Today I wanted to share a bit of my fitness journey for 2016 and 6 things Fitbit taught me. No, you won’t see any rapid transformations of losing 20 pounds in 2 weeks, but you will get some real talk.

Backstory.

This is awkward for me to write. SO AWKWARD. Almost every woman dreams of being a little lighter and little more toned right? I’m no exception to this rule! I’ve never been super skinny and have always been relatively comfortable in the skin that I’m in. When I left for university, I gained weight but wasn’t too bothered by it. I was still a good size for me and it was a natural time to gain weight anyway. I sat around this size for the following three years and was happy about it. Then last March, I got married and shifted out of town. I went from walking an hour and a half every day to driving for two hours and not doing ANY walking. My hubby is a hard working dairy farmer who works long (read enormous) hours and needs LOTS  of food to keep him going. And sometimes his choices aren’t exactly healthy ! I gave in to temptation and started snacking when he snacked. It takes no dietician or personal trainer to figure out where my body was heading. I gained a substantial amount of weight and became extremely self conscious. I shed tears standing in front of the mirror, my clothes didn’t fit, I started covering up more and more of my body and felt miserable. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t gained so much weight that my friends’ jaws drop when they see me, but enough that made me uncomfortable.

Goal Setting.

As part of my 16 Goals for 2016, I wrote down ‘incorporate more fitness into my lifestyle’. My birthday falls in the first week of January and my hubby who knew of my problems, decided to get me a Fitbit. I somewhat questioned his present choice for the first few days. We don’t have a lot of spare money, so I wondered if an expensive exercise watch was really the right present for a person who loathed exercise. Like wouldn’t a pretty candle and a box of chocolates been a better choice and we could have saved the money for bills? My husband however, had done more research than me and I soon began to realise all the benefits of having a Fitbit. I have the Fitbit Charge HR which you can find here. I use the app that goes along with it too. Here are the things I’ve learnt since getting my Fitbit:

1. Drinking water is really good.

Everyone knows this by now, but do you actually keep a track of how much you’re drinking? I love how the Fitbit app makes it super easy to plug in how much water I drink throughout the day in order to reach my goal. Since upping my water I’ve noticed that my skin, especially lips and hands, is a lot more hydrated and I’m not reaching for lip balm every 20 minutes.

2. Calorie counting isn’t that bad.

I never thought I would be a calorie counter, but yet again, this little watch is full of surprises. Once you set your goal (mine is to lose a certain amount of weight), the app calculates how many calories you should be eating in a day according to how many you burn. It has been a bit of an eye opener to see what I was eating vs how much I should be eating. I’m not super accurate or consistent with putting all my food into the Fitbit app but I really do find it a useful feature.

3. You need to do cardio.

The Fitbit Charge HR records your heart rate and averages this out into an average resting heart rate for each day. At the start, before I was exercising, my resting heart rate was embarrassingly high. I started walking every day and watched it drop. I decided to switch up my routine a bit and do a thirty minute circuit training session (I use these Pop Sugar videos) instead of my walk. Although I could feel this seriously working my muscles, it wasn’t improving my heart rate and it started to rise again. I’ve just recently figured this out and so will be doing more walking and focussing on that at the moment.

4. It’s ok to have a lower step goal.

The standard step goal for Fitbit is 10000 steps. For some people who have physical jobs (like my hubby) this goal could easily be achieved in work hours. However, for people like myself who spend a lot of time on the computer and not doing a tonne of moving, 10000 is HUGE. I lowered my goal to 6000 which is my normal day’s activities plus a 45 minute walk. I have since increased this to 6600 and am going pretty well. Just because someone does 12000 steps in one day, doesn’t mean you need to aswell. Try and find a number that is relatively achievable but increase it as you feel the need.

5. Permanent lifestyle choices are better than fads.

Most people know this but it doesn’t stop them racing to see the latest ‘skinny pill’ or whatever the trend happens to be. Changing up your lifestyle slowly doesn’t provide rapid results but it does create habits that last. These habits will help you to reach your goals, plus maintain them once you reach it!

6. It’s all about choice.

My Fitbit makes me accountable for my choices. If I choose a muffin over a apple, I know I’ll have to put it into my app and relive my unhealthy choice. If I decide to blob on the couch after tea instead of going for a walk, my Fitbit step goal won’t be reached. I also choose not to worry too much about using the app in the weekends and focus more on the week days. This makes it easier for me to get out and walk in the week if I know I get the weekend off!

Thank you so much for reading! This is an awkward subject to talk about right? Please let me know in the comments below if you have any further tips for me or could suggest some yummy and healthy recipes