FitBit has changed my life!
Out of all recognition! I feel different, I look different and my clothes no longer fit! I don’t snack (unless I make a conscious decision to), I drink water and I walk! I have lost 19% of my body weight in 5 months! This blog will give an overview of my experience. Future posts will expand on each theme. Please comment, share resources and let me know what you are interested in.
I started using FitBit to improve my health and to understand the technology
I am passionate about changing the world! Technologies that have transformed many industries are now offering new possibilities to the health sector. Although senior leaders are driving adoption of eHealth, the NHS can be slow to embrace change. Because I believe that patients and citizens will lead this revolution, I chose to test the potential of wearable devices.
I knew I was overweight and was concerned it would lead to ill health. My catch phrases used to be: “It’s rude not to” and “I’m stuffed – never eating again!” I ate too much, took no exercise, had insufficient sleep and never drank water! My goal was to lose 20% body weight in 6 months. I began collecting baseline data on 9th June 2013 and started the lifestyle changes on 1st August 2013.
FitBit supported me to eat less and move more
FitBit Flex is a band worn on the non-dominant wrist 24/7. It tracks movement and sleep. It links to a smartphone app and website to record your data and encourage behaviour change. I changed my diet in two ways. Firstly, I use the 5 + 2 diet. This limits intake to 600 kCal a day for two days a week (500 kCal for women). On the other days I can have a normal amount. In order to maximise the rate of weight loss, I selected the FitBit option of eating 1,000 kCal less than I burned every day! The exercise regime is to aim for 10,000 steps a day. I also invested in the FitBit Aria scales (including percentage fat and wifi link) although this is not essential.
My FitBit obsession has changed my relationship with food and drink
I measure every calorie eaten, every millilitre drunk, every step taken and every minute slept. Soon I will record every flight of stairs climbed! I stop eating / drinking when I have reached my daily allowance. Although … I have discovered I can increase the allowance on the “5” days by walking more! My diet has changed so I rarely snack, I eat more fish and vegetables and fewer processed foods. I check the calories on food before buying or eating it and choose low calorie options. The portion size has decreased and I no longer finish a bottle, simply because it is nearly empty! I also drink 1,500ml of water each day. I have discovered the sensation of hunger and think and talk about food a lot more!
I now exercise regularly, encouraged by a supportive community
Whilst 10,000 steps initially sounded impossible, I now achieve it most days! This started by avoiding lifts, parking farther from the entrance of buildings and walking whilst on the phone. Most surprising for me is that I walk each evening to complete my target! It takes 10 minutes to walk 1,000 steps and 1 hour and 40 minutes to walk 10,000. I walk around the country where I live (as late as midnight) with a torch and rain coat, posting updates on social media. The community really helps to encourage and celebrate progress. I have found FitBitters via the Android App, on Twitter, FaceBook and real life! The app has a leaderboard showing weekly step count and I try to keep up with Mark, Katie and Karina!
I have lost 19% body weight in 15 weeks of actively trying
My weight on 16th November was 77kg (18kg loss!). It has decreased every week since 9th June apart from a single gain of 300g last week. That “failure” drove me to become more disciplined with intake and targets. In the following five days I lost 1.8kg!! I have reduced my waist from 38” to 34” and treated myself to new Armani Jeans and a Ted Baker top as a reward!
Wearable devices have great potential to improve health and wellbeing for all
In conclusion, I strongly believe that wearable devices will have a transformational effect on public health. The core concepts are: making measurement easy (#QuantifiedSelf), simple user-defined goals, game mechanics (#Gamification) and community support. Whilst many individual apps can be combined for free, FitBit has proved effective because of its integrated interface.
I will continue to blog about each element above to share more of my experiences. I have not received any financial support or sponsorship from FitBit. If you live in the Midlands, please join Health 2.0 Birmingham (also on LinkedIn). This is a new group of clinicians, developers and patients who meet to connect, learn and innovate.
s3bster's Blog 
This is great, I very much hope though that people see the relevance, not that what you have managed to do for yourself isn’t great but, this shows the ability to take some inexpensive technology, will power, support from peers achieves what nobody can deny is a dramatic health improvement.
The problem we have with this being able to support those with long term conditions like diabetes, MH, asthma, obesity etc (I’m no clinician) is that it isn’t the patients or the technology providers that need convincing, as both I’m here and ready and willing to be a patient that uses technology to help me, its the clinicians!
Luckily I’m without a condition, for now, so don’t have anything to manage. But like many I’d rather be informed and support myself through self awareness and monitoring than wait till a condition gets bad enough to need some primary or secondary care.
We aren’t prepared to tell our broadband supplier our account number every time we are transferred from one phone operative to another, but wander around the NHS and count how many times you are asked what your allergies are.
There is no longer an argument that “not everybody has access to the internet” or “can use this type of technology”, it’s all in the “selling” to the patient. With many digital natives already with long term conditions clinicians need to start using technology to the patients advantage, not fear that it erodes their skills, even if they will get paid less as their patients will visit them less!
Thanks for sharing this story, I hope you don’t mind me to much soap boxing on your blog!
Dear Nick
thank you so much for your comments. There is so much potential now with emerging technologies and I agree the NHS needs to understand it. Key will be listening to the needs of the user and solving their problems, not simply bringing in a solution invented elsewhere and hoping it will work. If anyone lives in the Midlands and would like to learn more, join us at Health 2.0 Birmingham!