Tag: gear

A Fitbit for My Finger, Five Years On
fitness · gadgets · Metrics · motivation · technology · trackers

A Fitbit for My Finger, Five Years On

elan.paulson1 Comment

Can you think of an example of when you first started doing a thing, then what you do shifts over time without you even really noticing?

Looking back at my 2021 post about getting an Oura ring, I wrote about how my new finger fitness tracker had suddenly got me reviewing my stats after every soccer game, emptying my bar fridge, and cleaning my house. The story surprised me a little for how I’d forgotten how much this little gadget had motivated me.

Five years later, and I’m taking an indefinite soccer break. Most mornings the ring delivers a verdict I can already predict based on my choices the night before. And despite software updates, the ring tells me when I’ve cleaned, but it doesn’t do the cleaning for me!

Elan’s hand with Oura ring
My Oura ring glows green and red occasionally. Otherwise, I don’t notice it all that much.

These days, I check the app half as often as I used to. On a recent 2-week hiking and biking trip to the Azores I left the ring (and charger) at home entirely to avoid extra pack, and it didn’t cross my mind again until I got back.

Over 5 years, the app interface has changed along with how I use it. Added doo-dads. There are now scenic pictures behind my stats, and the app calls me cutsie names like “champ.” There are new dashboards too, one tracking “saved activity time” and another breaking down the “energy zones” I’ve engaged and avoided. I look at neither.

Weekly Zoned Minutes report that I’m not in the zone, at least not Zone 4 or Zone 5.
Weekly Zoned Minutes report that I’m Not in the Zone, at least not in Zone 4 or Zone 5.

I do regularly use the app for a 5 to 12-minute midday meditation break. They’ve added Headspace-style voice narrations with choose-your-own soothing background noises, and there’s one narrator’s voice I like. But it’s stuff I could probably also find online for free.

I also still go back to the sleep performance tracker. Sometimes, Oura and my partner have divergent views about how restless or disrupted (or disruptive) my sleep was. At least the fitness tracker never complains about me.

Overall, 5 years later my Oura’s job has shifted, mostly confirming what I already know I should or should not be doing. It also seems to have an overload of data sitting on top of the two or three things I most care about.

I’ve been reading more lately about personalization and AI in the context of education, and it lines up with something my fellow blogger Nat wrote about her three months of smart watch data: she’s not motivated by stats that aren’t meaningful to her. Like Nat, what I want from the next version of my fitness tracker device is personalization: the ability to say show me what I most care about and hide the rest.

Until then, I guess I’ll to keep wearing it. Not because I need it, but because it’s free for me to use without a paid membership. And, I’d rather have it and not need it 75% of its stats than to need them and not have them.

Screenshot my my Oura app after a night’s sleep, with a mountain in the background. The screen notification says, “tHey there champ, your resting heart rate indicates that you’ve recovered well. Looks like you’ve done a good job balancing your workouts and rest.”
Screenshot of my Oura app after a night’s sleep, with a mountain in the background. The screen notification says, “Hey there champ, your resting heart rate indicates that you’ve recovered well. Looks like you’ve done a good job balancing your workouts and rest.” Have I?
fitness · gear · hiking · walking

Christine’s boots are made for walking…well, hiking really.

Christine Hennebury3 Comments

I bought my first pair of hiking boots recently and I LOVE them.

I’ve *meant* to buy a pair for YEARS but somehow never got around to it.

I do a fair but of walking but I haven’t done a lot of hiking in the last. It seemed weird to buy special footwear when I could just wear my sneakers and do just fine.

But I plan to do more hiking and there’s a difference between doing ‘fine’ and doing well.

Any time that I *have* gone on a hike, my sneakers have let me down. Either my feet have gotten wet or I have slid around a bit or I have almost turned my ankle. My sneakers were fine but I looked in envy at my friends in their hiking boots who seemed to be having a smoother hike than I was.

Often, I’d get home and scope out hiking boots online and then put the search aside for later…and never get back to it until I was once again annoyed on a hike.

Recently though, I came across the perfect hiking boots in my price range.

They remind me of a pair my most outdoorsy sister had years ago, so that’s inspirational. And the fact that she used to wear them out clubbing almost as often as she wore them out hiking bodes well for their potential comfort. (She used to call them her ‘dancing boots, in fact.)

Anyway, I have been wearing them on my walks with Khalee lately and I am really understanding the difference between doing ‘fine’ and doing ‘well.’

Now that spring is here-ish, I would normally have ditched my winter boots for my sneakers. But, since I have hiking boots I have been wearing them instead and they are the perfect in-between for right now.

My feet are dry, I feel sure-footed, and I like how my boots look. I can’t wait to try them on an actual hike.

Bring on hiking season!

A top-down photo of the author’s feet in a pair of brown hiking boots , she is standing on some snow.
There’s still snow on the ground in lots of places but let’s take the upside and note how nicely my boots contrast with it. 😉 Image description: Top down photo of the author’s denim-clad legs and feet. She’s wearing pair of chocolate brown hiking boots and standing on some snow that is lit by sunshine.
Sat with Nat · walking

Nat navigates walking to work in a Polar Vortex

natalieh (she/her)5 Comments

It’s been a week of proper cold winter weather in London, Ontario. I live on the little southern bit of Canada wedged between the Great Lakes. It rarely drops below-20C here but when it does it tends to be because the Arctic airmass slips south into the jet stream and it stays that way for a week or two.

Some Canadians lean into the weather quipping “there’s no such thing as bad weather, just not dressing for the weather,” That supposes everyone has both the means to acquire the right clothing & equipment as well as the knowledge to know what to buy, how to wear it and when to stay indoors.

My partner and I are fairly committed to walking to work as part of our fitness and reducing our carbon footprint. I’m also terribly cheap and hate paying $8-12 a day to park my clunker.

Some days we just bundled up with hats, mitts, good boots and faces covered.

A close up of Nat’s face framed by a fake fur hood. You can just make out her eyes between her grey toque and bright orange face cover

My hood is always up when it’s -24C plus wind chill.

We did walk 2/5 days this week but we also chose to drive when the “feels like” temperature hit -39C. It was a week of driving in a cold car, working in a cold office and wearing layers of clothes in the house & in bed.

Brrrrrr

This type of cold weather wrecks havoc on batteries so for folks using electric mobility devices like scooters it was a week of being home. Waiting for buses became so hazardous school transportation was cancelled Thursday.

I think one way we can debunk toxic masculinity is calling out ideas of being able to “tough out” the weather. Sure, there are times to dig deep into your resolve to overcome obstacles. And yes, making our lives consciously more physically challenging can be a way to enhance our fitness. But those ideas must also be balanced against safety and wellbeing.

So I’m ok getting the lift offered by a friend on a snowy afternoon as I walk home. I’m ok driving when I might otherwise risk frostbite. I have been looking for rain pants and insulated snow pants that fit for about 5 years to no avail.

I would like some though so if you know where a woman can find women’s size 20 or XXXL I’d love to hear about it!

fashion · fitness · weight lifting

Moving from involved to committed

marthafitat554 Comments

By MarthaFitat55

Image shows two bent tubes of neoprene fabric in black with red accents
Martha’s new gear! Image shows two bent tubes of neoprene fabric in black with red accents

What’s the difference between being involved and being committed? The business fable uses bacon and eggs to explain: the pig is committed, while the hen is involved.

When we talk about fitness, it’s a bit of both. This week, I made the leap from involved to committed. I bought a pair of knee sleeves.

For the last three years, my fitness clothing has been nothing fancy. I originally started with a pair of ratty yoga pants and a tee shirt. Then I graduated to a pair of capris found on the sale rack.

Occasionally when it gets superwarm in the gym during the summer, I rescue one of my old rowing tanks. And while I’ve always invested in good footwear, when a friend offered a pair of deadlift shoes at a discount, I bought them to save her the hassle of returning them. Luckily they turned out to be a good fit, and if I ever decided to stop lifting, they could probably work for something else.

So my approach to workout gear has been minimal at best; involved if you like.

But these knee sleeves are the first thing I have thought about, tried out, and decided to expend the funds necessary for me to have my very own pair so I can lift well and with the proper support.

That’s because these sleeves are simply miraculous, and I don’t use that word lightly.

This winter, my trainer and I have been working on developing greater depth for my squats. I have a regimen of exercises to strengthen my hips, and over time, I have been able to drop lower and lower.

It’s been all good. Except when I watched videos of fabulous women lifters getting their “ass to grass” in squats, I admit I felt a wee bit jealous.

During a cold spell last month, my knees became cranky. My trainer suggested I try the sleeves when we reached higher weights on the bar. I borrowed a pair for the session, and I did not want to give them back. As I worked my way through the sets, I began scheming how these sleeves would be mine.

Since I like the owner, I decided they should stay where they belonged. I did borrow them again a couple of times to be sure they were as good as they felt the first time, and this week, I went online and committed.

The sleeves provide a level of support I did not think was possible, and yet, when I wear them during squat sessions, I have no hesitation standing up after dropping down. Though they are working on the knees, the sleeves send a message to my hips that the knees are in charge and stability is the goal. And while I’m not as close to the level as I see on the training videos, I am achieving very creditable squats that pass the form test quite well for depth and control.

I see you grass and I am coming for you.

— Martha lifts and writes in St. John’s, Newfoundland.