June 02nd, 2020

I love this app. All I have to do is have my cell phone with me and my steps are tracked.  Even if my phone is in my purse or my pocket, as long as I have my phone with me while I'm walking, at the end of the day, I know how far I've walked.  It's very cool.

I'm already walking, so that's no big deal.  Just, now I feel more virtuous about the walking I'm already doing.  So if I eat a pint of ice cream and therefore gained a pound or so I can say, "I have no idea why I"m not losing weight.  I walked X miles this week, see?"  And show you the app as proof.  Then the whole not losing weight thing becomes very mysterious. Because I do walk a lot of miles. Obviously.

The above screen shot was from today....thus far. And the day ain't over yet.  

Bright and early this morning, I walked with my friend Sally to the airport and back.  Then Tim and I did the noonwalk.  And then I did the grocery shopping.  And don't let anybody kid you.  If you do a full grocery shop you will be covering some serious ground.  Especially if, like me, you park the car in the far distant reaches of the parking lot each time.

The biggest disappointment is how few calories are burned.   Look at that,  6.48 miles so far today and only 538 calories burned.  Do you know how few cookies that is?  Hardly seems fair.  But at least now I cannot say that I don't know. Because then I would be lying and you know how I feel about lying. Even to myself. Oh you don't know?  Ok, well to put it simply, lying is bad. 'Nuff said.

I also like that I can see how much actual time in my day has been devoted to walking. And then I can say to me, "Hey! I exercised for 2 and a half hours today! I do not understand why I'm not losing weight?"  Said as I stuff a few more potato chips into my mouth.  But wow.  A 2 1/2 hour workout!  Yeah!  That sounds powerful. That sounds righteous.  Way cool.

By the way, the days when it appears that I didn't exercise at all?  That just means I wore shorts that didn't have pockets.  If I don't have pockets I have no place to put my phone because I hatehatehate carrying a purse and only do so if absolutely necessary. Turns out that it is very rarely absolutely necessary.

And by the way, why do so many girl-clothes not have pockets? Surely I am not the only girl who doesn't like carrying a purse!  Pockets are important! Bring back my pockets!  Enough of that rant.  That might be another blogpost another day.

Back to the app.  One of the really nifty things that particular app did was, when I installed it was that  it asked me a bunch of questions to personalize it just for me.  Things like age, weight, height etc. Now the Goal that my app has set for me is perfect...for me! Not you or Tim or anybody else. Just me!  And from that information, it set my daily  Goal.  I shoot for achieving Goal every day instead of a certain number of steps or miles or amount of time.  And despite the number of cupcakes I manage to scarf down in that particular day, my Goal remains the same. Just FYI.

I can compare days, weeks or even months of activity coz it does reports on my Goal reaching achievements. Sweet!  So when I still cannot figure out why I haven't lost weight in spite of the s'mores I ate, I can look at the app and see if, perhaps,  I just didn't hit Goal every day that week.

And some weeks I do.  Some weeks I wear clothes with pockets every day and I knock that goal out of the park every single day! Woohoo! I feel extra virtuous on those weeks.  I might have pizza AND Chinese food that weekend (and then wonder why I'm not loosing weight)

Sadly it doesn't track other exercise I get.  Not the ballet barre work, or the crunches or planks or any of my other pilates core work. None of that gets tracked by the app which is, no doubt, why I haven't lost any weight at all and has nothing whatsoever to do with having eaten copious amounts of M&M's.  

But, despite that one tiny failing, this still a great app and I am so glad I have it and I check it nearly every day.  It was free  (of course - you know that I'm not going to pay for it!) and I'm pretty sure they make some sort of similar one for just about every sort of cellphone.

So there you have it.  Sam recommended.  Fitness tracking app on your cell phone.  The perfect defense for why you haven't yet lost any weight to offer up to anyone rude enough to ask.  Like doctors.  They ask that sort of question.  Which is rather personal don't you think?  And rude.  Downright rude.