JD got me a FitBit One for Christmas. It's basically a fancy pedometer plus altimeter. It keeps track of your steps, your mileage, and your elevation climbed. If you wear it on your wrist at night it'll keep track of how often you moved at night. The FitBit folks have done a really good job with this gadget. I clip mine to my bra and leave it on all day, and it's unnoticeable to me except when I'm doing exercises on my belly.
I'm kind of in love with my FitBit. Mostly because I've started losing weight again since I got it. I have long suspected my problem was not eating enough, but nutritionists and the internet and pretty much everybody told me that A) Eat Less and Exercise More is The Way! and B) my body would just reach into my fat reserves on high burn days. I.e. not eating more when you're burning more is just fine.
However, my experience with diets over the last several years has been that I lose weight precipitously for two weeks, and then it stops. For months. Until I finally give up. I lose weight a lot faster than predicted in those first two weeks. I.e. I'm probably burning more than expected. Apparently two weeks is how long it takes my body to go into starvation mode and crash my metabolism.
The FitBit solves this problem for me. FitBit has a website that uses the information from my FitBit (uploaded automatically anytime I'm near my keyboard, which has a Bluetooth gadget on it that talks to my FitBit - it's a USB gadget provided in the FitBit kit. ) And so I check the website and it says "hey, you walked 13 miles today, you should eat 2500 calories rather than 1500!" And then I go have more to eat and in the morning I've lost weight. It's like magic.
The thing is that I'm not exercising more, here. I'm eating more. That's the only thing I've changed. I eat more when the FitBit says to. And I've lost four pounds in the last two weeks. Which, give the previous month of calorie restriction without weight loss, feels like a miracle.
Of course, most folks probably have the opposite problem. Not enough calorie burning. And the FitBit will help them too, by pointing it out. And by saying "You sat and watched tv today, you should eat 1200 calories rather than 1500." But my way is probably more fun.
The FitBit has some other fun features which make me enjoy it, but which don't help my weight loss directly. Like, occasionally it flashes something on its little screen. Like "Smooches". Or "Go Amy!" Which is fun. And the "dashboard", the section of the website that keeps my stats, compares the number of flights of stairs I've climbed to other objects in the world. Like tall giraffes. Or the Eiffel tower. It's always amusing to see what I've "climbed" that day. Yesterday it was the world's tallest bridge.
If you are having frustration with exercise vs diet vs weight loss, I'd recommend giving this gadget a try. It's working for me.
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