I pride myself on being smack dab in the middle of the healthy side lifestyle. I am not an overachiever when it comes to eating strictly healthy but I normally do not eat a bunch of junk food either. We eat moderately healthy in my house – until my grandma takes the kids shopping for their snacks and they come home with packages of cookies. Not the little individual bags, no, the full size package of cookies. When this happens, mom (me) goes nuts.
Like crazy nuts. I ate two of the four packages of cookies in three days. My husband ate a third. And the kids noticed.
But for the most part, we generally do eat healthy.
We are the active sort too. Kind of. When the weather is nice (nice being above 45 degrees, below 95 degrees, or torrential rain) I walk to pick up my youngest from her school. It is a great way for her to burn off some extra energy after having to be quiet all day and get some fresh air. When schedules match up, we walk the neighborhood with our new neighbors most evenings as well.
Being active can be difficult at times, life just gets busy, and it is easy to skip a day of doing much.
Back in March, I did a 5k with my mom, son and friend Jesi. This was a hard feat for my mom, she isn’t really the active sort. She spent a good two months walking every night, either with me or at the gym, pushing her distance further and further. In the end, she made it with glowing colors (hehe, glowing colors) and it was exciting.
Then after the event, we were left with the melancholy of what now.
Me, I started trying to push myself to walk more each day, instead of 3 miles a day, do 4. Mom, well she noticed a difference in her sugar levels when she was walking and being more active, (she is a diabetic) so the wheels started turning and she found herself a new goal.
This epiphany coincided with the new delivery of my FitBit Charge HR a couple of weeks ago. See back in February I asked my husband for a FitBit for my anniversary present, (we don’t normally exchange anniversary gifts, but I really wanted it and my birthday isn’t until June) and being the picky person that I am, the color I wanted did not get released until the end of April so it coincided with moms epiphany perfectly.
Having this new little device that tracks my every move is kind of weird and creepy, and absolutely awesome in every way. (My need to compete with myself on a daily basis I am sure is healthy.)
Except now that I had a new shiny toy, mom had to have one as well. Not particularly because she wanted one, but because new toys are not much fun to play with if you do not have a friend to share the experience with. And you can’t really share a FitBit. That’d be awkward.
The great thing about the tracker is that you can set up your own daily/weekly/hourly goals. I think I have set up moderately achievable goals for the time being; I need to walk five miles a day or take 10,000 steps. I also need to climb 5-10 flights of stars and be active for at least 30 minutes a day (Active being like a workout/walk/run).
Last night after our Zumba class, she texted me, practically giddy that she made green on all of her personal daily goals for the day. (Green means you did good!) Then she said, “It makes me want to exercise more!!! Ugh. And eat less!!! Ugh.”
I am super proud of my mom.
But I have just one thing to say to her… I totally crushed you.
A little healthy competition never hurt anyone. Hehe, my grandmothers FitBit came in the mail today.
Till next time,
~AJP