Tag: Fitbit

Sporadic Update

An organized compilation of random subjects plaguing me that I may have posted about, but which I think I should update readers about.

  • The Trial. A plea bargain was accepted so I don’t need to testify about the break-in. The saddest aspect (besides tangible evidence that strange, sick people are out there) is that our beloved neighbor, Barb, has moved out. She’s just too frightened in her house any longer. That’s troubling. Barb and Walt were two of the best things about our location. Walt’s passed away and Barb has moved away, moving me to sigh about change and life.
  • The close call. I survived one close call in April, when I endured one of the worst haircuts I’ve ever received. This young ‘stylist’ was clearly a novice and took to my head with the same sense of style that military barbers employed when I entered basic training. Fortunately, my hair has grown out into something that looks reasonable again.
  • Tucker. Tucker suffers from conjunctive gingivitis. We submitted him to some oral surgery in April. It went terrific. Several teeth were removed, including one of his big lower front fangs, if you will, but he’s not having any swelling, bad breath, pain or drooling, so hooray! On the coin’s flip side, he’s feeling so much better that he’s very energetic and wants to assert his position as the alpha beast.
  • Other cats. Peace has been brokered between Meep (a.k.a. Popi) and Boo Radley. Boo’s PTSD also seems to be diminishing. The big bedroom bagheera without a tail has become more trusting of us. Quinn, of course, remains Quinn, a sweet, charming cat who prefers to avoid conflict.
  • Neighbor cats. Pepper, Princess and Buddy continue their visits and begging. Pepper remains the worse. That’s a little surprising. We always believed Wade’s corgi, Bella, annoyed Pepper, driving her toward us. Sadly, Bella passed away from cancer last month. She’ll be missed but with her absence, we thought that Pepper’s daily visits would taper off. They still could, with time. It could be that what was once refuge is now habit, though. Buddy is a sweet little black character. He’s clearly well-fed, but enjoys being petted and presented kibble, which, being a sucker for cats, I do.
  • The cats’ activities interfere with yard work. Here they come when I make an appearance, pop, pop, pop, Pepper, Buddy and Princess, pop, pop, pop, Boo, Meep and Quinn. (I keep Tucker away for the safety of the rest.) Boo likes to settle right beside me, instructing me about what I’m doing wrong as I weed and mulch while the rest visit each other and observe me. All flee to safe distances when the edger and mower come out.
  • Fitbit. I took some Fitbit hits with the travel last month. Daily mileage on average dropped to five and a quarter miles per day while the average of steps per day dipped to about twelve thousand for the year to date. But summer is here, so I have hope I can raise those averages.
  • Reading. Just read four books in April: ‘Ordinary Grace’ (which I loved), ‘I Am Pilgrim’ (a quick, fast read that had some flaws but remained compelling), ‘The Passenger’ (although interesting, a disappointment), and ‘The Devil’s Star’ (a Jo Nesbo Harry Hole novel). Just started ‘The Shadow of the Wind’ at my other’s insistence.
  • Writing. Really hope to finish ‘Long Summer’ soon and get it out there. Its complications absorb a lot of limited brain power keeping it all straight and then trying to present it in a manner that won’t cause insanity among readers. Still *ahem* haven’t leaped back into publishing like I wanted/planned/expected but I remain determined to do so. ‘Peerless’, ‘Everything in Black and White’, the Spider City’ trilogy, and ‘Fix Everything’ all need to undergo the editing and publishing process. Meanwhile, I’m really eager to write the third book in the Lessons with Savanna mystery series.

There are other things to write about, of course, particularly on the family fronts, but I shield them and their activities, so I post very little about that. Politics, technology and economics remain passions that deserve posts but I end up diverting too much energy to write much about them. Dreams are experienced every night, so I could write about those, too, like last night, when I didn’t like how the dream was going, and changed it in the middle, astonishing everyone in the dream. We’re also undergoing the annual raccoon invasion, and dealing with yard work. My wife’s health continues to be a concern while I remain stupidly healthy. Trips and adventures are planned, and we’re hopeful we can pull some of them off this year and not get sucked back into the black hole of family issues.

Overall, I’m excited, optimistic and hopeful, a great way to live. The writer is pestering me to get on to it with Brett, Philea, Handley and the rest, so it’s time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Fitbit Writing

I’ve had my Fitbit for three and a half months. My daily average for steps is eleven thousand, seven hundred. My daily miles are five point five two. My personal best for daily steps was seventeen thousand, five hundred.

Until yesterday. Yesterday, I achieved almost twenty-two thousand steps and ten miles. I confess, if I’d known I was so close to doubling my average, I would have done it. That’s how I’m wired.

Now it’s the morning after.

I feel great but I question myself about what my Fitbit goal and expectations should be. I will work to reach and exceed my daily goals. I want to attempt another big walking and exercising day.

It’s the same way with writing. I typically write about eleven hundred words a day. I also edit, revise and polish. That’s part of my pantser organic writing process. My writing mind is like a loom weaving the story. I move back and forth through it.

Some days, I catch fire. The most I’ve ever written in one day was five thousand words, five thousand very intense words. Just like walking twenty-two thousand steps yesterday, it felt awesome. The next day, I wanted to do again. Why, if I could do five thousand words a day, every day, I’d become impressively prolific.

But the next day’s writing session was a struggle to achieve my standard output. I fought to achieve one thousand words and felt exhausted and disenchanted afterwards. It’s been like that with other writing days when I’ve doubled or tripled my average. Why, I tested myself to understand.

After thinking about this over the years, I’ve concluded that I do have a finite daily energy level. Exceeding that can happen but it takes it toll on the next day. I don’t know if science and medicine back me up on this, or if others have had the same experience. I know through my military experience of working twelve plus hours a day through illness and terrible conditions that I can draw deeper from the well. But doing so requires me to shut out absolutely everything else.

That was easy to do in a military environment. We had an established mission with a high priority. Other missions and units were depending on us. If we failed, a domino effect began. The stakes were high. So was the visibility.

Our expectations also set us up for success. Everyone outside of ours – family, friends and other unit members – understood our focus. They knew we didn’t have time or energy for anything else, and they gave us space.

But the writing experience is different from the military experience and the Fitbit experience. With Fitbit goals, it’s a personal goal. If I don’t make it, well, that sucks, but c’est la vie. The military commitment was well-established and understood.

Writing, however, is a terribly personal beast that has a hold on me. While the Fitbit goals require physical commitment with some smaller levels of intellectual and emotional commitments, I have all that in me, no problem. The military commitments were drawn at higher levels from those same veins.

The veins of energy and activity required for writing are much, much different. Physically, sitting in a chair, thinking, reading and typing, it doesn’t seem like it should be taxing. Yet, it becomes physically exhausting. Writing takes more out of me than walking all those steps.

Likewise, from intellectual and creative points of view, writing is more of a debilitating challenge. I worked for a decade for IBM as a planner and analyst. I was often presented with unique business cases to analyze and consider for my recommendations, observations and inputs. Those were interesting and challenging logic problems, and required intensely creative problem solving approaches, but still, they fell way short of what’s called for when fiction writing. Yes, my stories, characters, situations and worlds tend toward being complicated and involved. I remain constantly astounded by the levels of commitment I give my writing.

Returning to my Fitbit goals, I understand that twenty-two grand was a terrific result for me. I’ll enjoy it and move on because my goal is not to beat myself every day, but to maintain and achieve an average that will help me toward greater goals of being healtheir. In other words, the daily steps are not an end of themselves but part of a larger process.

So it is, too, with the writing. The word counts, editing, revising and polishing are not the end results. They’re part of a larger process of conceiving, writing, finishing and publishing a novel.

Time to write like crazy now, at least one more time.

 

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The Fitbit Effect

“You’ve won your penguin award,” the email said, or something like that. “You’ve walked seventy miles already! That’s the same distance the emperor penguin walks each year,” or something.

It was an email from Fitbit. Cool, seventy miles, I thought, in two weeks. Not great, but I’ll take it. Besides those emails with odd ‘awards’ and progress announcements, the Fitbit has had some interesting influences.

My wife and I each have a Fitbit and wear them continuously, except to recharge. Recharging is required about every five days. It takes one to two hours, but damn it, I was chuffed: that is one to two hours where my activity isn’t being counted. I’M BEING CHEATED.

We’ve taken to jogging around the house, ensuring the right arm, where we wear the Fitbit, swings forward and back. We often jog in place as we’re doing things. “Hey, did you read the news?” she asked, jogging in place. “No,” I answered, jogging toward her and then jogging in place as we chatted. “What news?”

We’re both right-handed so we’ve both figured out how to do things with our left hand instead of our right hand, and continue jogging in place. Making coffee and popcorn, cooking in general, getting the mail, the newspaper, emptying the trash and recycle…brushing our teeth. I’ve drawn the line at shaving my face and drinking liquids.

Everything is taken as an opportunity to add steps. Where we used to empty the car in one or two loads after shopping, to minimize the number of trips, we now carry less so we can maximize the required trips.

It’s insane. 

It also seems a little addictive.

I’ve entered into competition with myself – I did fourteen thousand steps yesterday – go for fifteen thousand today! – along with a spousal competition. “How many steps have you done today?” my wife asked this morning, after returning from her Y work-out.

I’d been expecting this. “I’m at four thousand.”

Her eyes widened. “I’m at forty-one hundred.”

We both started running.

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Strap It On

Well, it’s been a week since we strapped them on. I had mentioned buying them in passing about a year ago. Like a volunteer seed, it took root in my wife’s thinking. After a year, we finally  took action. Now I can provide some feedback on what a Fitbit has meant to me and my life, at least one week of it.

My Fitbit is a Charge 2, worn on my right wrist. The Fitbit informs me that I walk an average of twelve thousand steps and five miles a day. My highest miles walked were five point six, measured out in fourteen thousand steps. My resting BPM is fifty-nine, with a low of fifty-five and a high of one hundred thirty-nine, reached when I walked up the equivalent of thirteen floors of steps while doing an urban hike. I averaged seven hours and fifty-seven minutes of sleep per night, awakening three times. I’m usually restless twelve times per night, with a high of seventeen.

All interesting stuff. I’m dubious about its accuracy. It seems to think you’re sleeping if you’re reclined and not moving. But my wife and I both note, yeah, we’re in bed, but we’re not always sleeping just because we’re not moving.

I’m pretty pleased with my walking activity. We’ve endured many days in the low mid to low twenties and high teens where built up ice encumbered walking. I’m also recovering from wrenching my right knee while on the ladder, cleaning smoothie off the kitchen ceiling.

The Fitbit seems very dependent on arm movement. Don’t move your arms, you don’t get credit, it seems. It also sometimes seems to work in blocks. Yesterday, crossing the house to attend the cats, I checked my steps: twelve thousand, six hundred forty. I found the cats, petted them, provided them with catnip fixes, went around checking on doors, poured and drank some water, refilled the water pitcher, and took out the recycling. Then I checked my Fitbit.

It still registered twelve thousand, six hundred forty.

I knew I’d been moving around, and I swung my arms when I was walking, if I didn’t carry anything, so I knew – what? That the steps hadn’t registered. But was it a question of yet? 

Indeed it was. After sitting down at the computer and turning on Sneaky Pet’ on Amazon, I checked my Fitbit, and my steps had jumped. It had a full charge, done earlier that day, so I put this down to a system flaw.

Despite these things, I like the Fitbit. I installed the app on my iTablet or whatever it’s called and the two synchronize whenever they’re near one another. What I like is that it tracks and counts a great deal of information. Even if it’s rudimentary or flawed, it provides a sufficient structure to encourage me to do more and be more mindful about what I’m doing. The Fitbit buzzes every hour to remind me to move around, something I appreciate. My wife and I often make a game of that, first marching around to ‘Colonel Bogey’s March’, and then chasing each other around the furniture until one of us needs to go pee.

Once I have three weeks of averages, I can establish goals to move around more. The biggest thing is that I want this as a companion, and not a master. I don’t want to become obsessed with counting steps or miles and reaching higher and higher levels, but to use it to enhance my healthy practices.

Of course, part of me thinks into the future, when the Fitbit’s technology is improved and replaced. Then I expect to find it in a drawer, forgotten, and take the opportunity to write, “Do you remember Fitbits? We used to wear them to count our steps.”

Who knows what we’ll be using by then?

 

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