However, these results weren’t driven by an internal anger over a prior day’s crappy results or because I walked around New York City all day. Nope. These results were driven by something a little more ironic…

Not bad for a day’s worth of activity, huh?

Well, I’m proud of those single-day results, but here’s the irony of the situation: I achieved these results this past Saturday while I was searching for some new clothes to wear during my trip to San Antonio. Don’t see the irony of the situation yet? Well, let me add some clarity – I spent my day hopping from big men’s department to big men’s department trying to find clothes that had a decent fit.

In other words, I burned a bunch of calories by trying to find clothes made for guys who are overweight.

There’s something darkly ironic about achieving these results from that effort. Although, it’s not all dark. Since I’m pretty much an upbeat kind of guy, I’m compelled to note that the search for clothes that fit accounts for only about 60% of these results. The other 40% was generated by playing a new game I bought for my Nintendo Wii which utilizes the Wii Fit Balance Board. That’s right – I stumbled upon my Wii Fit Balance Board about two weeks ago and I managed to intrigue myself into buying some new fitness games for it.

To be more precise, I purchased Walk It Out! and EA Active 2. I’ve played both of these games a few times so far and I like the extra peripherals that come with EA Active 2. They track your movements and, more importantly, they track your heart rate as you exercise. While working out with the video game (which may sound like an oxymoron, but is not), you want to achieve that bell curve-type of result and the heart monitor helps you to determine how you’re doing. I was a little sore after my first EA Active 2 workout, but I wasn’t as sore as I was after I started the Nerd Fitness Level One Rookie Workout (which, by the way, is awesome and one of my favorite, quick workouts).

But the results above were achieved, in part, by playing the Walk It Out! game; a game that is rated E 10+ for everyone above the age of 10. So yes – I played a kid’s game to help me achieve the results above. Go ahead and have your laugh, but I find that game pretty entertaining! I mean, it’s not my favorite type of game (I prefer a Square Enix RPG any day of the week over a workout game), but you know what I mean. The game keeps my interest enough for me to walk a few thousand steps and actually get some use out of the Wii Fit Balance Board. Not a bad outcome for a game that didn’t really cost that much.

Before I end this entry I have to note that my FitBit Ultra has also kept me painfully informed on my horrible sleeping. Since I started using this little tracker a month or so ago I’ve noticed that my average hours slept per night is about six and a half. That’s going to have to change. I’m not sure how my sleep is going to improve, but that’s going to be a focus of mine heading into the fall season.

Not bad, huh?

I think that was a pretty good result for today. And I know what the big kicker was that helped me achieve these goals today – I had a business meeting in New York City this morning. The meeting was right by the World Trade Center so I not only walked around several different mass transit stations, but I was going up and down different staircases and walking around different buildings, down different blocks, etc.

City life – it’ll get you moving!

The combination of writing yesterday’s entry and bitching with my buddy pushed me to a point where I had to do something about the week’s worth of results that I posted yesterday. And I did. Here’s the graphic from FitBit showing the statistics that I achieved yesterday:

Yesterday’s results from my FitBit Ultra.

This is what happens when someone gets annoyed at being forced into the proverbial corner. And this proves that I have the physical ability to generate these types of statistics (which I don’t think was ever in question anyway).

I’d like to suggest that I’ll keep this high level of activity going throughout the week, but I’m more realistic and understand that making such claims will ultimately lead to failure. For example, looking at my schedule for Monday I already know that I’ll be spending 13.5 of my 16 waking hours that day either driving, sitting in meetings, or crunching numbers behind a desk. Could I squeeze in a walk or two around the block while I’m at the office? Of course. Could I take the stairs instead of the elevator? Well, I normally do that already. Could I reasonably get the type of statistics that you see in the image above with the planned schedule that I have to navigate on Monday?

No.

And that’s the difference between reading weight loss and health-related stories on this blog versus reading them on other blogs. I’m realistic. If I was to buy-in to the bullshit that we sell elementary, high school, and college athletes, then I’d be panicking and going crazy right now. You know that line of bullshit that we sell those athletes. It takes different forms, but it mostly sounds like: “The only one stopping you is YOU!” or “If you WANT to do it, then you WILL do it.” or “Do or do not. There is no try.”

Alright, that last quote was from Yoda in Star Wars, but you get the picture.

Sometimes, there are legitimate reasons for you not to be able to get to the gym or walk the suggested 10,000 steps in a day. If you believe the bullshit hype (and, unfortunately, I think that most people do), then you’re going to drive yourself nuts trying to find out how you can fit in those 10,000 with almost no free time in your day and without compromising your professional efficiency.

It’s about balance, folks. It’s not about hysteria and it’s not about believing the motivational crud that we sell to people who don’t have any expansive, real world responsibilities. If you use your free time effectively – when you have it – then you might be able to get a day’s worth of work like what’s noted in the graphic above. Much more importantly, though, is realizing that you may not be able to achieve this goal on a daily basis because of other personal and professional commitments… and that’s okay.

I wanted a FitBit Ultra for two reasons: to track my sleep and to track my activity levels. For a while now I’ve not been sleeping well. I’d say that I began noticing this back towards the end of April 2012; I figured that the FitBit could at least provide some level of tracking to see what was going on with my sleep.

In addition, I’ve gone from being an athletically active guy in high school to an academically and socially active guy in college (i.e. not working out in the gym, but still up and about) to a graduate student with so much free time that he lost 125 pounds (most of which has been gained back) to a guy with a good job which, unfortunately, requires about two hours of driving every day and the majority of my time being spent sitting at a desk staring at a computer. That’s some roller coaster for a body to go through over a 7 – 10 year period!

However, just like I began feeling that something was wrong with my sleep back in April, for some time now I’ve felt extra-sedentary. It’s a weird type of feeling to describe, but the feeling of being extra-sedentary is somewhat unnatural. It’s an interesting feeling in that you have the desire to go out and workout and you understand all of the motivational bullshit that folks like coaches and personal trainers try to sell you. But at the same time, you’re swamped with commitments and requirements that force you to sit behind a desk, in a car, at a meeting, on the phone, etc. for extended periods of time.

And that’s the key to understanding this extra-sedentary mode that some people fall in. There is a tremendous mental weariness and physical drain that comes with being an office worker, a long-term commuter, an active volunteer who does great things for causes at the result of lost free time, etc. If you can understand that drain and creeping innate exhaustion, then you can understand the feeling that I’ve been feeling for some time now.

Combine that feeling with a lack of sleep and, well, you don’t feel right. So I wanted the FitBit to track some of these items and this is what I found out:

My averages from July 1, 2012 – July 7, 2012

Take a look at those statistics. They’re horrible! Those are my average outcomes for the week of July 1, 2012 – July 7, 2012. If you’re looking at that graphic and wondering what the 33,828 steps taken means, it means that I walk an average of 4,833 steps per day. That’s less than half of what you’re supposed to walk each day! That pie graph shows that 68.7% of my waking hours are spent in a sedentary mode with a scant 3.3% of my time spent in a “very active” mode. That’s terrible!

And then you have the sleep bar graphs. The first bar graph shows how long I slept each day that week. It may be hard to tell from the graph, but the average amount of sleep that I get each night is between 6 hours and 6 hours and 20 minutes. Wondering where that innate feeling of exhaustion comes from? There you go! The last bar graph shows that I wake up a lot when I sleep. I’d estimate that the average amount of times that I wake up is between 25 and 35 times each night. That’s terrible! FitBit provides a more exact tracking of your sleep on a daily basis showing exactly when you woke up and how long you were awake, but I don’t want to bog this post down with a ton of graphics. The point is that I don’t sleep well and these figures prove it.

There are other statistics that I can provide, but they aren’t the focus of this entry. For example, I always knew that I didn’t really eat that much (regardless of how much I weigh). By tracking my calorie intake through FitBit, I was able to confirm that I typically eat between 2,000 and 2,500 calories each day, which is right in line for what a guy of my size should be eating to maintain a decent level of health. I don’t need to track this through FitBit because I get quarterly blood tests and checkups at the doctor and I get it confirmed there, but I’ll track it anyway since it doesn’t take up much of my time.

This all begs the question – now what? Now that I have this information what is it that I plan to do with it? Well, I’m not entirely sure to be honest. I wanted to find some validation for what I thought to be true and I found that validation through the FitBit Ultra. What I need to do now is find a way to begin breaking the sedentary lifestyle. However, that’s a very tough task. For example, I look at my schedule for the coming week and I’m booked solid – in a forced sedentary mode – all day Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. On Saturday, I’m booked at two social events which will take up the bulk of my day. That leaves three days where I can potentially do something to get my activity levels up.

I suppose I could work out on those three days and I’m sure that I’ll do something active even if it’s just walking through the local mall or walking up and down the boardwalk by the beach. Yet, it all feels very disparate to me. In other words, it doesn’t seem like a long-term solution and, frankly, it doesn’t even seem like a short-term stop-gap measure.

In the end, I’m a data wonk (thanks, graduate school) and now I have a source of reasonably reliable data that confirms my prior suspicions. What this provides me is a better understanding of what I need to focus in on in order to improve my health. And those improvements center on two areas: higher activity levels and more restive sleep periods. If I can manage those two improvements, then they should combine with my already low caloric intake should put me in a much better physical condition.