I am curious to hear who uses activity monitors, which one you use, and what you love about it. I have been considering trying out a FitBit or a Jawbone, but I can’t decide. I use the Weight Watchers ActiveLink now, and I really like it. I’m not sure what the benefit would be for me to switch other than to save the $5 monthly subscription fee.
The reason I LOVE my ActiveLink is that is provides great feedback. It converts my activity into PointsPlus values for me, which is great. I tend to struggle with proper estimating. It also helps me understand when I have been active enough just in my daily living and when I have not. Last weekend, I worked on my blog quite a bit on Saturday which meant a lot of time just sitting at my computer, hardly moving. I worked out around dinnertime. Normally I would have applauded myself for working out and counted that workout as activity points. Thanks to my ActiveLink, I found out that I actually did NOT earn activity points for that workout since I had been SO inactive the rest of the day.
I took a couple pictures of my computer display to show what I mean. Both of these photos were taken when I plugged in my ActiveLink AFTER my workout. In the top photo, you can see that Today’s progress still says 0 activity PointsPlus values. The bottom photo shows that I literally JUST met my baseline. My baseline is the amount of normal activity I should get without formal exercise. The fact that I was just meeting my baseline at 6pm after working out for an hour is a problem. If I wasn’t wearing the ActiveLink, I wouldn’t have realized this or even thought about it!
Wearing the ActiveLink every day helps me have a more accurate idea how many activity points I am truly earning. It reminds me to try to be more active all the time, not just for 30 minutes a day during a workout. It shows me when I am close to hitting my daily goal which motivates me to do a little more.
Which activity monitor do you use? What do you love or hate about it?
Steph says
Hmmmm….I was going to say I love my fitbit but after reading your blog I may switch to the ActiveLink.
Tanya says
I have heard lots of good things about the Fitbit too, so I can’t say that one is better than the other. I learned just the other day that now the Fitbit and Jawbone will sync with the WW site too, so that’s what got me thinking about it.