IT SEES YOU WHEN YOU'RE SLEEPING
Cindy Maddera
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I know Thursday posts are usually devoted to love, but I didn't really have anything for today. It's snowing here and there was/is a soft white layer of powder coating everything when I got out of bed this morning. Which made me want to crawl back in bed and pull the covers up over my head. Except I couldn't because my new fancy bracelet kept buzzing on my wrist. Way back in November, I mentioned to Michael that maybe we should get each other some sort of FitBit like thing for each other for Christmas. It was during one of those particularly bad moments where I'd eaten a whole pizza by myself (this is not true, but it felt like I'd eaten a whole pizza and looked like it too). Both of us have plans to get healthy and lose some weigh in 2015. I thought maybe getting some sort of activity tracker would be good motivation.
The more research we started putting into what tracker device we would want, the more enthusiastic Michael got. Meanwhile, I was starting to have some regrets. I tend to obsess over things (I know right?). When I found out plastic causes cancer, I threw out all of our plastic. I have broken down in tears in a convenient store because I couldn't find a healthy organic snack. I used to wear a watch, but after one too many panic attacks about the possibility of being late, I took it off. I was starting to suspect that if I could see the number of steps I hadn't walked flashing on my wrist, I'd probably start stressing about those lost steps. Because I wouldn't see that number on my wrist as an achievement of steps taken that day, I'd see disappointment that the number wasn't larger. Here's what happens to my body when I stress about losing weight. It holds on to every pound and refuses to let go.
That's why I picked the Jawbone Up24. It just looks like a bracelet. There's no read out for me to obsess over and it nudges me when I've been sitting too long at my desk. This is what I really needed. A nudge. It showed up in the mail yesterday and Michael had it out of the box and charging at my computer before I could blink. When it was done charging, I put it on and downloaded the phone app. I enabled all of the things. When I got to the part where I had to enter my weight, I moaned something about not knowing. Michael made me get up and step on the scale. Before I did, I made a guess and said "174." If we'd been at the fair I would have won a Cupie doll. I know this weight well. This is what I assumed was my "normal" weight for years. I had been that weight for so long, I just thought that was what I was supposed to weigh and maybe it is, but after Chris died, I lost ten pounds. I was pretty happy with being 164. Forget the camera lens. Men and relationships make me ten pounds heavier.
The Jawbone tracks other things like food and water and sleep as well as how many steps you've walked. I put it on last night and set the sleep setting just before I went to bed. I thought it would be nice to start off my health stats with something I know I excel at. I went to bed thinking "I'll show you NudgyBones (that's my bracelet's name). I am so good at sleeping, I will blow your mind." And then I didn't sleep. My stomach gurgled from eating too much saag paneer at lunch. I was hot. I was cold. I felt a pea under the mattress. This side of the bed was weird. The middle of the bed was wrong. I had to get up and use the bathroom. I needed a drink of water. Eventually I did go to sleep, but when the alarm started chiming at 5:50 am, I squinted at it and whimpered. When I looked at the numbers that NudgyBones collected over the night, my shoulders slumped. NudgyBones says that I slept about three hours last night with four hours of restless sleep, meaning I was tossing and turning. I'm not as good at sleeping as I thought.
Now I know why there's a "power nap" timer on NudgyBones.