Four weeks of FitBitness

posted by Jeff | Monday, October 28, 2013, 11:43 PM | comments: 0

I've had the FitBit for about four weeks now. My goal in buying it was to be accountable for activity (or inactivity) and track how much I was eating. Not surprisingly, playing the numbers game means that I've been able to drop about six pounds in that time. It's pretty simple: burn 3,500 calories more than you take in during a week, and you'll lose a pound. You can do this by a combination of burning more calories (exercise) and eating less. So if I get that differential to 5,250 every week, I'll lose a pound and a half.

I'm essentially trying to get my behavior back to what it was in 2005-2006. Back then I was doing the same thing with Weight Watchers, only with their "points," which are an abstraction of calories, fat and some other factors in a formula. I like the FitBit way better, because it's more real. It doesn't demonize fat, but it still makes you think about your choices. At some point I hope to reach a good point to level off, at which point I'll learn how to maintain.

On the exercise front, I hate exercise for the sake of exercise. Nothing has changed there. However, I do like being outside. That's what living in a warm climate is all about. Walking is pretty low-hanging fruit, because an hour of brisk walking will knock out 300 calories. Do that every day, and that's 2,100 per week. More to the point though, I'm at an age where I just can't afford to be inactive, and that's hard when you sit most of the day. The little piece of wearable technology reminds me when I've been sitting too long because it has really low numbers.

On the food end, I'm not really eating all that differently, I'm just eating less. I've tried to avoid the really "bad" foods for years, the obvious stuff like excessive deep-fried food, mounds of packaged snacks and chips, etc. I'm probably a little high on sodium and cholesterol still, but at least there's less of it in my diet. I can't help myself but to have BWW at least every other week. I also try to plan, and yes, I had the buttery creamy goodness of the alfredo the local Italian joint has. It's delicious.

So far, it has been remarkably easy to roll with this, and I'm only hungry if I go really under budget for a day, say a 1,000 calorie differential. That's rare, but I have done it to offset some big eating days. It's just so easy to track it all on the FitBit site. When you distill it down to numbers, there's little room for interpretation or cheating.


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