Fitbit Friends

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Two very important elements in a wellness lifestyle are goals and accountability. This weekend I was reminded of both through a very practical example. A business friend invited me to 'friend' him on Fitbit, and proceeded to invite me to a weekend Challenge.

If you're not familiar with Fitbit Challenges (or other similar tracker challenges between users), you can throw out a preset time frame (weekend, workweek, or simply a daily challenge) and see who gets the most steps. There are opportunities to 'cheer' and 'taunt' the others in who join in the Fitbit challenge, and you can message others to trash talk in the meantime.

I was surprised yesterday when I got the bug to excel in my step goal. I had fallen to a distant 4th place out of five folks in our weekend challenge, and the friend who invited me was on top by double. All of a sudden, I started looking for reasons to get in more steps: we took a walk at the park when we had some spare time, I went out and played with the kids on a couple of occasions just to keep moving, and I did my standard TV-time workout for a couple hours late in the evening to net out a great return.

Overall, I'm solidly in 3rd place, with a slim chance to catch #2.

The cool thing is that it really got and kept me moving this weekend. And I know we'll all have a couple of stories to tell tomorrow to follow up on the trash-talking messages. Goals and accountability will change your life for the positive, just as no goals and lack of accountability allow us to slouch our way into an unfulfilling existence.

Are you setting and achieving wellness goals? Do you have some folks around you who inspire you to step it up, or to specifically achieve? If you're not there yet, now is a great time to do just that. Whether it's through a wearable tracker or group at church or at the gym, we can benefit greatly from simple goals and accountability. Happy tracking!

By the Way

My older son, after hearing me grouse a few times about being behind in the weekend Fitbit Challenge, decided to invite me to a workweek Challenge. I'm sure he's thinking he can easily take his old man during the work week. So I now have this week (starting midnight on Sunday) to rack up steps in competition. No trash talk yet, but I'm sure it's no too long before it happens.