I've had my Alta HR for a week now. Its purpose was to get me doing more exercise - something I wanted to become habitual, just as a change to healthier eating became habitual thanks to Slimming World. With my toe now fixed, the way was open for a two-pronged attack on excess weight and damaging sloth, both of which would ruin my prospects of enjoying an active later life.
Well, it's done the trick. Here's my record of daily steps - a screen shot from the Fitbit app, which analyses the raw information collected by the Alta HR and synced to my phone.
The first day, 28th August, was the day my Fitbit arrived. It was less than half a day. But since then I've been looking for ways to walk 10,000 steps every day, and I've succeeded on most days. Last Friday, an exception, was taken up with pilates and then a long lunch, an afternoon nap, and a quiz at the golf club in the evening. So I was not walking much. But in the main I've succeeded in walking my 10,000 steps a day.
I'm already feeling distinctly fitter, and much more inclined to get up on my feet. I have to sit still when typing a blog post, for instance, but now I make a point of moving around the house at frequent intervals, to break up the inactivity and get a few more steps in. For every one counts towards the daily total - although it's best, of course, if they are vigorous steps that get the heart beating fast and strongly.
Will this all last? I think so. Those 10,000 daily steps - 15,000 if I can manage it - are a daily goal that's not very hard to reach. I can generally do 4,000 steps merely in the course of pottering around the house and garden. A forty-minute walk around the village will easily bump this up to 10,000.
You know when you've hit the target - the Fitbit gently vibrates on your wrist and a celebratory display (it looks like bursting fireworks) shows up on the screen with a star (indicating another Award clocked up in my Fitbit Achievement Record) and the figures '10,000' following. You are naturally, when close to the 10,000-step target, going to take some extra steps in order to feel that vibration, and thus know you've achieved the main daily goal yet again. Why, it might even get you out in the rain to enjoy that buzz!
Contrary to first expectations, I haven't had to devise any set-piece walking sessions. No formal planning is required. Just a fast-paced impromptu walk along local streets and pathways, almost at random. I haven't gone near the South Downs, for instance. This is an important part of the appeal of exercising with a recording device that counts all steps, however taken, accurately and automatically. There's no fuss. You can be completely spontaneous, and pop out for a short burst of exercise on a sudden whim. You don't have to don special clothing or footwear. It's exercise as the mood takes you, as the opportunity presents, with no special preparation, and of course nil cost. Straight from one's front door, and without consuming big chunks of one's busy day. I've now seen and explored parts of the neighbourhood that I've never seen before, just because I wanted to get extra steps in, and was curious. What's not to like? No wonder I've stayed with it.
The Fitbit records more than just steps walked. The heart rate statistics are interesting too. Here's the summary record of my 'resting heart rate' for the last few days.
The graphs for each day show the actual heart rates through the day, and as you can see, my walking has become very brisk indeed on occasion. You can easily drill down to get fuller information for each day. Here's the detail for a 46-minute walk I took last Thursday, for instance.
Very interesting, both the summary and the detail.
Because I wear my Alta HR day and night, it records what happens to me while I sleep - another thing I'm especially interested in. I've long thought that I don't get enough sleep, and that it's not as beneficial to my well-being as it could be. Now I can experiment with different sleeping routines, and see the effect of the changes I can make. Such as: What happens if I go to bed before midnight? What happens if I don't play a few games of solitaire on my phone before going to sleep? Here for instance is how I slept last Thursday night, which was after my most strenuous day of walking so far.
I concluded from this that there was nothing badly amiss with my sleeping, but that if I could get to sleep earlier, and not faff around, I'd have a better chance of enjoying some super-restorative Deep Sleep. I am trying to get in seven hours' sleep. Historically I get five at night, and quite often up to two hours from napping in the afternoon.
This is last night's record. Another late night. It didn't help that I got home from playing cards with Jo and Clive up the road only after midnight. But, once finally in bed, I resisted the temptation to do things with my phone before putting head to pillow.
I find the sleep-time information and analyses the most fascinating part of having my Fitbit. It's an insight into what happens to me when I'm unconscious. And after all, this is a big segment of my life: I ought to be aware of what my body is doing while asleep. Now I can see, night after night.
No, I didn't recall any of those waking moments, except the one after 5.00am, when I went to the loo. One surprise is the amount of REM time, when I must have been dreaming. I can never remember anything about my dreams though, and hitherto I would have sworn that 'I never dream'. But clearly I do, as much as anyone.
So: was my purchase of the Alta HR worth it? Yes. Even if I eventually confine my ongoing enthusiasm for fitness to walking 10,000 steps a day, and never taking lifts and escalators, it will have served its purpose. It's an attractive eye-catching device, comfortable to wear all the time, and as a bare minimum it can tell me the time, day and date. I didn't need a watch - I could get the time from my phone - but I admit the Alta HR is useful and convenient in that role.
It is most comfortable strapped to my left wrist, so it's displaced my heavy serpent bangle to the right wrist. I thought this would look and feel odd, but - another surprise - it has worked out well.
And I'm glad now that I didn't spend £80 more to get the Fitbit Versa, which is the company's 'smartwatch' offering. I tried one on my wrist at John Lewis at Home last week, and it looked gigantic and decidedly inelegant.
It's not really for dainty female wrists! I tried it next to my Alta HR. I know which I'd want to wear all the time.
The Alta HR has some claim to being a fashion accessory, as well as a fashionable lifestyle gadget. It won't do my public image any harm. But really it's only a tool to get fitter with, a means to an end, a bit of tech equipment, and it stands or falls on what it can do versus any problems with wearing it all the time. If it does prove durable and significantly useful, then we will have a bright future together. The indications are that it probably will be my constant companion for the rest of the year at least, until daily exercising has become such an ingrained habit and feature of my life that I would miss it if I stopped. Beyond that? Well, we'll have to see.
The next post will be about something completely different!
