Island of Lost Fitbits

Yes, I have one.

I have the lowest-grade model that doesn’t tell time or predict the weather. I bought it with my birthday money two years ago, and no one on the planet was more excited than I was to finally get one. The song from the 2016 summer Fitbit commercial rang through my head like the new theme song to my life.   All the things I was doing wrong in a day would now be accessible through the app on my phone from the band on my wrist that would track my every move. How could I possibly fail with that kind of visibility?

Quite easily, it turns out.

For the first week or so, I soared on that cloud of commitment to getting healthy this time, diligently using my fancy tool. I even tracked my food since the geniuses in heath software made it possible to sync my food app with my Fitbit. Now my phone could tell me to increase my steps to compensate for the hamburger I ate for lunch, or that I had bought myself another one hundred calories from ten minutes of brisk exercise. Score!

I watched friends posting their mileage on social media, wondering if I would ever have any long walks of my own to share with pride (knowing sadly I probably wouldn’t), and tapped my wrist a hundred times a day to see how many steps were left before hitting my goal, taking extra bathroom breaks at work to get them in the way some people walked laps around their kitchen at night when they were only a couple steps short. I wanted that validation. I wanted to know I was doing something right.

Only I wasn’t.

My plan to get healthy didn’t extend beyond my wrist. Real change doesn’t happen by adding a fashion accessory, it comes from within. Since I wasn’t fully invested—despite a lot of lip service on the contrary—in getting my health in order, I never ended the day with calories still on the table, or got all ten thousand steps in, no matter how many times I got up to pee. Instead I spiraled deeper into shame and defeat with evidence of my failings always at my fingertips. So, after sporadic use, the Fitbit retired to a drawer in my closet beside the tape measure I’ve occasionally used to check my waist.

I still look at the skinny people with the now-fancy bands on their wrists with envy. They seem like people who have their shit together. Why couldn’t I just use the tools and get thin? Why did tracking my health in ways that phone apps have made ridiculously easy feel like running backwards instead of getting ahead? Why does it work for everyone else; am I just too stubborn to accept that I may need it?

It’s taken me a long time to get here. Many years of eating bagels in quiet shame since my food-tracking app said they were terrible, and anxiety over watching my daily remaining calories dwindle and my brisk walks falling short. I’ve known every kind of guilt and disappointment a tiny band can inflict on a person, and in doing so came to a simple conclusion: fitness tracking just isn’t for me.

There, I said it. And I don’t have to be ashamed about it, or assume there’s something wrong with me. Fitness isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of game. If something doesn’t work, or doesn’t feel right, you won’t do it or use it—which is why my once-revered fitness band hasn’t seen the light of day in years. I’m playing the long game, which means I’m not going to be thirty pounds thinner next month, maybe not even next year. Part of my new food culture is discovery: I need to find what works for me and that takes trial and error.

Maybe someday I’ll come back around to the idea of a wristband that tracks my every move and morsel. Maybe someday I’ll get off my high horse and see the value in understanding how poor my food choices are, and how little exercise I actually get. I want to be one of those people that just gets it; that doesn’t need a device to show them how to live. Maybe one day I will be.

Until then…?