Dad gets a Fitbit for Christmas and takes a selfieI thought I was just getting a gift, but it turned out to be a full-blown intervention. That thing on my wrist in the picture to the right is something called a Fitbit Charge. I was told it was not the one with the heart rate monitor in it, because that one does not come out for another month or so. I was told I am entirely too fat. I would have argued with them, but they were right. I have never been this big before in my life. They said they got this for me to help me assure I do not eat too much.

So I plugged the thing in to charge last night and set it up when I got up this morning. The Fitbit is that watch on my wrist–pretty fashionable. One thing I did figure out was that doing a selfie can be pretty complicated if you want to show off your new watch at the same time. It is a fun little device. I need to figure out how I am going to report my journey on the blog after I figure out whether I can stick with it.

I am an Industrial Engineer. Industrial engineers are numbers guys. My whole work life is centered around numbers and measuring things. I do not know how I am going to do with this Fitbit, but I will no longer have the excuse that I do not know where I am calorie-wise at any given time. It keeps track of how many steps you take and whether or not you are going up or down stairs. I am amazed at its accuracy. The reality is that it does not have to be perfect. All it really needs is to be close. You have to enter the food you eat so they can account for those calories, but they make that easy for you, too.

I have only had the thing on for a few hours, but every time I go up the stairs it adds another floor to how many flights of stairs I have walked. Whenever I walk, it adds up steps. Based on my weight, goals and how aggressive I want to be, it builds a dial on both my computer and on my phone that shows me how the amount of calories of have consumed stack up against how many calories I have expended for the day. The idea is to end up with the dial indicator in the green at the end of the day. If you do that day in and day out, you will hit your goal in the specified amount of time. I like it and gong to try to make it work.

So far today, I have had an Egg McMuffin, a meduim diet coke and four and a half cups of coffee. I have not done any exercise other than going down to the kitchen from the bonus room to feed the cats and get more coffee. Here is the dial for my current status:

Fitbit dial

Update:  The watch vibrates when I receive a phone call. How cool is that?