Fitbit Not For Me

I have been wearing a Fitbit on my wrist almost non-stop for more than a year.  I have just made the decision to stop wearing it.  Here is a review of my usage of the gadget, and the reasons behind my decision to abandon it.  I wore the Fitbit Charge HR model.  My husband bought me it for Christmas last year, so I do not know exactly what he spent on it.  My research shows this model was selling for about $150, and now you can get it for about $100.

When I first opened my Fitbit, my reaction was unenthusiastic acceptance of wearing it for several months.  My husband has a habit of buying me electronic gadgets that I am usually not interested in using.  I had heard of Fitbits, and other fitness tracking devices, but I never really considered getting one for myself.  Although I go through periodic spurts of trying to be healthier, I am not much of a fitness enthusiast and the idea of counting my steps did not excite me.  However, I know he tries hard on these presents, so I usually make a good faith effort to use whatever the item is.

After a few months of using it, I actually started to like having it.  I first became fascinated by the sleep tracker.  Every morning I would pull up the Fitbit App on my phone so I could see how restful my sleep was the previous night.  It was the perfect proof for my complaints that I do not sleep well and that often I wake up in the middle of the night.  Over time, I used many of the applications available on the device.  Aside from the sleep tracker, my most commonly used were the step counter and the calorie counter.  For steps, I started my goal at 3000 steps a day and worked my way up to 6000.  I will even admit to pacing around my house late at night trying to hit my goal.  The calorie counter worked nice to keep track of how much food I was eating.  A lot of common foods were already loaded into the program, reducing the need for me to do much research.  I also liked that it would track my calories against an estimate of burned calories to help me determine how balanced my day was.

However, my enthusiasm began to fade as we neared the end of the year.  Once summer was over, it was harder for me to hit my 6000 steps and thus not as much fun.  I began to find the calorie counter to be time consuming.  While it was more convenient than online research, it was still a lot of effort to log every single thing I ate.  My sleep patterns never really improved, or even varied much, so looking at them lost its fun glow.  Additionally, after several months of daily use, my Fitbit started to show its wear.  The battery does not last as long as it did at first, and it has stopped telling me when it is getting low.  I find myself randomly wearing a dead Fitbit on an ever increasing basis.  The screen has cracked on the side.  The plastic strap has basically disintegrated.  I expect it to fall off my wrist any day now.  I think it is still under warranty, and I have considered getting a replacement, but I doubt ever I will.  The truth is, I just do not want to wear it any more.

Some Pros:  1) I do think it actually makes you more aware of your health.  It did improve my step count over the course of using it, and it did make me note how much junk I ate.  2) It was easy to set up and use.  I had no trouble initializing the watch and syncing it to the Fitbit App on my phone.  3) If you have friends also using Fitbits, you can connect over the device to encourage each other or compete against one another.

Some Cons:  1) It wore out too quickly.  I do not think I was particularly hard on it, but after a year of daily use it will not last much longer.  2) It was not completely accurate.  I often found it registering steps when I was talking with my hands and not registering steps when I was pushing a shopping cart.  Additionally, the calorie counter seemed to rely on input from users which resulted in some foods entered at multiple amounts.  I would then have to research it anyway if I wanted to be sure I picked the right one.  3) It was not the best fashion statement.  It looked like a bulky rubber fitness tracker on my wrist.  Plus I felt it limited my ability to wear other watches and jewelry on that wrist.

In the end, the Fitbit is just not a good fit for me right now.  It was an interesting experience to track all my activity for a while.  However, I am not that dedicated to putting forth the effort to maintain the amount of data needed to make it useful.  I would rather wear my regular watch, attempt a more consistent workout schedule, and work on making healthier food choices, all without tracking every move I make.

See you next week!