My year with a Fitbit Flex

What’s a Fitbit Flex?

A fancy pedometer, that you wear permanently, which counts your steps, and syncs with apps to show you nice visual stats, and gives you a surprisingly rewarding 5 lights when you reach your target.

Is that it?

You can use it to track sleep. But this is done manually and more often than not, you’ll forget, and eventually not bother at all. You can also use the app to manually track food and water intake but I grew tired of that very quickly.

So what’s it good for?

It really encourages you to walk more. 10,000 steps a day is the default setting on the Fitbit (about 5 miles). Wearing a Fitbit also switches your brain into seeing any potential walk as a good thing rather than a drag. Now, I’ll happily walk the dog, go to the shops, take a stairs instead of a lift, or walk to a shop on the other side of town during lunch.

How was the honeymoon period?

Typically, I got a bit obsessive about reaching my daily target, which sometimes involved nonsense like walking around a coffee table last thing at night until my wrist lit up. Or going for a quick walk around the block before going to bed. Or walking from room to room and up and down the stairs.

And after that?

If you engage with other Fitbit users, or sites, you’ll notice lots of encouragement to increase your daily goal after you’ve got used to the Fitbit. 12,500 steps a day or 15,000 steps a day, or even 20,000 steps a day. I spent a few months on 15,000 (I think, maybe less). And this is where it became a real pain. It involved a quick walk before work, then walking for the entirety of lunch, and then another big walk in the evening. The whole day revolved around walking. I spent a whole summer walking during lunch instead of reading in a sunny summer park, or sitting by a canal reading, which I adore doing during the summer. (I listen to Audiobooks while I walk of course, but I still love actually reading).

ALSO – I noticed zero benefit. I stopped running for a good few months (after a couple of accidents) but continued all this walking and I really noticed that I started feeling like shit again, always very lethargic, fatigued, and low on energy, which is how I feel when I don’t exercise regularly. And walking all day did nothing for me compared to running. So my verdict, at least for me personally, is that anything above the 10k steps is really not worth it. I’m gone back to the default 10,000 steps a day. And that’s easy enough to reach without letting it completely take over my day. And lunch is now more reasonably divided into eating/reading/walking.

Verdict

So, a year later, I still like my Fitbit Flex, but it’s more of a gentle reminder to make sure I get a minimum of exercise every day, especially at weekends. Anything more than that can feck right off. The honeymoon period is well and truly over.

Update: September 2015. I went through a period of not bothering with it much. And not wearing it some days. But I’ve been having a lot of trouble with restless legs syndrome recently. So I’ve been making an effort again to do a bare minimum of 10,000 steps a day… but I don’t obsess over it.