I'm Obsessed (Part 1)

...WITH MY FITBIT

The first day I wore my Fitbit Charge HR..it was an historic day.

Ok, I'm one of the people who swore that she was not going to jump onto the Fitbit wagon, no matter what. It was GARMIN or BUST.

I SWORE to myself that I wouldn't be one of those step-counting obsessed folks who, if they hadn't reached their step goal before bed, would walk around the house, up and down the stairs....just to get some damned steps in.

Well, yesterday I found myself doing exactly what I said I wouldn't. I was all primed to take a nice, hot lavender-scented bath and well, I still had on the Fitbit Charge HR that my youngest brother had painstakingly saved up for to get me for Christmas.

I pressed the little button on the side, because OF COURSE I had reached 10,000 steps. I had been active all day, walking up and down hills and stairs on the very hilly campus where I work. I had even done two The Firm Express videos that morning. 

Sigh and ALAS. I had only done 9860 steps. 

I'm pretty distractible, and I knew that if I took it off before I had reached that now elusive goal, I would forget about it and not finish it. So I started doing circles around my bathroom, which is fairly small, and got a little dizzy. But I didn't care. 

Wait, why isn't it moving? WHY ISN'T IT DOING THE HAPPY BUZZ??????

Fitbit ON, no doubt! (Here I was doing the Crunch Fitness Fat Burning Yoga DVD)

So there I was, pacing and naked in my bathroom trying to get my 10,000 steps in. When I realized how ridiculous that was, I stopped and looked at myself in the mirror. What was I doing? What had I become? Some numbers obsessed person, who normally did way more than 10,000 steps per day anyway with all of the running training I had been doing, but who was suddenly attached to this vinyl-rubber coated device that tracked my heart-rate, steps, flights-of-stairs completed, calorie-burn, and daily mileage?

Yep. That was who I was in that very moment and to be honest, I was enjoying every minute of it. But I needed to take that bath because the heat in my house was dissipating all too quickly.

I took the Fitbit off ever so gingerly and placed it on the counter, letting the idea of finishing my 10K go. I reasoned with myself: Actually, I didn't put the Fitbit on until midway through the first video this morning, so I'm good. I know I did way more than 10,000 steps anyway.  I'm pretty active. I mean, I'm really active. So that number isn't going to determine whether or not I have a good, restorative bath...

I took my bath with eyes closed, luxuriating in the soothing scent of lavender.  Ah! What a long day it had been. Nice to be able to relax after a long day and listen to some Bonobo.

And then I opened my eyes, the green light from the underbelly of the Fitbit taunting me.  You haven't finished yet.

I tried my best to ignore it but I couldn't. It would bother me all night if I didn't finish.

I got out of the tub (the water was cold and the notion of bath-time was old by now anyway), dried off, lotioned up and put on my Christmas jammies, sweats, and thick hiking socks (did I say my house was cold yet? Cuz it's BRICK) and promptly put the Fitbit back on my wrist. I was going to kill these steps.

I collected clothes around the house and put them in the washing machine. I ascended the stairs to my son's room to tuck him in just one more time. I swept the rug--(because it would require too much adulting to actually get and keep a vacuum.) I loaded the dishwasher. I checked on my son again to his chagrin. I straightened out my growing collection of trail shoes in the mud-room. As I was walking across the living room to start folding clothes, it buzzed.

Now I could go to sleep.