Every Step You Take
How many steps did I take today? How many floors did I climb? How many calories did I burn? Every single night I look over the answers to these questions; reviewing my daily statistics on my Fitbit app has become a part of my nightly social media routine [Instagram, Snapchat, Instagram, Fitbit, Instagram, fall asleep with phone in hand]. If you know me, you know that I love my Fitbit. I think its tracking capabilities have added a lot to my fitness journey, and I enjoy being able to look back and see my progress. It makes me smile when my Fitbit screen buzzes and displays pixelated fireworks to let me know that I’ve met my step goal for the day. Right now, my Fitbit and I are pals.
That said, there have definitely been times in the past that I’ve had a less healthy relationship with tracking technology. Two summers ago, after coming back from my first year of college, I noticed that I’d put on a little bit of weight. Not much—just five pounds or so since the last time I’d been home for winter break, and nothing compared to the infamous “freshman fifteen” that I’d been so desperately afraid of. This was before the days of my first Fitbit, so I used an app called “Lose It” to track my food intake in an attempt to make healthier eating choices. Based on my age, current weight, and my activity level (I’d ranked myself as “moderately” active; I went to the gym every day but I also had an internship where I sat at a desk for most of the day, so it seemed like a good compromise), Lose It told me that to lose ten pounds by the end of the summer, I should eat 1400 calories a day. I didn’t track macronutrients or anything like that to ensure that these would be a healthy 1400 calories. Instead, I just limited myself—or at least I tried to.
What usually ended up happening was that I would eat a low-calorie breakfast (a single yogurt or a weight-loss shake), go the gym, be starving by mid-morning at work and eat another small snack so that by lunchtime I was ravenous again. I could usually keep it together through lunch, but then I would snack all afternoon, neglect to log those snacks in my food tracking app, and then feel like I’d already veered so far off the planned healthy path that dinner couldn’t possibly redeem me, so I ate unhealthily for that meal too. Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with me eating whatever I want! But I didn’t feel good. Every day I felt like I’d let myself down because I couldn’t meet the unattainable eating goals that I’d set for myself. By the end of the summer, I’d put on more weight instead of losing what I’d gained during the school year, and I felt frustrated, dejected, and unsure how to change my ways.
At the beginning of my sophomore year, in the wake of my summer of [delicious] gluttony, I bought my first Fitbit. I immediately fell in love, not only with my cute bright pink wristband, but also with the clean, user-friendly mobile app interface, which easily allowed me to track a variety of different statistics. The exercise tracking on my Fitbit helped me establish a more sustainable model for counting calories—I still aimed for a 500 calorie deficit, but I hadn’t realized how incorrectly my previous app had estimated my calorie output. The Fitbit food tracker provides a goal amount of calories based on daily activity, which worked much better for my particular lifestyle. For instance, on days when I had practice and burned close to three thousand calories, my Fitbit suggested I consume 2500, but on a lazy Saturday where I might only burn two thousand, it prompted me to eat closer to 1500. This system worked much better for me because it didn’t leave me hungry on the days that I did more physical activity, and I felt like I had a much clearer picture of my overall fitness off of which to base my eating habits.
Still, I had problems with this system. I would “sneak” extra snacks and not enter them into the tracker, I would still go off the rails at dinnertime if I’d already had an unhealthy day. It wasn’t about hiding my eating habits from other people; obviously, I was the only person affected by these choices. It just allowed me to delude myself into feeling healthy by seeing what I viewed as positive “under target” messages on my food tracking page. But as I kept gaining weight, it started getting to me. I felt like I was spinning out of control, and I started to recognize the falsehoods in my food tracking system. On a whim, I decided to stop wearing my Fitbit altogether and see where that would take me.
With my newfound freedom, I definitely did not immediately embrace more healthy habits. It took me a while to recalibrate my system and understand what naturally filled me up and what quantities of food I actually needed and wanted. I didn’t get it right away, at all. By the end of my sophomore year, I had gained ten more pounds on top of the previous weight that I had never actually lost. I felt uncomfortable in my body, I felt like I could do better, and I wanted to make a change. So, at the very end of that semester, I dug my Fitbit back out from the recess of my junk drawer [you know you have one too, don’t lie to yourself].
I started tracking my food again, but this time it was different—and the time was right. My rowing team was training for our national championship regatta, so we were practicing outside in the ninety-degree humid heat of Williamsburg for two lengthy practices each day. I was burning calories like crazy. Tracking my food at that time, when I had many calories to spare in terms of eating, made for an easier transition into establishing good tracking habits. I was determined to track everything I ate, even if it pushed my food tracking graphic into the pink “over target” zone. Recognizing that a combination of over- and under- days best represents my actual lifestyle made me much more comfortable with food tracking, and I continued it all summer in a trend of exercising and eating healthily that helped me lose twenty pounds from May of last year up to present day.
I can’t say that I did it by myself—I spent all summer with two of my sisters, one of whom is an amazing athlete who was also invested in eating light with me. Together, we learned how to cook healthy meals for ourselves but also definitely hopped off the wagon sometimes for ice cream or other treats, and luckily our other sister didn’t grow tired of my small repertoire of tasty but light meals. We enjoyed our healthy food: lots of summery fruit smoothies, grilled chicken, salads [with all the toppings], and cauliflower rice stir-fry. But we also ate ice cream sandwiches and sometimes pasta and so many dried coconut chips that they surpassed the point of “small snack” and became more like “medium-sized meal.” We were able to find a perfect, sustainable balance in our diets that made us feel good. So, thanks Jade and Stella for eating more cauliflower-crust pizza than anyone should ever have to eat in one summer!
I may have tracked food all summer, but when I got back to school, I almost immediately stopped, and I haven’t picked that habit back up again since. Tracking over the summer and identifying healthy alternatives to some of the more calorie-dense foods that I enjoy has helped me better evaluate the nutritional value of the things I’m going to eat these days, but I don’t physically log them into my Fitbit app. I do still wear the tracker though—I always track my workouts, and it’s fun to see how far I’ve come. I like the numerical representations of what my body is capable of because I fuel it with both what it needs and what it wants. My current definition of healthy is eating salads and grilled chicken and cauliflower pizza [had that today for lunch, guys], but also greasy, cheesy regular pizza and blue M&Ms and chicken lo mein—and tracking none of it! I’ve learned to trust my body to tell me how much and what to eat instead of relying on tracking to feel comfortable with my food intake.
Fitness and food tracking can definitely have its place and purpose in life, but I would argue that it’s critically important to find a balance between what your body is telling you and what your tracker is telling you. Before you strap on your Fitbit or Apple Watch tomorrow morning, before you log that oatmeal into your food app, take a moment to consider what benefit you’re getting out of that tracking. What is it adding to your day? Is it taking anything away? Most importantly, will you feel happier without it? That’s the question that I always ask myself when I evaluate the importance of some feature of my life, and I invite you to do the same. I’m looking forward to hearing about all of your fitness tracking experiences—it can be a very complex relationship, but I hope this post provides you with relatable content at the least so that you know you’re not alone in feeling confused about tracking some days.
