Striving for a healthier you.

This was across the street from my gym for a long time.

The owner of my 9-to-5 recently gave everyone in the office Shine fitness trackers after giving a presentation on how he hacked his own diet and activity for significant improvements in his health.* I've been tracking my diet and activity for years—and even more closely recently with a FitBit GalPal gave me for Christmas**—so it's been fun to see the immediate reactions others have for doing the same. I think the most immediate realization someone has when they begin to track activity is that they are far less active than they thought they were!*** And this naturally kicks into reaction number two: the drive to meet one's own daily goals and surpass the goals of others. In fact the greatest strength to fitness tracking is the inner competitiveness that drives you to make improvement in your diet and exercise due to your actually paying close attention to it.

It's fun to see this mindset spreading through the office.

*He takes all new hires out to lunch monthly, along with folks celebrating a birthday or work anniversary that month, and during my lunch with him I stuck my foot in my mouth talking about how much I disliked Crossfit only to have him tell me how much he enjoyed it. In the presentation he gave he said he had moved on to high intensity interval training (HIIT) which means when my birthday lunch rolls around we can talk about that practice since it's been in my regular routine for a month or so already.

**And since I already have an activity tracker that means GalPal is now tracking HER fitness activities with a Shine!

***This was certainly also true for me at first as well. And I continue to discover overestimations I make in other ways. I recently bought a food scale and realized my portions have been off for years! And even more recently I bought a FitBit Aria scale**** to more precisely track my weight and BMI and such so I'm discovering new things through that consistency as well.

****Despite how this all looks i am not some kind of fitness nut. I'd just like to look good as I get ever older and, considering the foods I like to eat and drink, tracking is the only surefire way for me to avoid gaining 300 pounds.