I received my Fitbit for Christmas two years ago. It was a
thoughtful present, though unexpected. I began wearing it that day. It fit well
with my efforts to live an active, healthy lifestyle.
My Fitbit quickly became a standard piece of my life. In
fact, I initially wore it all the time, except when I had to recharge it. I’d
wear it to bed and in the morning look at my app to see how I’d slept.
(Somewhat restlessly? Peacefully? Did I get enough hours?) I religiously logged
my water consumption, striving to hit that target each day – and most often
succeeding. I’d check my step count, though I ignored the stair count, since I
would actively have to go find steps to climb in my city. I particularly liked
checking my heart rate after dance class. After one particularly intense class,
as I nearly collapsed from being light-headed, I looked at the data and learned
that I had spent half the class in the “cardio” (or mid-level) zone and half in
the “peak” zone. No wonder I was so tired. (Most classes will push into peak
for a few minutes during the course of an hour.)
I took a small amount of pride when I’d earn Fitbit’s
accomplishment badges, though I never made that my goal. I connected with a few
friends and would monitor my stats against theirs, wondering how in the world
they got in so many steps in a week. On occasion I’d finish the week with the
highest number of steps, and feel a sense of accomplishment.
All this seemed well and good. How could it be bad to
monitor my activity level, after all? If my Fitbit prompted me to be more
active, that was a good thing. Until it wasn’t. Over time, I started to become
enslaved to this device. I’d feel disappointed in myself if I didn’t hit my
targets. I would compare myself to my friends and feel frustrated that I fell
so far short of their step counts for the week. It started to become a chore,
an obligation, a competition, and my results far too often left me feeling
inadequate. There it is, that word again. My Fitbit, unintentionally,
contributed to the message that I was not enough. I had become its slave.
To break the chains of this bondage, I have worked to change
my perspective on this simple device. I will check my step count to see how the
day’s going, but I try not to evaluate it in terms of some arbitrary goal, nor
in terms of how many steps my friends are logging. I stopped entering my water
consumption. It had become a tedious task that helped me little, as I drink
lots of water all day anyway. And I stopped wearing the Fitbit while I slept
(that was, in fact, the first thing I dropped.) When I remember, I still log my
sleep hours using the app, just to have an idea how many hours I’m getting
during the week, but I no longer concern myself with the details of any
particular night’s rest. Ironically, the office where I work recently moved
into a multistory building, so for the first time since I got it, I actually
regularly record flights of steps. I’m trying not to make that my new
obsession.
In the end, my Fitbit is just a tool, a device that can help
me in certain aspects. But because of my personality, I allowed it to exert an
inordinate influence over me. I am not raising the flag of revolution against
these type of fitness monitors. I’m not critiquing how others use them, (though
I do still wonder how some of my friends log the number of steps they do each
week!) I am, however, reasserting control over my own life and my own use of
this device. I’m not going to let it, or the accompanying fitness mentality, awaken
feelings of inadequacy in me. I’m doing just fine, thank you. I do still wear
it most days, if for no other reason than I like the convenience of being able
to check the time without pulling my phone out. But sometimes I just leave it
laying on my dresser and blissfully go through me day completely unconcerned
about how many steps I’m taking and whether leaving it at home is going to put
me in last place in my friend group for step count this week. And at the end of
those days, I lie down to rest without a single worry that I didn’t hit my step
count for the day.
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