I bought my wife a Fitbit for Christmas, so I’m wearing it
now. Apparently, buying my wife a fitness and activity tracker as a gift said
to her, “I, as your husband, want to trick you into wearing a device that will
allow me to track your fitness and activity levels.” She didn’t like that very
much.
I am constantly amazed at how much credit my wife gives me
for being clever, or devious, or caring. We have been married for almost
fourteen years now and she still hasn’t figured out that all the space in my
brain is being taken up by five major categories: Sports, song lyrics, random movie
quotes, Snapple lid trivia, and thinking about pizza. My brain activity
surrounding most everything else is pretty much at a flat line - especially
gift giving.
Here’s what my thought process was regarding the purchase of
a Fitbit for my wife:
“Crap, it’s almost Christmas. What does Amazon Prime have
that could be here in two days? Hey, look at that ad that just popped up on my
Amazon page for a Fitbit. Her mom has one of those. And it’s just expensive
enough that it can be my one gift to her, but still affordable. Add to cart.”
Like I said, she gives me waaaay too much credit.
So now I have a Fitbit. I have been wearing it for a grand
total of three days now, and it has already completely taken over my life. It’s
like some kind of brain chip implant from a sci-fi movie that controls my
feelings. I have never once cared about how many steps I’ve taken in a day, but
now I am utterly obsessed with it.
I went downstairs yesterday after showering and realized
that I forgot to put it back on my wrist. I took the shortest route possible back
to the bottom of the stairs and yelled up for someone to please go get my
Fitbit off the bathroom counter and bring it down to me. Why? Because I didn’t
want to waste the trip back up the stairs if I wasn’t going to get credit for
it.
I found out after the first day that the Fitbit was not
going to work as a watch replacement, however, so I have to wear it on my right
arm. I tried it in place of my watch, but I kept having to flick my wrist to
get it to come alive and tell me the time without pushing any buttons. I felt
like an idiot whipping my hand up to my face more than once if it didn’t work
the first time. Plus, I realized I think about time in terms of the face of my
analog watch. I can see the space between the hands, representing how long it
is until my next scheduled time to do something. Without hour and minute hands
to look at, I just have to do too much math. Digital time confuses me and makes
me late... Like I said, pretty much a flat line...
So I wear it on my right arm, and luckily on the Fitbit app
on my phone, there is a setting to tell it that I’m wearing it on my dominant
hand. It is so smart, it accounts for that. I guess so you don’t get credit for
running when you’re actually just brushing your teeth.
They haven’t figured out vacuuming yet, though, because
yesterday I “traveled” about two and a half miles in twenty minutes behind my
Dyson. I’ll take it. If the Fitbit says it happened, that’s good enough for me.
I’m so obsessed with getting my ten thousand steps in every
day that I almost hung up on my friend this morning. I answered his call on my
walk back from taking the boys to school, and after saying hello, I came to the
soul-crushing realization that I was holding the phone up to my ear with my right
hand, and therefore not swinging my Fitbit arm, and therefore probably not
getting credit for walking! I seriously considered stopping or hanging up on
him, because I can’t use the phone with my left ear. It’s like trying to get
dressed by putting the other leg into the pants first. It just doesn’t work.
And it even monitors my sleep. Once again, I have never
given a second thought to sleep patterns, or sleep quality, or restlessness,
but now that my Fitbit shows all that to me on my phone every morning, I’m
obsessed. I can show you on my sleeping timeline the red line that indicates the
exact time during the night that I got up to pee. I love America!
But now, not only am I obsessed with how many steps I’ve
taken, I’m also concerned with all the light blue lines on my sleep timeline.
Why was I so restless at 1:32 A.M. and then again at 3:27 A.M.?
I asked my wife about it, but she just mumbled something
about “the #*%’ing Fitbit” and rolled over and went back to sleep. I guess
maybe I should have waited until morning to ask her.
Oh, well. I’m not sure what I can do about the periods of
restless sleep, but there is one huge question that needs to be answered.
Namely, if I’m restless during the night, am I at least getting credit for it?
Rolling over in bed has to count for at least a few steps,
right?
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2016 Marc Schmatjen
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