You might remember a few months back I said I was trying to up my fitness game and especially walk a lot more during my days, by implementing the Jawbone Up Move Fitness Tracker into my daily life to keep track of my steps and sleep. Well, as of today, I’m already three months in and, yes, although I was very sceptical, I’m still keeping it going, so I figured it was about time for an update and to share the love on here!

But first, let’s delineate a little background: I, as you might know, am a freelance web designer and in particular I work from home every single day. Let’s say there’s not a lifestyle that is more sedimentary than mine really! I guess when that’s your routine, you can’t even realize how much you’re *not* moving throughout the whole day.

I was sceptical of any fitness trackers in general when thinking about implementing one in my lifestyle, because I knew it was going to be shocking once I realized how little I dedicated myself to my own health. But on the other hand I believe that is exactly what pushed me to get one, because I wanted a change, and when you have a busy life and you feel like you should be working all the time, you need someone (or something) telling you to get out of that office and do things!

The Up Move is basically the answer to all my fitness dilemmas. I am never very consistent when it comes to sports in general, I like a very small amount of activities, but still I would commit to one for a month or a little more and then favor my desk all day long day in day out until dinnertime. I got it in summertime, and that was the perfect time to get started and get me in the right mood to make a change into my lifestyle that would have stuck.

It allows you set your own fitness and health goals and keep track of them daily, steps and hours of sleep especially, being these two pretty linked together according to my Up app and the base of a healthy lifestyle in general. I remember thinking I wasn’t ever going to reach the goal daily when I firstly entered my 7000 steps per day goal! It might seem such a small goal, but for someone who stays at her desk all day, even half of it can sound a lot.

I was as shocked as I thought I would be when I discovered that I was basically doing a max of 2k steps per day, in the WHOLE day. I guess the fact that I don’t have an office to head to, lots of stairs to take or any recurrent errand that needed me to walk somewhere daily, didn’t really help either! But I must say I have took my goal very seriously ever since I got my Up Move and have been able to change it to 7.5k and then 8k steps in less than a month, without ever losing one single day!

I have come to a point now, where my daily 1h walks are my favourite part of my routine! I switch my tech off and just enjoy walking: preferring calm and peaceful paths, it really can be such a treat for the soul too! I feel a tiny bit gutted now that it’s cold outside, but that means I am finding lots of new ways to implement walking in my lifestyle that I feel are going to stick with me.

Beside the whole take-the-stairs and walk-instead-of-the-bus (which is great but not really my everyday thing being at home all the time), I loved the little suggestions in my Up app, saying to walk while talking to the phone, brushing your teeth, or stand up and take a break every now and then if you’re working from a desk.

I never really thought too much about it, although I do have had some periods when sleep was a bit difficult, but I wasn’t having some good resting at all. As soon as I started to keep track of it I realized I was waking up several times through the night and most of the times I wasn’t able to fulfill my goal of 8h of sleep per night even though, calculating the hours I’ve been in bed, it definitely looked like so!

It took a lot of time actually, to get into a routine where I feel well-rested and I can actually say I’ve slept enough, but right now I realize it makes all the difference during the day. I am more aware and my mind works better, I can get a lot more things done in less time as well, and I’m starting to believe it really is linked to the fact I’ve been walking a lot too. And beside the weight loss (that was well welcomed but not my main goal), this is the best result I have seen in my body so far!

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I also loved to keep track of the food I was eating and the calories I was consuming in the beginning, but at some point I have stopped doing that once I got an idea of what works and what doesn’t, as I never feel like I want to be too constricted in my lifestyle by counting calories at all. However it’s nice to know I can still do that if I feel like!

At the end of the day I’ve learnt a fitness tracker shouldn’t be something for the sport-lover only at all! I would totally suggest implementing one in a sedimentary routine especially, as it helps so much in seeing how much you’re not moving and how you can change that so easily!

Have you ever considered implementing a fitness tracker in your routine? x