Trying to reduce my slothful ways

Last summer, I got lots of compliments about how great I looked. I gave away all my super gigantic falling off pants and shorts. I had fun shopping for new skinny summer clothes.

None of those clothes fit anymore.

Sigh.

I was suffering from pretty bad anxiety last year, and I found it very difficult to eat. I even had a rough time eating at my parents' house - my childhood home! - because of anxiety. The happy side effect was that I lost weight. The bad side effect of the anxiety was that I found it really hard to go anywhere.

Then in the fall, I sucked it up and went to the doctor to discuss my anxiety. It's easier for me to eat now. But I've been eating junk. I love baking, so I've been eating sweets like crazy. I found peanut-free chocolate almonds at Bulk Barn and oh my, I've eaten a lot of those.

In addition, I feel like I don't move very much in a day. Mostly I feel like a sloth. I needed something to haul me off the couch.

Enter the Garmin vivofit, my newest excuse to plunk down some cash. I did a lot of research and pondering and hemming and hawing before I settled on this fitness tracker. I especially liked two things: 1) I could wear it all the time and 2) I don't have to charge it. I know me - I despise charging things. Totally suck at it. And having to take off a tracker to charge it felt like it defeated the purpose of having something I could wear all the time. I'd forget to put it back on.

I also liked that it had a visible display.

Plus it came in blue.

The verdict: I like it! I wear it all the time. I wore it to my kids' swimming lessons and washed their hair with it on - no problem. I also like the wireless syncing. I have a little USB connection plugged into my laptop and with a 3 second button press on the vivofit it syncs and voila! The info is available on my laptop, with graphs and charts and everything! And I don't have to charge it. Yay! It's always available, I don't have to think about it.

Is it motivating? I say yes. As it turns out, it is not difficult for me to hit 10 000 steps in a day (my neighbour was right, I DO walk more than I thought. I blame the kids). But I WANT to hit that goal every day and by golly, knowing how many steps I've got left keeps me moving until I get those 10 000.

Now that I've established a baseline of my activity level, I hope to increase it. The vivofit sets a new goal for you every day based on your previous number of steps - you reach the goal it sets, you get a higher goal the next day. Personally I could live without this feature. I don't need daily adaptive goals set for me. I can be happy with 10 000 steps as a baseline and setting my own higher goal by myself. It's not annoying, though, so it's fine.

Oh, right, it also tracks sleep, but I already know I sleep like crap so I'm not all that interested in that info.

All in all - recommended.

PS: Garmin has no idea who I am. My money, my opinions.