One Has to Keep One’s Wrist Happy

Several months ago Bryan got a pair of Garmin Vivofit Wrist Bands, a black one for him and a teal one for me. This is a device by which one can keep track of how many steps one takes throughout the day, and is really pretty cool.

With just the push of a button, I can switch between the Time, the Date, How Many Steps I've Taken, How Many Steps I Have Left to Meet My Daily Goal, How Many Miles I've Gone, and How Many Calories I've Burned.

If I have been inactive for too long it has a band of red lights that blink at me. It starts out with just one light, but the longer I sit there doing nothing, the more lights it adds on until I end up with the entire display blinking at me. To get the lights to go away, I have to get up and walk around a bit: the more lights I have blinking at me, the longer I have to walk around.

As I always say, “My wrist is yelling at me to get up and walk!”

There is a program online that I log in to where I have created my own page to keep track of my progress. I can adjust my band to my personal step size, give it my height & weight, and even keep track of my sleep patterns and moods.

A typical day for me has my goal set at around 4850 steps. If I just go to work and then home afterwards, I have to really work at getting to my goal. If it’s one of the days I go to the gym, I usually go over my goal by about a couple thousand. On my recent vacation, I had about 5 days in a row with around 10,000 steps a day – as opposed to the sick day I had to take once I got home, where I logged in at barely 500.

Originally, the goal was set at a random number based on the information entered in to my website page – but the longer I wear it, the more it adjusts based on my history. Which basically means, the better I get at meeting my goal, the higher my goal becomes!

It’s been pretty fun, actually, and really has encouraged me to be more active throughout the day.