#367: Stepping Out with Fitbit

10,000 is a number to be reckoned with -- the steps we should all be walking every day in order to stay fit and stave off slug-dom.   And now, from the fitness front comes the urgent message that sitting is very, very bad for our health.  Sit less and move more!  Walk those 10,000 steps throughout the day or risk early death.   

But I am here to tell you that it is easier said than done, especially in the middle of a long, super-cold winter when the winds howl and the sidewalks are like poorly maintained skating rinks.  Besides, Canadians just know it is counter-intuitive to go walking in a blizzard unless you have roped yourself to the front door.

Nevertheless, back in January the combined onslaught of the Worst-Winter-Since-Dear-Knows-When and my 70th Birthday made me think long and hard about the importance of exercise.  Because even though I would much prefer to sit out the storm in front of the fire with a cup of tea and a book ( and the older I get, the more appealing it seems), I know that is The Way of the Slug.

I needed help. Enter Fitbit.

I first heard about this item of wearable technology when my friend Judy gushed enthusiastically about hers.   According to Judy her Fitbit kept track of everything she did, counted calories, and monitored sleep patterns. It encouraged her.  It rewarded effort. It was like a new BFF who understood her perfectly. She would never ever break it off.  It was love at first bit.

I was enchanted. I wanted to feel the love too, so with that birthday looming, I made my wishes known.  I wanted a Fitbit of my very own.

Bruce, the gift-giver, was less enthusiastic  "It is just a fancy pedometer", he argued.  Do you really need it? You can tell when you've had enough exercise."

He had a point  But I was sure the Fitbit would be much more.  It would be a fitness buddy,  tracking more activity than a mere pedometer, and it would report on calories and sleep.  (How many times did I wake at night, anyway?)  It would constantly update my performance online, estimating the intensity of my activity -- all the while counting steps.  I had already decided to set my goal at the magic number, 10,000.  But best of all, my Fitbit would be my personal cheerleader, exhorting to me to greater effort if I needed a push, and sending congratulations when my target was reached or exceeded.

Then my birthday arrived...

 

Oh joy, a Fitbit!!! Just what I wanted! How did you know?

 ***

That was six weeks ago, and since then my Fitbit Flex and I have been joined at the wrist.  As I get to know my new pal, however,  I feel like phoning Judy and asking her if she is still on her Fitbit honeymoon. Because as the days go by,  I am no longer quite so infatuated. I have never explored the world of online dating, but I suspect that what I am now experiencing with Flex Fitbit is not unlike what other women discover when it turns out that "loves music" actually means "loves heavy metal".  It takes time to really know a new suitor, and they may not be exactly as advertised.

As I learn the truth about Fitbit, I realize that it offers both more (and less) than I require.  The calorie counting and sleep tracking functions that seemed so seductive?   I don't really need them.

And Fitbit is not quite as good-looking as I had hoped.  The rubbery wrist-band has all the appeal of a throwaway watch strap, and it is almost impossible to fasten.  First I blamed my 70-year old fingers until I checked online and discovered lots of other whiners.  No wonder we never take the Flex off. We know what a misery it is to put back on.  

But my biggest complaint is that Fitbit and I do not quite agree on the interpretation of "activity".  Activity, for me, casts a very wide net and includes energy-expending tasks such as cooking, dusting and ironing, whereas housework appears not to register much at all for Fitbit unless it involves walking or at least moving the lower extremities.  Walking over to the oven?  Good.  Chopping and peeling 4 carrots?  Not good.  Cleaning toilets?  Don't ask. If it were summertime, I know I would get credit for cutting the grass but not for weeding.  It is possible to add specific "activities" to one's profile each day, so I had hoped to find a place for miscellaneous chores like folding laundry or preparing dinner, but the only permitted activities are swimming, cycling, walking and running. In fact, all Fitbit's preferences seem somehow very masculine.  No wonder I think of him as Mr. Fitbit.

I appear to be in a relationship with a fitness freak and he is not too happy with me unless I play the game his way.

But when I do, he gets very excited.  HOORAY! he exclaims from a big lime-green happy face on the Fitbit Dashboard when I hit the 10,000 step mark. (I can't help but feel extraodinarily pleased at this outcome, and if it occurs early in the evening, I celebrate by plunking down in front of the TV for the duration.)  Fitbit encourages in other ways, too.  If I am close to the target, he sends reminders to my Google tablet: Nancy -- only 2,245 steps to reach your goal!  Bruce interprets this exhortation as harassment. He tells me to change my goal.  "It would stop doing that, you know, if you had a target of 7,000 steps".   What I am more likely to do is head for the treadmill or the exercise bike in the basement.  2,000 steps is not really so much.

And some days, it actually isn't too hard to keep moving in a Fitbit-approved way.  A morning of grocery shopping, combined with an afternoon delivering books to my 15 retirement home readers is a 10,000-step day for sure.   I think I am also acquiring better 10,000-step habits. When the phone rings now, I do not automatically grab a cup of tea and head for the couch.  I walk and talk.  I can log 1,000 steps easily that way.  And I no longer chafe if life gets in the way of completing a task efficiently.  No place to park the car near the retirement home?   I'll have to walk further!  Yeah!  Did I discover at the checkout that I forget the milk?  Well thank goodness it is several aisles away because there and back to the dairy case is at least 250 steps.

And so on.

We are finding our way, Fitbit and I.  I haven't given him his walking papers yet, but I still wish he were more responsive.  Doesn't he know that schlepping the heavy vacuum up and down the stairs requires more than light effort? That knitting expends energy?  There is so much I'd like to teach him, but I'm not sure he'd get it. As in so many relationships, I may have to be one to compromise.  Perhaps I can learn to walk and peel carrots at the same time...  



   





    

#365: Learning from Loss

Last week was hard.

This past Wednesday, we lost Bruce's colleague Gerald Adams to pancreatic cancer.  We had been blindsided when we learned of his illness because, of course, we knew the outcome.  Such a diagnosis was not one that could be argued with or negotiated. Gerald did have wonderful hospice care and an amazing, supportive, loving family so in that sense, I suppose, he died a "good" if inevitable death.  But it is all so sad. He was such a lovely man.

Then on Friday we attended the funeral of Janet Wardlaw -- Bruce's former dean (and, incidentally, the first female dean at the U of G).   For the last 15 years she was also our regular companion at the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony.

When I learned that Janet was in the hospital as the result of a fall at Christmas, I was aghast. I did argue. Janet couldn't possibly fall!  How could that happen? (I have to admit that I felt somewhat betrayed.  Janet, how could you?  And I am not alone-- others have sheepishly confessed to having the same initial reaction.)

Because Janet really did seem invincible. She was a role model for her younger friends; we all wanted to be just like her, perpetually youthful and active.   She went swimming several times a week.  She walked downtown. She was so fit that I never once thought to suggest that we take the elevator to our second-balcony symphony seats!  She kept her brain fit playing Bridge and Scrabble and serving on many committees where her intelligence and administrative skills were highly valued.  An international traveller, she always seemed to be going to the States to see former students and colleagues, or to Europe with tour groups from her church.  Even last September as the symphony season recommenced, we asked the usual question, "Janet where did you go this summer?" She told us that she hadn't intended to go away, but that friends or family had talked her into this or that adventure. Friends were always asking her to go along on trips because she was the best possible company -- agreeable, upbeat, curious, and energetic. She was also very sensible, even pragmatic.  Perhaps she developed this habit as a single woman, although I prefer to think that decisiveness was in her nature.  Nevertheless, it was a lesson to us all when, at 80, she sold her beautiful two-storey stone house with its lovely garden and moved into a nearby condo.  Physically she had no need to move and she admitted it.  But she had decided that it was time.  "Less bother eventually for my nieces and nephews" is how she explained it."

When I read Janet's obituary I learned even more about this remarkable woman, including her actual age. I came across the phrase, "Janet Wardlaw in her 90th year..."  . 

What?

A few months ago I had a conversation about death and age with "Hetty" one of my retirement home readers.   Hetty has had a bad year -- two bouts of cancer along with the usual surgeries and radiation. Just as she was between procedures, I visited her and remarked on a bouquet of her favourite yellow roses.  The blooms looked a little droopy, but they had been very pretty when fresh. "Well, Nancy", she observed, "that is the way of the world.  Flowers die.  Old ladies die."  She wasn't being gloomy -- she was telling it like it is because she wasn't really sure I had it all figured out. Hetty knows me so well.

 Janet, how could you?    

But I think I now understand my astonished reaction to Janet's death.  I just never thought of her as OLD.

Of course, Hetty was right.  "Old ladies" of 89 do die, but if they are like Janet they will be well and healthy right up to the finish line.

Janet, forgive me. In your 90th year, you betrayed no-one.  Ever the educator, you were still teaching us about life--and death--even as you left us.  And we won't forget.