I’m a low-tech runner. Really low-tech.
Until recently the most technical piece of gear I owned was a basic, cheap digital watch, the same type of watch I’ve been using since I started running in middle school 25 years ago. It’s worked fine for me.
And I keep track of my workouts with a 99-cent spiral notebook and a pen.
I guess I’m so 1989 because nowadays fitness types can geek out with wrist bands or watches that track every heartbeat, step and even sleep. One of the most popular gadgets on the market is a band called a Fitbit, basically a pedometer on steroids.
The Herald asked me to give the Fitbit a try.
In the past few years, fitness tracking products have exploded. They include a range of body-monitoring gadgets such as smartwatches like the Samsung Galaxy Gear and other types of bands made by companies such as Nike and Jawbones. Fitbit, a company based in San Francisco, is the leader of fitness trackers with more than 65 percent of market share.
They offer different types of fitness trackers, including their latest product the Fitbit Surge ($249), a super watch that tracks heart rate, activity and sleep and displays the information on the band. Their products sync with multiple devices such as a smartphone and other fitness and nutrition applications.
The company gave me a Flex to try. It’s not quite as fancy as the latest doo-dad they’re selling but still offers an impressive array of features.
It tracks the steps I take and my sleep and then wirelessly syncs to my computer and my Android smartphone. The company offers free software for both. That software includes the ability to track everything I eat, set personal goals and give me little “badges” with congratulatory emails when I meet certain goals.
I can be shamed or secretly gloat by comparing my progress to other friends and family who are using it through social media. The Fitbit Flex retails for $99.
Intuitive design
The company took a page out of iWorld and designed a product that is sleek and intuitive to use. Taking the product out of the packaging and getting it up and running took less than 10 minutes and occurred without a single swear word. That’s a big accomplishment for me. The Flex came with a tiny memory stick with the software called a “dongle” that fits into the computer.
It also comes with two different-size bands and a small stick that inserts into either band. There’s a small charger attachment that plugs into the computer. The Flex needs to be recharged about every five days.
It looks like a bracelet and comes in a few color choices.
The Fitbit is water resistant and the instructions encourage users to wear it all the time, even in the shower. I tried the device for 10 days so I’m not able to tell you if after wearing this thing nonstop for months it becomes … funky. So far there’s no indication that’s the case.
The device records every step and it can differentiate between walking steps and “very active” minutes.
Feedback rewards
It did a good job of keeping track of how much I ran and walked throughout the day. Suddenly, I was feeling like I was doing a much better job of exercising than I thought because it tracked all those minutes I spent aimlessly wondering around my house thinking about a story I’m working on.
There is something about this product that is almost Pavlovian. The band came automatically set to get me to move 10,000 steps a day (you can customize). After I made that magic 10,000 steps the band gave me a pleasant little zzzz vibration on my wrist, and if I exercise even more it sends me an email congratulating me and calling me an overachiever. I can look at the app on my phone anytime and see how much I’ve moved or how many calories I’ve burned. Unlike my digital watch, there’s no fudging on how much I think I ran.
There’s something addicting about that feedback that probably does help people stay motivated. My mother-in-law has one and she sometimes walks around the house while brushing her teeth to get in a few extra steps. I have a friend who works at Boeing and she got rather obsessed with hers. She walked 10 miles around the factory and then she’d want to walk more after work.
The amount of data gathered was both intriguing and sort of creepy.
The band keeps track of how well you’re sleeping at night. I logged in when I went to bed and woke up.
One morning it reported that I slept a total of 6 hours and 48 minutes, and I woke once for 11 minutes and was restless 23 times.
That wasn’t accurate. That same night I know I woke up a few times, once for quite a stretch. The band seemed only to note the time I got up and walked to the kitchen for a glass of water, not the hour I remained in bed staring at the ceiling.
The band is supposed to track how many flights of stairs you walk but that never worked for me. I walked up and down many flights of stairs at the downtown Everett YMCA and the band never noted it.
It also doesn’t seem to track other forms of exercise well. In addition to running, I swim laps and I take the occasional cycling class. I went to the gym and tried lap swimming, stationary cycling and a rowing machine. The Fitbit could tell I was doing something “very active” but it didn’t track these well and I had to log these activities manually.
Food and fluids too
The software also provides an option to log the amount of water you drink and what you eat. I found Fitbit’s food log to be easy to use and a nice tool if you’re interested in monitoring calories.
Here’s my take: As a society, Americans aren’t usually good at moderation. Either we’re tracking every step run and calorie ingested or we’re laying on the couch eating potato chips. This product certainly seems to feed into the mentality of the former and perhaps might help the later.
For me, it seems a want versus a need, at least in this stage of my life. I would have loved this product when I was a high-level competitive distance runner, when every step and calorie burned mattered.
Now as a soft-bodied older version of myself, running is about smelling the crisp fall air, feeling the soft dirt under my feet, watching the fat-bodied Dreamlifter pull up into the sky over my head when I’m lost in Japanese Gulch. It’s interesting to see how much I move but for me it’s not the point.
If you’ve got the cash, it would make a fun gift for the fitness buff or wannabe in your life. A spiral notebook and a cheap digital watch also work just fine.
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