Some time ago, two acquaintances had some really bad health related new in the same week. It freaked me out quite a bit because they're both my age and working the same type of job and everything. So it left me with some soul searching and wondering about how I can prevent this from happening to me too.
The main problems are that 1) I work too much, 2) so I don't exercise at all and 3) therefore I don't always get a lot of sleep. I try to stay under 50 hours a week, but...Yea, not doing so well with that.
Hubby and I started consciously eating a lot better and healthier last year. That's good.
We also started doing what I call "The Team effort" for cleaning and generally tidying up.
Slight detour on the way to my point: I love the forum Get Off My Internet. Although it has its problems, I love how it picks apart the ridiculous pinterest-style of life and double standards that a lot of those social media/bloggers have. I find it ridiculously inspiring to read about the healthy living bloggers that just cannot lose weight and are picked apart on the forum for faking it and their lies upon lies. Before and after pictures where you just suck in your gut on the after? Fail. Instagram and blog telling two different stories? Fail. Same dirty sock on the floor in pictures supposedly two weeks ago? Yuck and fail.
It's really inspiring to see how people cut through that kind of bullshit. It actually helps to keep me from lying to myself about how little I actually move. Or what I eat.
It has helped to bring healthier food for work (Here, a delicious grilled salmon, cream cheese and avocado sandwich on high fiber bread) instead of being tempted to getting takeout with my coworkers. I appreciate that.
Anyways.
I tried to find the thread I'm thinking of, but haven't been able to. In this particular thread, a poster says something along the lines of "Eat a vegetable once in a while, get some fresh air and clean your home some time". So simple, but yet so awesome. It puts all the weird, crazy "diets" and "get healthy quick!"-self help books to shame.
I brought it up to Hubby and had him read some of the thread too. We put a little more effort into things like cleaning, and it evolved into these little exercises where we clean together. One of us grabs the vacuum cleaner and starts from one end off, the other starts airing out, disinfecting our work surfaces, sorts and takes out the trash, changes the bed sheets, cleans the kitchen or whatever else needs to be done. Then when we're done, we high five and feel really good about ourselves.
It's pretty awesome actually.
Back to the point.
Everything that I could do better right now, points back to my work load. If I worked less, I would probably bother to train, I would sleep more hours and I would have more time to relax or even have a hobby.
The thing is, I don't want to lower my hours/workload at the moment. I love Work #1 and Work #2 and they're great for my career.
So, what can you do?
I have asked my bosses at both works for a meeting each to discuss changing my work days around a little. Basically I want more work days in a row, to free up more days off in a row. When I only have one day off, I usually just end up doing chores and preparing for the upcoming work days. Not really something you relax with.
Please cross your fingers for me that I can get my way with this.
But. We have also made another change...
Hubby and I got Fitbits.
I have the Alta HR and Hubby has the Charge 2. I have some really conflicting opinions on these though.
On one hand it really helps by tracking how much you move during the day. Which is great! No more "Oh, I think I did pretty good today?", now we know for sure. It also tracks my sleeping pattern and helps me put more effort into getting a good nights sleep. It makes it a lot easier to adjust our diets, because now we know how much we burn.
But. But...
These things absolutely refuses to sync calls, texts or calendar entries up from any phone or tablet in our household.
Which #¤%& pisses me off, because this was the claim that made us pick fitbits to begin with. I hate when companies lie to you like that! And I hate when their customer service representatives only respond with "Have you read the FAQ?" or something similar when you contact them about their stupid product not working as promised.
If I had know the claim had been a fat lie, I would have picked another brand.
Of course we could have returned them but we ended up keeping them. They just only have half the actual functions we were promised. Not cool. I/we will replace them as soon as I find another brand and model I/we want.
I do not recommend anyone getting a Fitbit ever due to the product not working as advertised and the customer service being so condescending and useless.
It's still good for something though. And I feel it helps me stay on track.
Badass.
Anyways. Does anyone have a recommendation for me?
I'm looking for a smartwatch with activity sensoring or an activity band that can synchronize to other devices.
Requirements:
- Not Apple
- Not Fitbit
- Small and slim design
