I caved. I bought a FitBit. Yep. I’m now one of THOSE people who is wearing this thing on their wrist.

I haven’t exactly stopped running since last year but I’m not doing it as much. A combination of weather, starting a new job and not having enough time, and other factors didn’t have me running much in the winter. Now that it’s getting spring again, the weather is good though it’s getting warmer which I personally don’t like to run in. I do need to get back into more running, for health’s sake and plus I have another 5k in June I’ll be doing.

But in the meantime, I’m doing a lot of walking thanks to the FitBit. Honestly word of mouth really was the biggest influence in me getting one. One of my bosses had one and she was very enthusiastic about trying to get her steps in every day. Then several of my friends had gotten one and I swear it was all they could talk about. I didn’t want to feel left out so I finally caved and got myself one. Now I think we all talk about it so much we’ve convinced other people to join us and get one.

What exactly does it do? It tracks steps you take, calories burnt, floors climbed, miles walked, and how you sleep. Why didn’t I just get a regular cheap-o pedometer and save some money? I could have but honestly there’s not really any motivation to use it. It’s interesting to track how much I walk at work and then how much I have to still have to do to make sure I complete my 10k steps each day. Side effects = better sleep among other things.

What I like best about it is the gamefication. You get badges for daily records being broken as well as lifetime goals. We all know how much I like badges.

Currently I’m doing challenges with two of my friends. We’ve done daily, weekend, and work week competitions to see who can walk the most steps.

The competition gets pretty intense. This is us the other night while we were in the middle of a walk together. One of us couldn’t synched up their FitBit with their phone so their stats were a little off. Thus the other two of us were extremely happy that we were in the lead. It doesn’t matter that it was a short lived victory. We celebrated.

Actually the competition is really great because it forces me to try to get my steps done. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t try to reach the 10k goal without it but I think that doing it alone would probably get old fast. At least this way it gives me the added push to keep going because I NEED TO BEAT MY FRIENDS.

So I know that not everyone needs or wants this. You could very well do all these things without it and be perfectly happy. But I know for me, this is helping me a lot and I’m pleased with it so far.