I’ve ditched the Fitbit and am going it alone

Of course I have improvements to make but I knew that already. I don’t need to plug in to an app, I just need to pay attention to my body, writes Katy Brand

I bought the Fitbit to tell me how bad I was, and all it told me was that I was better than I thought (The Independent)

I have fallen out with my Fitbit. Well, not so much fallen out – it’s hard to really seriously come to blows with a jumped-up watch – but let’s just say we have reached an impasse. I took it off to go on holiday and I have not yet put it back on.

It is a relatively new purchase. I bought it because after a year of no live performance work, during which I sat on my large behind writing, I suspected I now fell into the “sedentary” category. Which as we all know, is dangerous. When we went into the pandemic I was pretty match fit, working in an all singing, all dancing West End show. Now my muscle tone is more reminiscent of a bowl of watery cottage cheese. I climb stairs and find my glutes have deserted me. I have to have a “little sit down” on the way to the shops.

So I had a quiet creeping horror that my daily step count was in the hundreds, and some way from the recommended daily minimum of 10,000. I wondered what my resting heart rate was. Was I getting enough good sleep? Good sleep is very important for your health, I read in almost weekly articles. How many calories am I really burning?

So I got the Fitbit, told the app everything it wanted to know, strapped it on my wrist and waited for the b******ing

I wanted data – hard numerical evidence for how far I had fallen. The cold facts would motivate me into action. I wasn’t bothered about sharing my personal information with a large global corporation – frankly that ship has long since sailed. I gave up most of it when I downloaded an app on Facebook that used my existing photos to show me what I would look like as a very elderly lady. What my iPad doesn’t know about me really isn’t worth knowing. So I got the Fitbit, told the app everything it wanted to know, strapped it on my wrist and waited for the b******ing.

Well, I was disappointed. Apparently my daily step count easily exceeds 10,000 merely by doing normal domestic activities – I guess the constant demands of young children will do that. No wonder I felt so knackered when I went for a long walk, thinking I was otherwise doing nothing. My resting heart rate is pretty much where it needs to be. And I know when I’ve had a crap night’s sleep because I shout at everyone before I’ve had my first coffee. I don’t need this little machine to tell me.

So why am I wearing it? Why don’t I just listen to myself? Of course I have improvements to make, but I knew that already. I don’t need to plug in to an app, I just need to pay attention to my body. I bought the Fitbit to tell me how bad I was, and all it told me was that I was better than I thought. Well, that’s no good. My legs still feel like rice pudding. So it’s staying in the drawer and I will make sure I don’t slip back into bad habits all by myself. Who needs technology? That said, you will have to prize my massage gun from my cold, dead hands. I’m never giving that up. And I don’t have to tell it a thing.