Me & My Fitbit Are On A Break

I was surprised that I even wanted one.

Me, the person who has always been (and continues to be) somewhat suspicious of technology. Or at least too much technology. Or too much dependence on technology. Don’t get me wrong—I love my laptop. And I would DEFINITELY, in a heartbeat, run into a burning building to save it. I also love my iPhone. Maybe a little too much—I bring it everywhere with me (to bed, to the bathroom, you get the picture).

Anyway, my wanting a Fitbit was a bit of a surprise to me and my loved ones—up until recently I didn’t even know what it was for. But in my renewed commitment to my fitness, it seemed like a great tool to help me along and encourage me to move every hour, track my heart rate (which I have always felt is too irregular, I don’t know why), log workouts, track sleep patterns, and so on and so forth.

And for the first while, it was great! We went everywhere together, I wore it to bed every night, and I kept earning all sorts of badges…

My Fitbit would be like, “Great job, Tracy, you’re crushing it!” “You’re getting all your steps!” “Great job!”

And I’d be all, “Oh you…” So flattering!

The next day, my Fitbit would say something like, “Wow, you’re meeting all your goals…you’re walking everywhere, and you’re doing like, 25 flights of stairs a day! Awesome!” (Even though this wasn’t always the case—since Fitbits can’t tell if you’re physically walking up stairs or taking elevators/escalators. But I didn’t have the heart to tell it that.)

For the first little while everything was great. Every time I’d meet my goals I’d enjoy watching the corresponding graphic on the Fitbit (digital fireworks or a little rocket ship taking off or whatever). It was like any other new romance! My Fitbit was telling me how great I was, and I felt super pumped about it. We were literally in sync.

Then, after a couple of months, I had a couple sluggish days, maybe a sluggish week or two. I’d get the weekly updates in my inbox saying how I walked 20km or 30km less from the previous week. Or, down 100 active minutes last week from the killer week I’d had before.

And it was rough because I felt like I could never explain myself and say, “I know, I know, I’ve just been really busy with work and with deadlines…” Or, “I had a rough week and just needed to chill out! I’m sorry!” Nope. I would open the Fitbit app and see all the areas I was falling short: Steps, short. Calories burned, short. Floors climbed, short. Active minutes, short. Kilometres walked—something my Fitbit had praised me for on multiple occasions—short. It became a real bummer.

Then I’d have moments where, if I left the house without my Fitbit on, I’d panic for a second thinking, Shit now all these steps won’t count! (In searching for pictures to go along with this post, I found MANY others experience this same panic and express their feelings in meme form.)

You get the picture—my motivation was starting to be fueled by what my Fitbit had to say and not about how I felt. Just because I’m not wearing the Fitbit, doesn’t mean those steps lose value. Yet I started to feel like maybe this was the case.

Other times I’d have days of way surpassing my goals: getting over 17,000 steps in a day (the average person gets around 6,000/day I’m told and the recommended is 10,000), or having over 100 active minutes in a day, or whatever the case was. But often those days I’d be completely wiped or burnt out. I didn’t feel healthy–I felt exhausted and had only surpassed these goals because I was running around doing 50 things that day and didn’t even have a quiet moment to myself.

Of course, this wasn’t always the case–sometimes I’d feel great for surpassing my goals for the day. But the point is, the raw numbers don’t tell you everything.

I’ve really had to stop and think about extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation. (Extrinsic being pressure from something other than myself; including striving for praise from a tiny computer.) I want to be the person behind my motivation to be fit and healthy. I want to do it for me because it’s what I enjoy, or what I find interesting or exciting or worthwhile.

And I get that the purpose of a tool like this is to encourage you to make positive changes. Certainly having a Fitbit for the purposes of daily activity tracking has been great in some regards. I was sleeping better, going to bed on time, waking up earlier, walking more often instead of taking transit, and getting up regularly to take breaks from desk work.

I’m sure that I’ll be happy to have my Fitbit back in regular rotation at some point in the near future. But things were starting to feel a little off.

I’ve learned that I don’t ever want to feel enslaved or beholden to a certain number or weight or outfit or angle or image or object when it comes to how I feel about my own body. So until then, my Fitbit and I are on a break!