I heard on TV yesterday that 45% of all Americans resolve to live a healthier lifestyle each year on New Year’s Day. Of that number, 70% make it through the first 30 days living up to their commitments, and 35% have maintained some element of their healthy resolutions by year end.
I personally am not a fan of making resolutions, I’m more of a stop-talking-about-it-and-just-do-it type. Except when it comes to dieting. Which of course is what 90% of all New Year’s Resolutions are all about anyway. When it comes to dieting, I just talk about it all the time and never do it for more than 5 days in a row. Hence, 10 pounds in 10 years.
In my just-do-it mode, this Christmas I bought myself a Fitbit Flex Wristband so I can track my daily diet and activity, which has declined significantly now that I am chained to my computer.  The Fitbit also tracks the amount of restful sleep I get, which is a nice extra but not one I really need, since I pretty much know that myself, every morning when I wake up. And while I can track my diet or not-diet and exercise easily with an app like MyFitnessPal, I cannot for the life of me count my steps. I just know I am way way behind on the 10,000 step daily recommendation. So, I am trying a fitness band to track the steps I take or don’t take every day….and Fitbit has a great food database to track diet along with…..and is easy to wear and use. I’ll let you know how it goes over the next few months. If you are thinking about something like this, here are a few others that are popular:
Updated version of the fitbit flex, where you can see the #s on your wrist instead of having to hit the app. Not worth the extra $$ for me, since I have to hit the app to load in my diet and non-pedometric exercise like spinning and barre anyway.
Billed as more than just a fitness tracker. The Jawbone Up system takes a holistic approach towards a quantifiably healthier you. Â It features sleep and nap tracking that measure deep vs light sleep, 24/7 activity tracking, food and drink tracking, mood tracking (I have this for free, it’s called my husband), an insight engine, idle alert, smart alarm, and has a power nap feature that wakes you up at around 26.5 minutes after you fall asleep.
The FuleBand SE tracks the intensity of your workouts with Nike+ Sessions, counts steps, enables sleep tracking, tells the time, displays your progress in real time, and keeps you and your friends motivated through Nike+ Groups. This one claims to measure calories burned from hard to quantify activities like barre, yoga, tennis, spinning, etc. Some people like the social sharing aspect, where your successes and failures are shared with friends, and some do not.
If you just want a great free app to count calories, nutrititonal info and your exercise routine, I love MYFITNESSPAL. Their database is huge and it’s pretty much the standard bearer in phone apps on this topic. I think you’ll find the very act of having to input every morsel you eat or drink will cause you to lose weight. Sometimes, I just skip a snack to avoid the work of having to input it. Nice! Lazy does pay off!
