platforms, including Fitbit. A number of years ago, we had a six-week Move It challenge at work (Microsoft); it simply read the data from my Fitbit account. My team landed 7th in the company among hundreds of teams. I committed to do 20,000 steps each day of the six weeks. The first three weeks wasn’t much of a problem; the final three weeks really sucked.
Most recently, I joined RunTheEdge, so that I could do 2021 Miles in 2021, which I managed to do by October 23rd. I signed up again for 2022 Miles in 2022, these can be done in both individual and team settings. I still have openings in my team; if you’re interested, feel free to message me (in either Facebook or Twitter).
Has it always been strictly Fitbit? No, I’ve also worn Microsoft Bands and Garmin devices, but Fitbit is the brand that has endured across a wide array of different models.
How many different models are we talking about? I have over twenty different Fitbit models; that’s a little misleading though. I’m a very active member of the forums, and they send me trackers to evaluate. With my deeper understanding of Fitbit products, friends often ask me questions:
- Which tracker do you personally use? – I have two trackers paired to my main account. They are the Sense and the One. I have a desk treadmill and spend much of my work walking; while I do, my wrists don’t move. The One is a clip-on model and it tracks those steps. The Sense allows me to track my heart rate and get notifications on my wrist.
- Which features do you find most valuable? – Naturally, everyone has different use cases, but these are mine in no particular order.
- As mentioned above, tracking my steps even if my wrists don’t move. This can only be done with a clip-on model and hence my fondness for the Fitbit One.
- Fitbit Pay – or generically known as tap-to-pay. Pre-pandemic it seemed like a trivial convenience, but since the pandemic, it has become a great way to minimize physical contact in high traffic areas. It’s also a great convenience to know that for most stores, I don’t need to bring my wallet in order to shop.
- Notifications – it’s just a great convenience to get notifications on your wrist. Generally, these are call or text notifications, but you can enable just about anything.
- Integrated assistant – I use Alexa over others, but it works well. I was meeting with a teammate but needed to end at a very specific time. I quickly set an alarm on my Fitbit by just speaking the words, no more glancing at my wrist for the time.
- Tracking heart rate – I was educated by a personal trainer many years ago that heart rate is the best measure of how effectively you’re working out, not necessarily your pace.
- Sleep tracking – I suffer from sleep apnea and thus knowing how soundly I’m sleeping is important.
- Are other features not that useful? – They are absolutely useful. Just because I don’t use them, doesn’t mean that they aren’t important. For instance:
- GPS tracking – I have tracked all my hikes and organized runs on my Fitbit. Both of them; I’m simply not an outdoorsy person. I study in fascination the map of my 5k run and my only hike. I may do other runs, but I’m not doing another hike.
- Tracking ECG and EDA Scan – I don’t have a health condition that would cause me to pay more attention to these but have friends and family who do.
- Do you know what’s wrong with or how do I…? – Yes, I probably know, and I’m delighted to help you. If I don’t know, I’d know who to ask. And failing all that, I could probably suggest a reasonably good workaround.
Though Fitbit does track badges for motivation, the last lifetime distance one was for 12,430 miles (the distance from Pole to Pole). Just how many miles does it take to walk around the world? It’s 24,901 miles. Of course, it varies a little based on how you choose to traverse the Earth (from pole to pole or across the Equator). That’s walking 500 miles nearly fifty times.
I’m exhausted. 😉