In September my Fitbit battery died. This became an opportunity to see if I wanted to keep the Fitbit in my life. I’ll admit I’ve been a bit obsessed with my step count, calorie count, etc., but I decided to replace the battery, because I do like the accountability.
Plus, some days you walk a lot, and it’s nice to get credit for it.
Friday was one of those days. I woke up early and went for a 3-mile run. It was pretty dark for much of it, but the end of daylight savings time has now solved that problem. This got me up to about 6500 steps.
Then I helped get the kids ready, which always seems to involve at least half a mile of walking up and down the steps, around the house, out to the bus stop, etc. So I was at around 7500.
A bit before 10:30 a.m. a crew of us went to the elementary school Halloween parade. We live a mile from the school and can walk, and probably should have. As it turns out, every other parent was there too (Friday’s an easier day to get off or work from home than Tuesday). We wound up parking about 0.75 miles away from the school. I walked there carrying my 3-year-old. Then we had to chase the parade to catch it on its second loop around (carrying a 3-year-old slows me down!). I got my 7-year-old from his class (it was a half-day, and absolutely nothing academic happened whatsoever). When we got back to the car, I checked my Fitbit and was up to 11,500 steps.
I did some walking around in the afternoon, but not too much until 4:00 or so, when I forced the kids to go outside for a little bit to enjoy the still-nice, still-light weather. The marching around got me another 1500 or so steps.
Then, eventually, it was time to trick or treat! Our cobra, Batman, and Princess Sophia walked up and down our street, and down to a neighboring subdivision where there’s less traffic and most of the people decorate. By the time we got back home and had gotten the kids up and down the steps and into bed, my Fitbit was up to 20,000 steps.
But just for good measure, I walked around my bedroom for an additional 600 steps while reading. I had raided our leftover candy stash, after all. No wonder my calves hurt on Saturday.
How did Halloween go in your neighborhood?
Photo: The leftovers. My husband usually buys a giant bag of candy from Costco, and then we don’t get any trick-or-treaters. This is one giant bucket of temptation.
Quite a day on your feet! I wish there was a way to get Fitbit to give you extra credit for steps taken while lugging around a toddler. I’ll take the Almond Joy bars off your hands :). Those are my favorite.
@Chelsea – the good news about those Almond Joys is that I’m more into the dark chocolate version of them than the milk chocolate, so I haven’t found them all that tempting. Otherwise… I’m kind of on a Twix and KitKat streak right now.
Wow! If I had carried a 3 year old that far, I’d have a preemie. No wonder you have to induce… or maybe you could just carry your 3 year old to school at 39 1/2 weeks.
@Twin Mom- trust me, I tried everything to go into labor on my own the first two times around. By these later pregnancies I’m just happy that I live in an era of modern medicine where my body’s laziness on this front doesn’t mean I can’t have safe deliveries of healthy babies…
Maybe we’ll wind up having kids with the same birthday! It’s fun to hear about your family and pregnancy.
I loved the extra steps on the fitbit from trick or treating as well, although I’m pretty sure I completely counteracted them. We were a little bit naughtier on the calorie front because we pulled a wagon full of Korean chicken wings and beer behind the kids for all our (adult) neighbors to enjoy. We ended up with a quite an entourage. It was very fun!
I don’t know if you heard the NPR piece about the Halloween candy buy back program, but it is ingenious. Participating dentists offer kids $1 for every pound of candy they will donate and then they send the candy to the troops overseas to give to kids there through Operation Gratitude. The bonus is that your kids can decide how much candy to donate and keep, but you can get at least some of the candy out of the house! Here’s a link that will tell you if you have a participating dentist in your area. http://www.halloweencandybuyback.com/about.html
@Christine – I love the idea of bringing goodies for adult neighbors. We had looked at buying a house in the subdivision where we now trick-or-treat, and Halloween may be the one night where I think it would have been cool. It’s more of a community feeling than on my street. (Of course, the other days, I realize we got a better deal and I liked this house more than what we saw there!)
That (the wagon full of wings & beer) is the coolest idea I’ve heard in a while! There are some blocks in our neighborhood that really had a fun party feel to them. Ours wasn’t quite like that but we had a few of our near neighbors sitting on their stoops drinking beers and handing out candy which made it all look welcoming.
We got another year of NO trick or treaters, and oddly the bag of Reeses PB pumpkins has disappeared anyway. I blame my husband 😉
I am vaguely considering the new Microsoft Band fitness bracelet/tracking device. I love that it has a heart rate monitor and will sync with my phone, and the bracelet might work better for me. But my failure to get motivated with the FitBit is making me think extra hard about it 🙂
@ARC – I think the Fitbit/any other tracking device is a personality thing. If you weren’t motivated by Fitbit, you probably won’t be by the addition of a heart rate monitor… Some people get way more into exercise when they’re doing it with a group (or competing with friends, etc.). For some, it really just has to be built into life — like walking/biking to work. The Fitbit is perfect for me, but that’s why I’m into time tracking too!