Get a bit fit and also a Fitbit

Yes, I wrote a post about new year’s resolutions I can actually keep, and I stand by that post. But the truth is I have other secret resolutions. I guess they’re not so much new year’s resolutions as they are long-term ambitions  I’m firming up my resolve to achieve.

The first has to do with professional/literary goals and goes something like this:

I’m sure it will work itself out.

But the other is much trickier. It’s about fitness or health or not completely succumbing to slovenliness. Heretofore, my efforts have been intermittent and inconsistent. That is to say, I only ever made half-assed attempts to get into shape and not very often at that. Once every year or so I’d go out for a run and every spring I’d vow to start walking everywhere. I’d give up sweets for a couple weeks here or there. But none of it has done much good.

Then, this past fall, I received a Fitbit Flex wristband from Rogers to try out. You wear it around your wrist and it tracks your activity and sleep and plugs all the data into an app via your computer. I think that was the beginning. I mean, I didn’t start exercising right away, but I did notice that my daily activity levels were actually half decent. I’m not a complete couch potato, it turns out. But that also means that if I want to actually burn calories and lose weight, I’m going to have to push myself. I can blame it on the babies, on my sluggish thyroid, on getting older or being busy all I want, but the simple fact is that I’m just going to have to work harder to get into shape than I used to. The Fitbit helped me realize that.

Then I lost it. Well, I lost the part of the Fitbit that plugs into my laptop and recharges the battery.

But I started running anyway. The hardest thing about running is just deciding to do it. That’s what I told myself. Getting changed into your running clothes and walking out the door is the hardest part, I said.

Well, that was a lie.

The first time I went out, I jogged along for about two minutes before I started getting cramps in my side and my bra straps kept sliding off and I was heaving and gasping. So I kept going for another 15 minutes or so. Then I went out again the next day and every other day after that for a few weeks, running a little bit further and little bit longer each time. I was terrified that if I took an extra day off, I might never go out again.

I was right to be scared.

A string of solo-parent bedtimes, shin splints and the onset of winter broke my rhythm so I’m taking a break from running. But I am doing daily workouts to videos in my living room and plan to get some better running shoes and start incorporating running into the routine again in the spring.

And I found my Fitbit recharging part! So I can start to track my activity levels through the winter and make sure I really am pushing myself.

And and and! You can win one for yourself right here on this blog!

Use the Rafflecopter thingy to enter. Contest runs until midnight on Friday, January 25. Canada only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Update: DaniGirl just posted about her experience of using the Fitbit for an entire year:  http://danigirl.ca/blog/2014/01/10/one-year-with-fitbit/ An excellent example of how it can make that little bit of difference even if you aren’t training for a marathon.