Kath and Anto gave me a Samsung Fit activity tracker for Christmas. It's a digital wristband linking to mobile phone apps, a good deal more sophisticated and complex than having a simple pedometer app on my phone. I'm not so comfortable with this. Simple is best in my book. It took me ages to work out how to switch off as many off-putting notifications and exhortations as possible. The device and its apps monitor a range of activities. As well as informing me how far I've walked, which is all I want to know, they urge me to set fitness regimes and goals I'm not interested in. Perfect for health neurotics, but not for someone who is unlikely ever again to be fit enough to run a marathon, but who needs to be sure to get a sensible amount of exercise every day.
The tracker itself is small and unobtrusive, about half the width of the entry-level Casio digital watch I have worn for the past forty years. It gives me date plus time and a simple step counter, but is quite hard to strap on to my wrist as the fastening is different from any other I have encountered. One more thing to get used to. What it doesn't do, in the way the pedometer app does, is to record days past and distances covered. Does it matter? Probably not. The one remaining annoyance is the buzz it makes when it makes or breaks the Bluetooth connection with the phone. I don't need buzzes, they distract, and this could be dangerous when all my attention is required elsewhere.
Wearing it all day, I have made the interesting discovery that around the house I can walk nearly a mile a day during routine activities. I have to take this into account when going for my daily round of the park, as that five miles of proper walking exercise outdoors is what enables me to function best. Since getting the 'flu, it's taken me a couple of hours of exercise for my head to clear, and for me to feel 'grounded', probably because getting rid of toxic traces in the blood takes so long.
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