All of my friends seem to have had them for years. I didn’t want to be tethered to something that monitored me every minute of the day because, let’s face it, I fail a lot of the time to reach the goals and expectations I’ve set for myself. But the last 14 months of using the Renpho with its phone app have just shown me that stepping on a scale can produce data that doesn’t judge me, it just is what it is. An expression I hate, but it works.
I bought a FitBit Inspire 2 at BestBuy this week on impulse. Well, not exactly since I’ve been looking at them online for a while. But I hadn’t planned to buy it this week, it just happened because it was on sale. It has a silicone Desert Rose band and is very pretty but still kind of annoying to have on my wrist all the time. And it seems to want to lock itself in a “Lock Water” display which is also annoying. But boy, it keeps track of a zillion things, and now I have it linked up to MyFitnessPal and Noom, so things like tracking weight, water, and exercise only have to be done once and then all the rest of the little apps have the same info. Kind of scary how smart they are. After a few days, I’ve figured out that the wrist display just shows me data and isn’t a place to actually enter it. Duh. But good to know. Another reason to be tethered to my phone with the apps.
Two things that have been interesting so far: 1) The FitBit thinks that the NuStep machine at the gym is an Elliptical and tracks my exercise accordingly. 2) The sleep data that it’s tracking is much more detailed and helpful than the info from the CPAP machine, which just tells me how many hours its been turned on, not how much time I actually sleep. I’m not quite sure what to DO with the new information, but it’s interesting.
Don’t expect to see my screen captures online, at least not often. My friend LLC in Nevada posts her FitBit step count screen on Facebook every day and I’m pretty intimidated by her faithfulness in getting exercise in, and by her willingness to put all that out there for the world to see. Because for me, Facebook is where the paths of my life cross. There are family members, current neighbors, former work colleagues, and random people I’ve met along the way who now are part of my world. What makes sense to one group is completely new to another, or else feels private being revealed when maybe I didn’t want to do that. But it gets tiring to keep track of who knows what. It’s easier and much less complicated to just be me and they can take or leave whichever parts they want.
My knee has almost buckled at least four times in the last two days. It needs exercise and then rest. Right now it has ice on it on general principles, because ice is always good. The MCL tear happened almost exactly a year ago, and it might be as good as it’s going to get. The genicular neurotomy (nerve burn) that was supposed to help reduce pain didn’t do anything except hurt at the time I got it. Mostly it hurts when I’m in bed and trying to turn over or bend the knee; this buckling nonsense happened all the time a year ago but has been better until lately. I need to have a talk with it. And probably use a cane, though I don’t want to. I don’t actually want to be a woman who needs a cane, because it makes me feel older than I am. But falling again isn’t an acceptable option, and there have been times in the last week when I was deathly afraid of doing just that.
I followed through on my promise to go to the fitness assessment. In a word (my word, not theirs), it’s pitiful. But it was objective and they were kind. I already know I’m fat and completely out of shape. My balance is off and my strength is minimal. Before I moved, I walked a lot to/from parking lots, out to lunch, off to meetings, up and down stairs. But now … well, now, that doesn’t happen. And my assessment showed it. I had to stop to sit and catch my breath and couldn’t even go 6 minutes walking without it. Granted, I started out going at a faster pace than I could maintain, but it was pitiful.
Random Thoughts of a Disordered Mind 