Fitbits, Efficiency, and Taking the Long Way

My beloved surprised me with a Fitbit for my birthday back in December. I’d been pondering getting one to replace an eight-year-old running watch whose band was falling apart. The chief attraction of the new device for me is the reminder to move. At 10 minutes before the hour, if I’ve not walked at least 250 in the preceding 50 minutes, the thing vibrates and prompts me to move. If you spend as many hours writing as I do it’s pretty easy to wind up sitting still for extremely long stretches – especially if, like at the moment, you have an adorable dog curled up on your lap.

It’s amazing just how bad sitting still for long stretches is for a human body. This Washington Post article paints a pretty grim picture. I don’t recommend sitting still long enough to read it.

My new toy pairs with an app on my phone that allows me to set and track fitness goals. I am not training for anything beyond my desk job, so my goals this winter are extremely modest. To avoid sitting still for hours at a stretch I want to take at least 250 steps every hour for 10 hours during the day. To get a modest amount of exercise I want to take at least 8,000 steps every day.  

I’ve learned two things in the two months I’ve had this thing strapped to my wrist. First, setting modest goals works well for me. I am a sucker for the rewards – the fireworks graphic that goes off when I reach 8,000 steps, and the cheering stick figure who tells me I’ve taken at least 250 steps.

Second, I’ve been reminded that efficiency is a waste of time. Or, perhaps better, efficiency is a waste of life. I think Wendell Berry would understand this, though I can’t imagine him with a fitbit and smartphone app. Berry put it this way: As we use the word, efficiency means no such thing, or it means short term or temporary efficiency; which is a contradiction in terms. It means cheapness at any price. It means the greatest profits to the greatest liar. What we have called efficiency has produced among us, and to our incalculable cost, such unprecedented monuments of destructiveness and waste as the strip-mining industry, the Pentagon, the federal bureaucracy, and the family car.”

My own experiments in efficiency come with trying to get in a few extra steps at every possible moment. For two months I’ve been going out of my way to go out of my way. And the results of my inefficiency are striking.

For one thing, I’ve averaged well in excess of 8,000 steps per day every week, and I’ve lost a few pounds over the Christmas holidays and winter weeks. That never happens.

But, more importantly, I’ve seen things I would have missed, and met people I would never have seen. Now, to be fair, that second point has a great deal to do with the cute dog on my lap. Mr. Bounce is an ambassador to all people, and having him on walks does engender conversations that I would not have if I were walking alone. But I’ve also simply been walking the neighborhood around home and around church more. I’ve had several fascinating conversations with neighbors in both places, that would never have happened if I’d been efficient.

So, here’s to the most inefficient year of my life! Hope I see you out there wandering aimlessly.