Movin' with my Fitbit

Okay so I've not been very active on social media lately, what with moving and school and work and all that stuff...

But we're all moved now! Thank heavens that whole process is over and done with for a while. We really like our new place, even though it's added about 15-20 minutes on to our commutes. It's a little sad to not live on a cool farm anymore. But to be honest, once it started getting cold outside the novelty of the farmhouse wore out pretty quick with no heat inside! And now we've got some landlords to fix stuff for us! It's great. I like the area of Kenmore a lot. There are many shops, libraries and Starbucks' around so that I am a happy little camper. The King County Metro bus system from Kenmore also got me to school on time, and I didn't have to do any transfers. Great.
Side note: it was a big deal for me to start taking the bus to school about 6 weeks ago. I'm kind of afraid of public transportation because I've had bad experiences of bus schedule incompetence and weirdo guys talking to me. But practice and an exasperation with traffic/parking prices at UW has made me an adopted public busing expert. Kind of. 

So anyways, some REALLY big news is that my sister is here in Seattle!! It's a happy and a sad thing. Great because we are so excited to see her, but she is here to try and figure out some really bad headaches she's been having. So I really hope she and her doctors can figure out how to help her feel better! Please keep her in your prayers. Love you, Mall. (Even if everyone else writes your name like Mal, I've been writing it Mall for your whole life so that's what I'm going to keep doing.)

Now onto the FITBIT FORCE!!

Matt bought this beauty for me about a month ago, and it finally got here! I got mine a week before he got his (yesterday). I started using it last Thursday and I would definitely say I love it. 

My job has me sitting on my butt every day, all day. I think that's a problem for a lot of people with full time jobs or in full time school (or both). Watching my step count on my fitbit has helped me focus on moving more and has motivated me to get in my daily morning workout before I go to work. When I work out, I average between 7,000-9,000 steps a day. The day I didn't? 3,500. That's a huge difference. So sedentary.

My fitbit measures steps, "calories" burned (not sure how accurate this actually is), elevation in staircases climbed, active minutes. It tracks my sleep and lets me know how restless I was during the night. It has silent, vibrating alarms - one of my favorite features. It syncs almost immediately when I open the app I downloaded to my phone. It also has a clock on the unit (like the picture above) which I like, so it's functions as a watch as well.

This is the app on my iPhone.

You can add in a food diary (which I haven't tried yet), and track amount of water drank. You self-enter weight to track that. Oh yeah, and link up with friends. Right now, Matt is my only friend on Fitbit! I need some more :)

Here's the graph of steps that pops up when I turn my phone sideways. Obviously this was a day I went to the gym. (I told you I sit on my butt all day at work!)

This is what the daily sleep graph looks like. So cool. This is one of my more restless nights.... almost every night is just plain blue. The website told me I have 99% sleep efficiency. I just wish I got MORE of it!!!

And here is a peek at the website dashboard:

I really think it is a great tool to stay aware of activity. It's very comfortable - I don't even feel like I'm wearing anything on my wrist. I got the "slate blue" color and Matt got the black. Those are the only two colors available for the force but I wish there were more! 

All in all, a really cool thing. I highly recommend it!!

Hope you all have a great week/weekend and Thanksgiving!