Digital Motivation

Anyone who has followed my blog for any length of time knows that my art practice has been motivated by various online seminars, courses, and Facebook pages for quite a while now. All this digital motivation has caused me to see a gradual, but steady improvement in the work I produce.  I have recently found that a digital gadget is going to help me be motivated to move more often and improve my well-being as a result.

A couple of years ago I bought my husband a Fitbit and have frequently teased him whenever he decided he needed to go for a walk late in the day because otherwise, he wasn't going to make his goal of 10,000 steps.  A couple of weeks ago he gave me an early birthday present and bought me a Fitbit Charge 5.

I found that I had become less active and spent entirely too much time sitting while using the computer, playing with the tablet, reading, or doing art projects. Sitting too much is not good for me, or anyone else for that matter. The Fitbit has a function that is supposed to warn you to get up and move if you have not managed to put in a minimum of 250 steps by ten minutes before the hour is up. I have not succeeded in getting that function to work yet, so I decided the best thing to do was to make sure I got those steps in at the beginning of the hour as often as I could. Anything after that would be a bonus. 

250 steps are easy enough to accomplish just doing simple housework like making the bed and putting away laundry. But there are times when I hear the words, "Have you got your steps in yet?" from my dear hubby. He's good at noticing when I have become glued to a chair these days.

It didn't take long before I learned a few tricks. I discovered how I could walk around the inside of my home to gather any remaining needed steps and I can put things away while I'm at it. Or, I could go to the basement and quickly walk from one end to the other a couple of times without anyone noticing and teasing me about it.  That being said, my hubby now also suddenly decides it's time for a random stroll from room to room all over the house.  He didn't use to worry about the hourly goal as he was more focused on the end target. He likely gets in more steps than ever now that he is following my lead, though he has always been more active than I am anyway.  It gets really funny if we both suddenly get up to accomplish those missing steps at the same time and pass each other going in opposite directions. 

Yes, this gadget has provided motivation to move and now it also has me watching the calories I take in compared to how many I burn. I am already starting to lose weight, slowly but surely. Digital motivation is a real thing and it does work. I might just have to get one of those apps that let me go on a virtual tour of some far-off land using the steps I accomplish here at home.  That may really get me walking!