My new Fitbit Alta HR - first impressions!

I dare say some readers must be getting fed up with my in-depth posts on this fitness gadget! But look: fitness is important. It makes life extra-enjoyable. It prolongs active life (that's reminiscent of a TV dog food advert from ages ago, but it's true all the same). And the time has come in my life to get seriously pro-active about prolonging it. So no apologies. I want to share my enthusiasm.

By late afternoon yesterday my Fitbit had arrived, and I'd carefully unpacked it. I opened the box, photographing every stage. I won't show every picture, but these will give the idea.

The warranty stuff was in the envelope on the left. The sealed packet contained the USB charging cable that would plug into my laptop.

What a neat little device! Nice and simple. Interestingly, the strap wasn't in the reddish-purple colour I saw on the Amazon website, but the standard purple on Fitbit's website (which Fitbit called 'Fuschia'). Not an Amazon Special after all, then! I didn't mind. It was a nice colour all the same, and more distinctive - in my opinion - than the 'safe' black that people seemed to go for more often than not. Sue's Alta HR had a black strap. So had Diwa's. (Diwa was one of the Boots Pharmacy staff at Burgess Hill, whom I'd been chatting to earlier that day: a slim young lady keen on fitness and general wellbeing)

My new Fitbit wasn't already charged up and showing the time: those were white-printed figures on a piece of plastic film protecting the screen. The screen was, for now, dead, as I realised once that film was peeled away. But it gave a faithful impression of what the screen would show once my Fitbit was charged up. Well, let's do that.

As you can see, a special clip held the charging head fast against the electrical contacts on the underside of the tracker. I waited a short while, then tried setting it up.

You had first to pair it with your phone. With all recent Android phones (and Tigerlily was a Samsung Galaxy S8+ from last year) you not only had to turn on Bluetooth, but also GPS. It didn't matter at all about getting a location fix - you didn't have to wait for that - it was to let the phone overcome an Android security protocol that would otherwise stop it communicating with the tracker. I intended to always sync phone and tracker manually on demand, and not have continuous communication (which would be too much of a battery hit). So both types of radio needed to be switched on when syncing and updating Tigerlily's Fitbit, then both switched off again afterwards. No big deal.

They paired easily. (This was also true when I paired Verity - my Microsoft Surface Book laptop - with the Fitbit later on, to study everything on a larger screen, using the same app in its Windows 10 guise)

I put in some basic details.

And that was as far as I got for now - it seemed wise to let my device fill up with charge before attempting anything else. This I now did. I left it alone while got on with other things, such as cooking and eating my evening meal. Then I disconnected the charger and strapped my new Fitbit onto my right-hand wrist.

Looks good? I think so. I adjusted the strap so that it wasn't slack, but definitely a firm fit. But not tight. I don't like anything tight there. This was comfortable. But all the same, I was highly conscious of Something New And Strange on my wrist. However, I knew that (a) in time the strap would 'mould' itself more naturally to my wrist shape, making it even more comfortable, and that (b) I'd soon get used to wearing it. As I had with the quite-heavy 'serpent' silver bangle on my other wrist, which at first I was conscious of all the time. This gadget was lightweight by comparison.

I was now eager to try it out. So, as planned, I walked to the supermarket, then took another route back home. And once home, synced again and considered the results. 

Hmm. that thirty-five minute walk had made a difference to my day's calorie burn. And had already bumped up the number of steps for the day to 3,000 or so. Well, if the thing incentivised me to get out on foot twice a day, and generally look for ways to move around on my feet at home, then it would certainly assist my weight-watching and get me gradually fitter, which was my aim. I had no ambitions to be a star performer; just good enough to tackle hills and stairs without getting out of breath, and enjoy the effort.

I wore my Fitbit to bed. In the morning, I synced yet again and found the results fascinating. While asleep, my new device had been measuring various things, and they were set out for me in the app. Let's look at some of the screens. 

First, the opening position for today, on what Fitbit calls the Dashboard.

That's how things stood soon after I got up, and before breakfast. Most of those 1,014 steps were taken after midnight, before I went to bed, and when getting up. Let's look at them in more detail.

As you can see, I got to bed rather late (so that I slept only six hours in all). I'm glad to see that my Fitbit recorded my quick visit to the toilet for a pee around 4.00am. It wasn't sleeping on the job, then!

There was also an analysis of yesterday's Active Minutes - times when exercise taken had an effect on fat burn, and even a cardio element to it.

What a surprise! I hit my twenty-minute target yesterday. I must have walked more briskly than I thought. Let's look more closely at that walk. My Fitbit automatically recognised when I was in 'walking mode' and recorded the duration of it for later showing in the app.

I must have stepped out extra-strongly before I reached the supermarket. The dip is when I was in there, buying something. Then I walked homewards at a steady pace. There was also a screen to summarise the effect of this one piece of exercise on my day as a whole.

I think it's saying that I had just the one spell of 'Walking Exercise' yesterday, and that accounted for 2,974 of the 4,091 steps I took overall, from the moment of setting-up my Fitbit in late afternoon. 

What about overall calorie consumption?

Based on my current age, weight and height, Fitbit reckons my minimum daily calorie consumption (for just being alive) is 1,432, which provides a baseline. Well, the previous-day's exercise (enhanced by that evening walk to the supermarket and back) burned almost 300 calories. I've set a tentative daily target of 2,000 calories to use up, and to get there I must clearly do twice what I did yesterday. A morning and afternoon effort then. I wonder how soon I will need to reset that target? 

Did you notice? Even going for a pee halfway through the night burns a few calories!

I did have a couple of screens on how my six-hour sleeping went. They analysed my awake moments, my light sleep, my deep sleep, and when I had REM and was dreaming. Unfortunately I deleted all of this accidentally, before I could take a screen shot. Silly me. But I will have more stats to show by tomorrow.

Then there was information on my heart rates, both exercising and at rest. The resting figure is a key indicator of general fitness.

Fitbit automatically works out what my current 'cardio fitness' is - I don't do anything myself. 

Excellent cardio fitness? At least for women of my age? That's reassuring - but I'm taking Fitbit's first assessment with a pinch of salt! Let's see what my device records over the next few days, and then see what the app concludes.

All this is undeniably useful stuff, and highly interesting too. I now want to get on my day, and get some more results clocked up. I think this could easily become a habit. Well, that's the desired outcome. Just as eating on Slimming World lines has become habitual, so can exercising to get up to a good fitness level, and then stay there. I'm now motivated.

I really like the fact that any worthwhile movement that the Fitbit recognises as 'exercise' counts towards the daily total. Which means that an active day at home can contribute much to the day's results. I don't have to commit myself to formal exercising sessions at set times, disrupting my day, although clearly I need to set aside time every day for a brisk stroll or two. But I can do it in short bursts - basically at my convenience - and it will all count. 

I've always abandoned previous attempts at regular exercising because it stole big chunks of my day, and I couldn't see the effect in figures and graphs straight away. Now I can.

This 'little but often' approach, adding a bit more every week as I get accustomed to the effort needed, might well work for me in the long run, which is what I want. If so, buying this gadget will have been one of the better things I've done with my money.