fitbit Charge: A Review

2014 was a year of big changes for my little family.

1. The Husband and I decided that it was time again for the Daughter and I to move back to Singapore (which we did middle of that year).
2. After 4 years of being a stay-at-home mom, I was lucky enough to have been given the opportunity to restart my HR career again.  This time in the Lion City.
3. We are now parents of an active pre-schooler (a.k.a. The-Daughter-formerly-known-as-The-Little-One.  How time flies!

So as expected, work and parenting duties has been keeping me quite busy nowadays.  Imagine this:

• The Husband and I wake up at 6:00 AM and get ready for the day.  The Daughter is coaxed out of bed by 7:00 AM for breakfast and the usual morning dress-up routine.
• Drop off the Daughter at childcare ("daycare" to us used to American English) at 8:00 AM (yes, we decided not to get a yaya/nanny/helper).
• Work for the Husband and I starts at 9:00 AM and ends at 6:00 PM.  OTs happen (thankfully, not so often but it's unavoidable sometimes), but we work around the schedule at least to make sure one of us is free to...
• Pick up the Daughter by 6:30 PM.
• Arrive home by 7:00 PM (after a brief run through the playground).  Daylight hours here are quite different in PH.  We see light by around 7:00 AM and experience the sun setting at around 7:00 in the evening.
• We have dinner by 7:30 PM.  Hopefully, with all of us together.
• At bed by 9:00 PM.
• Start, repeat again for the next 4 weekdays.
• Weekends are spent (1) grocery shopping, (2) shuttling the Daughter to pre-school gymnastics class (on Saturdays), and (3) just plain going around town for a break at the usual routine (or if we're particularly lazy/want to save money, we stay at home.)

Considering our busy schedules, it was actually a surprise when I found that been feeling kinda sluggish days on end, a huge sign I am definitely out of shape.  Huhuhu!

Now, I'm not exactly the exercising type (gym club membership and the like), but I do love to walk, which in Singapore is actually quite easy to accomplish.  You can survive without a car here, what with the great public transport system and all.  So the one thing that really got me thinking was, considering I was actually walking more than when I was in the home country, why am feeling less peppy and energized.

To get to the bottom of it all (and mainly due to my endless hinting), the Husband gave me a fitbit Charge for my birthday last year.

My fitbit Charge

The fitbit brand offers activity bands that let's you monitor your steps, miles walked/ran, and active minutes, among others.  Think a glorified pedometer with a whole lot of additional functionalities.

The brand offers different types of activity bands to fit each person's needs.  The fitbit Charge is one of them and is great for those who aren't the gym-going/serious marathoner type but would just like to keep track of their everyday movements (just screams me!). 
 

Wearable tech

To use, just slap on your wrist and leave the rest to the band.  The LCD screen shows the date, time and current movement data, serves as a good reminder to continue moving to meet your steps

Data syncs quite as easily with the fitbit Dashboard app, which you can download for free in the Apple App, Google Play and Windows App Stores.

fitbit App

The app can also help you monitor your calories and let's you log in your food intake via a food log section.  However, I find their food database sorely lacking.  Fret not though, as you can connect your fitbit account to other calorie counter apps (personally, I use MyFitnessPal.  Their database is astounding, which includes info on various Asian dishes.)

SOURCE: MyFitnessPal.com

A month in of wearing the band, I learned that I am easily able to meet 8,000 steps on weekdays.  As health practitioners mention, 10,000 is the ideal number of steps we need to take in any given day.  And so I just continue on walking to reach the required number, being conscious of every opportunity to add on to my step counter.  Heck!  I even started walking down our office stairs 2-3x a workday! (I still have not mustered the strength to walk up the stairs everyday, but at least I'm trying.  Lol.)  As they say, every little step counts.

End of the day numbers

A month after, I realized I was meeting the 10K easily already and so I'm challenging myself to reach 12,000 a day.  So far, so good.

The fitbit Charge retails for S$188 (approx P6,300).  All of this and it functions as a watch too!  It's stylish and function all rolled into one package.

***

fitbit
W     https://www.fitbit.com/sg