As the Fitbit craze started to pick up, I hopped on the wagon and started using one too. At first, it was fun and an interesting way to find out which days I wasn’t moving around as much. To be quite honest, I loved it for a long time! I am not saying that I will never use it again, but for now I am taking a break. Most days, hitting 10k steps was not an issue for me so the Fitbit became a race each day to see how many steps I could take. I am a person that is very competitive with myself so hitting 20k+ was not rare.
The reason I stopped was actually an accident. I went on a two week vacation to Australia and forgot to pack the charger and didn’t want to buy a new one when I had two at home. This meant it was time to break free from the Fitbit. The first few days, I was constantly wondering how many steps I must have taken because we were doing an incredible amount of walking and exploring. Then I started to forget about it all together. When I got home from vacationing, I put the Fitbit on the next day after it had had time to charge. I barely checked it all day, and to be quite honest, I am not sure how many steps I even took that day. The following day, I didn’t even want to wear it. I had gotten used to not obsessing over my steps and it felt good. Almost like a new sense of freedom from judging myself! I started wearing my regular sports watch again instead.
The Fitbit is a great tool for so many people to help them become more aware of their patterns and hopefully start making changes. It is a quantitative daily goal that the person can work towards. I can’t express how great this is for many people out there and I would never recommend that they stop using it! However, I do think there are people out there that are already moving enough on a daily basis with competitive personalities that don’t benefit one bit from using a Fitbit.
There are some days that I needed to slow down and listen to my body but I didn’t because I just “had” to make it to 25k steps, for example. At that point, it is reasonable enough to say that I had gotten an adequate amount of exercise but kept going anyway. All the Fitbit was doing for me was making me harder on myself.
Do I hate the Fitbit? No, but I do think people need to consider their personalities before buying one! Maybe someday I will start using it again, I am not sure. I am just enjoying allowing myself to slow down a bit if my feet and hips are killing me!
What do you guys think? Do you have a Fitbit? Has it been beneficial to you? Did you continue to wear it?
Amy 🙂
Home Page 