Fitbit is Life

Happy Sunday to you!  Happy Sunday to yoooo!  

I don't have any candles for you to blow out.  Maybe just blow on your fry up to cool it down if you are currently enjoying one?  If you're not, then I would like to know just what the chuff is wrong with you because Sunday is Fry Up day and your lack of greasy meats offends me.

Just kidding.  We're okay, buddy.

I'm in a good mood today, so I'm going to talk about one of my favourite things.  Data.  *Dorky snort*  As you are probably aware if you own a phone or a body (hopefully both if you are not a ghost), activity trackers are everywhere.  If you're interested, there are apps and electronic doohickies in overwhelming abundance that will happily track your every move, bite and snooze.  I'll admit that there is a creepy, Big Brother-esque undertone to the whole business, but personally I'm obsessed with having every little, insignificant thing I do tracked and fed back to me.

There are a bugger-ton of trackers on the market.  I've been into them ever since the  days of rudimentary pedometers the size of bricks that made you sound like you were dislocating your hip every time you take a step.  I even had one of the early health and fitness coach type Nintendo DS games that came with a slightly more subtle, but still pretty massive clicky-hip style step counter. 

I'm now a big, big fan of the Fitbit franchise and have been for a few years now*.  I've recently swapped my Fitbit Flex, which you wear on your wrist and sync with an app your phone for the even niftier Fitbit Charge HR.  Like the Flex, it tracks how well you sleep, steps taken, general activity levels in the day etc, but it also comes with a game changer for me - A heart rate tracker in the wristband itself.  No need to wear a stupid band around your ribs.  I suspect my Charge HR may believe that I'm dead today, as I fully intend to be as sloth-like as humanly possible.  I will move only for the Krispy Kreme I've been fantasizing about since I opened my eyes**.

I love having a fitness tracker for a bazillion reasons.  No time to name them all, so I'll just pop a few up:

•  Being able to monitor how much/little I've done gives me a feeling of control over my own well being.
• It makes my day-to-day life feel like a game I can win.  I enjoy victory.  Of course I'm going to pat myself on the back for every little thing I achieve.  You got out of a chair today, Becky?  Well done, champ!  Have a biscuit!
• I am secretly a huge narcissist, and being able to see my actions broken down into pretty graphs and charts is a whole new, geeky level of vanity. And I LOVE IT!

 I've learned a lot about myself as a Fitbit user, so I'm going to share some that knowledge with you.  Right after I've run up and down the stairs three times to raise my heart rate.

....NOW WE'RE PUMPED!  Woo!  Let's get crackalacking!

Things my Fitbit has taught me

1.  I am a terrible sleeper

I already sort of knew this.  I often wake up feeling like I've been at an all-night rave, and I have punched and elbowed A in the face on more occasions than I care to admit while I'm off partying in the land of nod.  How he doesn't look like he's gone ten rounds with Rhonda Rousey (yes.  I am comparing my sleeping self to Rhonda Rousey.  Unconscious me ain't no do nothing bitch) every morning when he goes to work is beyond me.  Am grateful that he doesn't bruise easily, and that he doesn't ever feel the need to accidentally-on-purpose return the favour while he's "sleeping."

My Fitbit tracks how well I sleep by keeping an eye on how many times I move or get up in the night.  The graphs are easily deciphered.  Dark blue equals sleep/stillness.  Light blue equals movement/disturbed sleep.  Pink equals awake.  I'm just going to leave this image here...

 
  By day I fall over my own feet.  By night, I'm a freaking gymnast.

2.  I love tracking my heart rate.

I enjoy tracking my heart rate for two main reasons.  It gives me that extra nudge to get my ticker thumping at least once a day, lest it get complacent and stop altogether.  It's also quite amusing watching the kind of stuff that sets it off outside of physical activity.  My job is a sedentary, phone based one.  More often than not, the people I speak with are nice, normal folk who are grateful for my wise, wise wisdoms.  Very occasionally, as is the case with any telephone job, you get the odd person who seemingly enjoys trawling the phone book until they find a suitable conduit for their screaming.  Each to their own.  

I like to think I'm pretty unflappable in my work.  I had one of these calls recently and decided to poke at my Fitbit and have a nose at how my innards were getting on.  It was startling.  My voice was saying "Please thankyou, yes, no, I understand", while my heart was shouting

HELP! HELP! PREDATOR! RUN AND HIDE! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!!! 

My heart is such a drama queen.

3.  I walk a LOT, even when I'm sat down.

Because I am a magician.  Actually, it's probably more to do with how much I move my hands.  Fitbits are pretty good it determining what's an actual step and what isn't, but when you talk with your hands (gesticulating.  Not with sock puppets) and fidget like someone's going to remove your fingers with pliers at any given moment, it's going to track a little extra movement.  Or in my case, a lot of extra movement.   

4.  I expect to be rewarded for everything.

Activity trackers allow you to set goals for everything from number of steps taken to number of hours slept.  It gives you a feeling of purpose. It also makes you become so accustomed to getting "well done!" messages for things like simply lying in bed for a given period of time that I now fully expect commendation for everything. 

I put socks on this morning.  Where's my damn medal??  

5.  Having stats for everything I do makes me feel like a cyborg.  

Pretty cool, no?  I don't have to wear a tin foil on my arms and a colander on my head to feel part woman, part robot.  Wearing a snazzy little plastic band with a chip in it is all I need.  Also, a tracker won't land me time in a padded cell.  Winner!

 I heart you, Fitbit (at exactly 81 beats per minute at this exact moment.  Subject to change). <3

* Not sponsored. Just obsessed.

** Still not sponsored. Just hungry. 

  

To Do or Not To Do

Writing this blog is very difficult for me.  

Not because I'm about to broach a sensitive topic.  Nor am I physically incapacitated.  Unless you count being severely creeped out by an ice cream van playing the most terrifying melody known to man (Greensleeves) on repeat as it does loops of the neighbourhood as incapacitation.  I hope that if he does try to kill me, I'll at least get a Fab lolly out of it.

My conundrum is that I've had the house to myself for the whole weekend.  A has gone to a stag do in Geordie Land (Newcastle, not a theme park where Mickey and Minnie Mouse have been replaced by Ant and Dec... But I would go to that theme park), leaving me do what I do best when I have more than a couple of hours alone:  Panic about not making the most of it by being at a perfect, unachievable combination of productive and relaxed.  To conquer the free time crazies, I wrote myself a sort of To Do list.  Because that's what cool people do:

 

This list is precisely why writing this is so difficult.  Free time plus listy thing should equal calm Becky.  Instead, two opposing trains of thought in my brain are now clashing:

• The one that wants a pat on the back and a cookie for completing said list.
• The one that thinks list is bullshit, because this is my time off, and I shouldn't have to do anything!!  Not even writing this stupid blog, because that's still doing something!!!

So...what do I do in response to my warring mental faculties?  I procrastinate of course! And I half ass more or less everything by using flawed logic to get out of it.  Thought I'd give you a lowdown of what went down on my super cool, not-at-all worrisome weekend home alone to give you an idea.  Am like Macauley Culkin (spelling?!) with boobs.  Sort of.  That's a mental image to give you nightmares, isn't it?

CrossFit
Done, dusted and kicked it in the arse!  Or I was kicked in the arse...Both?  Even went to an impromptu extra open gym session today, where they let a few of us in to play with big tyres for a while.  After several failed attempts, I managed to flip the big bugger!  So far, so good.

Long run 
To my credit, did a run.  By "long", I did have about 8 to 10 miles in mind, what with the upcoming Cardiff Half in October.  I did 6 and a bit and called it a day because there was a two mile stretch of hills at the end.  Each hill adds on an extra two miles, right?  Dubious reasoning aside, I did really enjoy this run.  I tried for the first time to keep within a comfy heart rate zone thanks to my Fitbit Charge HR, and it was blooming magical!  Didn't worry about my speed or lack thereof even once, and only needed to stop moving when I needed to avoid being squashed by cars.

Go see mum - there'll be cake
Mum's birthday yesterday.  There was cake.  There was also a doggy bag of leftover chilli and crispy bread rolls.  Happy mum's birthday to me! Also happy birthday to mum, who is likely to be sat in a foodless kitchen as we speak.  Standard protocol for one of my raids visits.

Avoid spending money
Walked in a daze around Tesco after open gym.  Wanted a sandwich, came out with coat hangers, bath salts (because I'm eighty now?) and a whole bunch of other shit that I don't need. Regretting not getting this, though:

"Yolo hair and body wash - for bathers that don't give a fuck!"

Scuse the grubby hands.  I may never wash my hands after flipping the Big Bugger (Heehee. New euphemism?)

Watch films that Andy won't

This translated as getting more pissed than anticipated on two teeny glasses of wine in front of Bridesmaids/The newer Hunger Games one and idly stroking the cat with an issue of Glamour Magazine on my lap.  Apparently when I'm home on my own, I morph into Bridget Jones.  All that's left for me to do this afternoon is get into my pyjamas (*cough* remain in my pyjamas) and lip synch ballads into what's left of my wine.  Ooh, I haven't watched Bridget Jones for a while, have I...?   

Sort out stuff for jury duty (food)

Doing jury service for the first time tomorrow.  Excited as it'll be a new experience for me, but concerned that there will not be ample feeding intervals.  Handbag apples and wads of cheese oatcakes it is, then.  Mmm, transportable food.

Clean house

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.... heee.  *slaps knee*

Write something fictional

Have decided that to do list is inaccurate enough to be considered a work of fiction.  Good job, Becky!  Excellent weekending!