Trim Your Waist Wednesday: Make Movement Matter

At the start of summer, I was perusing around a local apple store in my hometown. I came upon an interesting new device, an electronic wristband that records your daily activity, sleeping patterns, and diet. In my fight for health, I immediately bought the wristband. Hooking it up to my iPhone, I downloaded its free app and began to watch my days from a new vantage point. I slowly started to see more and more each day in terms of miles I had moved or hours of deep sleep I had slept. Slowly, my body became more of a calculation. How could I live my days to reach a healthier state?

The wristband is called UP by Jawbone. Through your wrist’s pulse, it tracks your movement both when awake and asleep. You’re meant to wear it just about all the time. It’s mostly waterproof. You probably don’t want to wear it in the shower, though. The wristband has a detachable cover at one of its ends. Inside the cover, there’s a small aux in cord. This allows you to hook up the wristband to the top of your iPhone through its aux out port. When plugged in, your wristband uploads all your daily activity to its specific iPhone app, where it shows you how much you’ve moved.

This wristband provides health consciousness. When I started out, I began examining how much I moved each day. Through its online system, it actually tells you how much you move against people your own age. It fuels competition. Not just with those your age, but it makes you want to move more than you did yesterday.

All of a sudden, I started calculating the distance of each of my walks around the city. I realized how many calories I burned on my daily bike rides. And I learned when my sleep was beneficial. Like in the mornings, when I felt half-awake in bed, I’d check my wristband later to realize that I had slept in a light-sleep pattern for the final few hours. Your body reenergizes itself most during deep-sleep. Light-sleep does little to help you the next day. All my daily activities started to run on UP. I’d think, how can I get a few more hours of deep-sleep tonight? How can I move a few extra miles? UP trains you to treat life like a marathon.

Life never stops coming. Start recording it and find a better living.

(Photo Credit: Jawbone Co.)