It’s been a month since my first Fitbit post, so I thought I would let you know how things are going. Yes, it’s official, I’m in love. In fact, there are now two Fitbits in my life, one for me and one for my husband. It was just too tempting to have this workout partner that you could send funny messages to during the day and also invite to “Weekend Warrior” competitions, and yes, he loves his band, too. I mentioned the gaming aspect was cool, but the badges you can garner are really just hilarious. Today I earned the Helicopter. Here’s what it says: With 500 lifetime floors, you’ve reach the altitude of a helicopter. Heli-yes, you totally just did that! 

I decided to get more exploratory and I plugged in the dongle to check out the full size layout of my graphs and achievements. Let me tell you, it’s a lot easier to read your heart rate chart spread over a larger screen. (FYI that’s just an example screen that I posted.) There’s also another fun surprise awaiting—Fitbit groups. People are actually organizing company workout groups so they can challenge each other throughout the day. Who knew? I found a local group for Philly and posted a question about good vegan smoothies. In two days I got a hit with someone talking about some chia seed concoction. Now granted I haven’t started befriending people yet there, but soon I could have a bunch of buddies to cheer and may even have a real life step frenzy on the street. People use the forums to arrange meetups and they talk about favorite trails and average number of steps for those trails.

So, what have I learned? If you use the system properly it works. I’ve almost reached my first goal for the weight I wanted to lose, which is shocking, because I haven’t been able to budge my weight in about 6 years more than 2-3 pounds. If I land my first goal, I have an additional bonus goal of 5 pounds I’d like to trim. After that it will all be maintenance. I also have learned that even though my sleep is interrupted frequently in the night, that it really isn’t that unusual. Many people have about the same number of disturbances. Also, the charts show that if I go to bed earlier, I actually do sleep more soundly and I’m able to wake earlier. That’s not going to help the problem that I do my best writing and coding in the wee hours, but hey, you have to sleep sometime, right? Finally, I’ve noticed that I have a better sense of what I’m eating and when I’m eating it. Granted I was traveling this past week and didn’t log my food during that time, but I was able to make good choices just from really thinking about healthy options and from my knowledge of serving sizes from all the logging I have been doing. In fact, when eating out, my husband and I often split main dishes and side salads now because we realize how large portions tend to be in this country. The one thing I still haven’t mastered is drinking enough water, but I’m getting closer. I noticed that adding fresh fruit and herbs to a pitcher can make it a bit more exciting and I just try to carry a bottle of water with me wherever I go.

Well, that’s it for my Fitbit rah-rah post. I can’t wait to find out what badges still await me in this crazy game of wellness. Since I’m on the topic of systems that work, did you know that we have a ton of badges for real life educational moments here at Adafruit? I know I’ve been drooling over the Arduino Badge for quite some time. Browse the badges in the shop and you will see a fun variety including faves like 3D Printing, Soldering, and Raspberry Pi. Isn’t it time you shared your skills on the back of your jacket?

Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!