Fitness gadgets love them or hate them?

There seem to be so many activity devices to choose from these days, Fitbits, Misfits, Jawbone’s & Vivofits, & recent Daily Mail article indicated that these gadgets aren’t always as accurate as they claim so could even make you gain weight if you were to use them to determine how many calories you should be eating each day

The above said I do believe these gadgets have a place, I have used a Garmin Forerunner 10 for a few years to track the distance & times of my runs & I was recently lucky enough to be given a Fitbit One to trial by my empolyers Weight Watchers

If I am honest I wasn’t impressed with the Fitbit straight away it seemed like an expensive pedometer to me, and because of its small design (a selling point to most) I found that if I was getting changed to go out for a run i’d often forget to put it on meaning I missed out on thousands of steps being recorded each week, not Fitbit One’s fault I admit but at a recommended retail price of £79.99, you want to ensure it is counting every last step, unfortunately for my bank balance by this point my love affair with my Fitbit had started

I can’t remember when or how it happened, I just started to notice I was checking it more, deliberately planning in walks to ensure I would reach my self set target of 70,000 steps a week (my work schedule often means I can’t hit 10,000 steps per day but as a weekly target it is more achievable), so when I was walking through a local supermarket and I saw a cute little pink Fitbit Flex reduced in the sale I couldn’t resist

Unfortunately I had only had my Fitbit Flex a few weeks when I suffered my injury, but surprisingly I still found it to be an important piece of kit, I reset my goal for the first few weeks to just 1,500 steps a day, then over the last 12 weeks I have gradually increased it to 5,000 steps a day, again that isn’t always possible but I find as a weekly target, 35,000 steps a week is more achievable, & I will gradually increase that target as I am able to walk more

One of the things I like about the Fitbit is the app and the data I can get from the app, it not only tells me how many steps I have walked a day it tells me how many minutes were classed as active (I believe this is above 12 min miles) and also how many steps I have climbed (my Fitbit One annoying used to tell me to climb more, I live in a bungalow!!) & the sleep tracker is also interesting for showing your husband how much his snoring disturbs your sleep or how when he gets up in the morning for work he is obviously noisier than he thinks because your Fitbit shows your broken sleep

Another thing I haven’t personally tried but I hear a lot of people raving about is the challenges within the Fitbit community, you can add friends and then set yourself weekly or weekend walking challenges, as I said lots of people I know love this, for me fitness is a very personal thing and the only person I am ever in competition with is myself, but if it gets other moving more then it has to be a good thing

 ** NB although I was given my Fitbit One by Weight Watchers, my opinions are honest and my own and being given the product was not dependent on me writing a review **