Half a Dozenth

Last year's resolutions...

Well, they were good ideas, but they were pretty much all dead by June because of really stupid things like brain fog, plantar fasciitis, and having an extremely hard time completing any task  if  when I get interrupted for the dozenth time.  Whoa, what?!!  Dozenth is actually a word, it didn't set off the auto-correct.    

Don't get me wrong, I had an AWESOME year.  I was surprised to find that the resolution-meeting/failing had no noticeable impact on my happiness or fulfillment.  I would say that this year was one of my happiest ever, spent in a busy blurry baby bliss.  Torin has turned into a super tall toddler who amazes me in one way or another every day.  It feels like he has always been a part of our lives, and that hyper-stressful times are only a distant memory.  Really, my most important goal/job of the year was keeping this crazy baby healthy and alive and to figure out how to be a mom, and those goals were definitely met!  In the past year he graduated both physical therapy and food/eating therapy (yeah, he's a lazy milk-obsessed sort of dude), and both therapists were sad to see him go because he's such a happy baby.  He has taught me to dance and sing and even to be silly in public, and has reinvigorated my love of playgrounds and the moon. 

Whee!

Vs. this year's resolutions...



Due to last year's goal flops, this year I am only doing six 6-month goals.  Fewer goals with a much shorter time frame seems like a far more motivating idea to me right now.  And the goals are pretty much just for me... selfish ones, since I spent all of last year's energy on others.  As a bonus, I have already been working on most of them for several weeks.

• Improve Sleep
• 1:  Focus on quality ('cause my quantity is ok!)... this means consecutive hours of sleep without waking.  This is the hardest goal but the most vital... the doc says I'm so tired all of a sudden because I've finally hit rock-bottom from sleep deprivation due to not getting a full 90-minute sleep cycle more than once a week for a year and a half.
• 2:  Add more reading to Torin's morning and nighttime routines, and progressively make the switches from nursing to sleep to rocking to sleep to reading to sleep. 

• Improve Strength 
• 3:  Weight lift daily for at least 7 minutes (arms/back one day, legs/core the next)... a proven plan that works for me when I actually stick with it.
• 4:  Learn to do a pull-up (I achieved this in ~6 months during college when I was weaker and heavier, from just hanging from the bar for 1 minute per night... it's possible!)

• Food Garden for Spring/Summer
• 5:  Share it with Torin:  focus on baby-friendly plants and get him interested/involved.  I'm making an exciting order for seeds and landscaping cloth today!  Tomatoes that are 1/4" across, toddler-height sunflowers, 1-inch cucumbers, and lots of bright colors to enjoy.
• 6:  Blog 4x/month about garden to keep me accountable.

Each goal has benefits that will leak into the other areas of my life... such as energy levels, general health, motivation, Torin's development, our readiness to start trying for baby #2.  Success will mean that by July I have integrated these things into life's routines to the point that they are an automatic habit.


And then...


If I manage to integrate these things, then it is time to work on the less-vital-for-existence stuff starting in July... social life, cardiovascular fitness/endurance, getting the etsy store together, starting the fall/winter garden, that sort of thing.


What are your resolutions this year?  Did you achieve last year's goals?

 

Step Tracking and The Leaf

Overall, I am pretty pleased with the Leaf's performance. 

I'll take you through an average day of the Fitbit vs. the Leaf, for Monday August 24th.  

The Leaf App:

 

 

The Fitbit App: 

As you can see, both of the fitness trackers captured my small periods of minor activity plus the two hikes on Monday. 


It is very accurate during designated hikes.  

Many hikes ranging from 1.25-2 miles were performed.  Many thousands of steps were manually counted using a fingers-and-dry-garbanzo-beans-in-the-cup-holders-of-the-stroller method.  Hikes were done with and without the stroller, and with and without the dog.

When worn on a short necklace, long necklace, shirt, bra, waist of pants, and as a bracelet, the steps were extremely accurate, only off by up to 3%.  The two fitness monitors were often only 2-10 steps apart. 

There was one exception... when holding on to the stroller with both hands, the fitness monitors on the wrist were both too low.  The fitbit clocked in at 8% too low, while the Leaf was a whopping 59% too low!  So, if you're walking with something like a stroller or shopping cart, just be aware that the Leaf will record less than half your steps if you wear it on your wrist.


Daily steps and mileage are a little... saggy.

The Leaf has been very consistently under-counting my around-the-house "soft" steps by about 700-900 steps per day, or about 10%.

It also does not count my nighttime steps (seen above as the purple dots in the Leaf App photo), since it thinks I am asleep.  For this reason the Fitbit gives me about 300 extra steps per night.  This makes the step count more like 12-14% too low for the leaf.

Since Bellabeat claims that the Leaf is accurate to 5%, I am reporting the information to them in the hopes that they update the app to be slightly more sensitive to the movement that the Leaf records.  They have already done this at least once.  I hear that it's in the plans to update the app so that I can change my stride length, and I am looking forward to that too. 


It's time to pass the Fitbit on to the husband.

Now that I know what to expect from the Leaf, I am handing the Fitbit over to Ryan.  I am primarily trying to get in about 3 miles hiked per day on top of my regular around-the-house activity, so the Leaf covers my main purpose for using a step tracker.

The Fitbit's nickname was the Titbit, because I always wore it on my bra.  I am really enjoying the flexibility of wearing the Leaf visibly as a necklace or on my shirt now, and also sometimes as a bracelet.  I've had a few compliments on it when out in public, but they seem surprised when I mention that it's a fitness tracker.  Torin likes it too, and will gently flip it over to look at the shiny back side... and the front side... and the back side... and the front side.

Tomorrow's post will be about the Leaf and its sleep tracking... stay tuned!  

The Leaf experiment lengthens.

The Leaf review is going to take a while. 

The first afternoon it underestimated my steps by about 70%, and the next day by about 30%... for reference, the Fitbit undercuts my steps by only about 5%.  Sleep tracking was hilariously incorrect the first night (guess I can't wear it as a necklace as suggested!) and only chuckle-worthy wrong the second night.


My formal evaluation of it starts today.

I'll be wearing both the Fitbit and the Leaf, and I'll go on long walks to formally count my steps.  Here's the plan:

Phase 1:  Both fitness trackers side-by-side in the same location

- Sunday:  on left wrist
- Monday:  on bra
- Tuesday:  on shirt
- Wednesday:  on necklace

Phase 2:  Fitbit on bra (the most accurate place), Leaf in variable places
- Thursday:  on left wrist
- Friday:  on bra
- Saturday:  on shirt
- Wednesday, on necklace


This should give me all the data I need to know!  The Leaf claims to be 95% accurate, so I suppose there's a chance that I either received a broken one or that it really does "learn" from your behavior and it needs some time. 

For sleep I'll keep them both on the same wrist and manually adjust my sleep window in the app each night.  The Leaf is supposed to learn from your habits to be better at figuring out when you were actually asleep. 

The Leaf is here!

Whoa, that was quick.

The Leaf was supposed to arrive Sept 3rd, but it somehow ended up on my doorstep today, 2 weeks early!
 

Mmmm, leafy fitness tracker goodness.

I'm going to wear the Fitbit and the Leaf at the same time for a couple of days, and compare them to see how accurate the Leaf is with regards to steps and sleep.  Hooray for science!!