As I mentioned in my previous post I started wearing a Fitbit Flex wristband in the new year. Fitbit's are a great way of monitoring steps, sleep, calorie and water intake, and are aimed at helping people achieve a greater fitness level. One of my friends bought a Fitbit a year ago, and once she told me it cost her £80 I did not understand why she'd got one. However having said this, come the new year I aimed to improve my overall fitness level, and had a look into the Fitbit range. They offer many different forms of monitors, the Flex being the most basic. When I found it to be on sale in the colour black in Argos I decided to go for it and I'm really glad I did!
You wear the Fitbit Flex on your wrist 24/7. Due to it only needing charging at the most once a week and it is very fast charging, as well as water resistant so you can wear it in the shower or bath, you can literally track your exercise and sleep patterns every day and night. Having struggled with my sleep for some years now I was very interested to see how well I do actually sleep (I tend to get quite a bit of sleep but it's very restless, probably why I'm always tired!). Fitbit recommended you wear your Flex on your non-dominant hand for the best results, and has been found to be around 99% accurate compared to other pedometers. When I'm at work, I do have to wear it on my ankle but I haven't found this to be a problem at all, and it still picks up all the steps I do.
The Fitbit Flex monitor itself has differing light patterns for what you want to know. As shown in the pictures below you simply tap the device a couple of times and it will show you how many steps you have done so far that day (one dot for every 2000 steps). When you reach your daily target of steps which is automatically set to 10,000 but can be adjusted, the device will vibrate and flash a full set of 5 dots for a couple of seconds. In order to track your sleep, simply tap the device for a couple of seconds when you get into bed and it will change to sleep mode. This is displayed by a dot being lit up on either side of the device screen which goes off after a second. Do the same again when you wake up to turn the device back into wake mode.
Overall I do feel this device has pushed me to drastically increase the amount of exercise I do day to day, especially when in competition with my friends! You can add as many people as you want to the Fitbit app which is free to download and shown in the image below. On the app is also where you enter your calorie and water intake, both of which are very easy to do as long as you remember to do them! Entering this information can really help you monitor how many calories you've burnt in relation to how many you've eaten, and encourage you to improve your diet and exercise. One thing I noticed was I definitely did not drink enough water and I have been trying to best to increase this amount ever since.
When you purchase a Fitbit Flex it comes with the monitor itself which is a small black device, and a choice of two different sized wristbands for you to put the monitor into. It also comes with a dongle to sync to your laptop and a charging adapter in USB form. I would highly recommend this device especially if you need a little extra push to improve your fitness and diet. It's even better if you have friends or family you can add to it as this pushes you even more to beat them! Although the devices are quite costly I have used it everyday since I purchased it so I do feel I am getting my moneys worth. Let me know if you have any questions for me about the Fitbit Flex, if you are considering getting one yourself!
Roberta x
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