Fitbit Fail??

If I keep this up I am going to become known as the needy Fitbit blogger. Please bear with me. I set a goal this week to walk 10,000 steps each day. I have to be honest, it hasn't been as difficult as I expected...until today.  I have had this nagging feeling when I am reading about all the activity people do to get in their steps that something wasn't right. I have an office job so there are not a lot of steps involved.  We have a small house and it doesn't take very many steps to move about the house.  

Earlier in the week I had an incident at Walmart. I had taken a couple of purposeful laps around the store and didn't get as many steps as I expected. A reader confirmed that pushing the cart kept my arm still and therefore, would have affected the effectiveness of the Fitbit on my wrist. I started to think if that were the case maybe my Fitbit was tracking steps from my arm motion when steps weren't being taken...for example, when I am doing dishes or brushing my teeth.  

I decided to experiment by putting the Fitbit on my left wrist. My thought was that I do less with my left hand so my results wouldn't be as skewed. Today was the first day I made the switch and suddenly getting all the steps in seems a greater challenge. 

Today that meant many trips down this hall...

 Laps around this table and back down the hall I went...over and over.

For a change of scenery I went up to the second floor and down this hall. I forgot to take a picture of the the turnaround point upstairs. It is different...a much smaller room with a smaller table. Ten straight minutes up and down the hall.  I don't think I can make myself do that every day.

Twice this week I have come home from work, in the door, changed shoes and headed straight out for a little walk with Millie. I knew if I didn't do it immediately I wouldn't do it.  And I really didn't want to fail my 10,000 step challenge!

Today Millie was a little distracted by the squirrels enjoying the 40+ degree weather.

I was a little distracted by the geese. They were headed north...did the 40+ degrees confuse them??

The reminds me of one of my favorite factoids.  When geese are flying in a V do you know why one side is always longer than the other?  Because there are more geese in it.  Yep, I can hear your groans from here...and that makes me smile :)

Someone also suggested putting the Fitbit in my pocket and it would work off the motion of my hips (will I get more steps if I really sashay those hips?)  When I am at home I tend to wear pocketless pants (read lounge pants) so that isn't always an option, but I might try doing that during the day at work.

Last night I had to finish the last 800 or so steps by marching in front of the tv while we watched our show. My husband found that a little amusing.  I might have to do a little of that tonight.  As I write this I have about 1000 steps left for the day...even after all that hall walking, Millie walking, etc.  

 

I will admit, I may be abnormally consumed by trying to figure out the accuracy of my Fitbit.  But in the end, regardless of how many steps I am actually taking, I am clearly moving more intentionally throughout the day and that, I believe, is the point.

What does your Fitbit have you doing?