I have now fallen in love with my Fitbit. For those of you not in the know, a Fitbit is a device that can be worn round your wrist or in your pocket. It tracks the amount of steps you do per day and measures how well you sleep. I am not sure how it does this as Super Sarah is the technology genius in our household but I accept that it knows what it is doing!

I started off with a target of 2500 steps per day as I was still learning to walk again and build up my endurance. I can increase this at any time should I wish to and I have recently increased this to 2750 steps per day which I now meet most days so I my need to increase this again soon. You will understand how excited I was to receive a reward for walking 50 miles with my Fitbit! Over the moon doesn’t even cover it!

There have been some occasions when I have coasted through the target, walking happily, feeling the Fitbit buzz as I excel past my target number of steps. Other times have not been so glorious…

I have recently started walking with an FES system. I will tell you more about this another time however this is a devise that lifts my foot of the ground using electrical stimulus. I got home from work one day and turned the FES off. I did forget however that I need to really swing my leg to clear my foot off the ground once this device is off however on this occasion I seemed to forget this and promptly landed on my ass. At this point, the Fitbit buzzed to tell me that I have met my step count for the day! Now technically, I did not step but I will accept this!

A few weeks ago, I had decided to walk back to the car rather than have the car brought to me, a decision that I am still very proud of. I was pretty sure that I would reach my step count on this walk but it did not happen. You can understand my surprise when I was sitting watching a movie after dinner when my Fitbit buzzes to let me know that I have reached my step count. I literally hadn’t moved out of my seat for a good 20 minutes!

Finally, in Manchester, on a very wet evening when we were making our way back to the hotel, I stopped and asked Super Sarah if she could put up my hood as I had massive gloves on s could not manage this myself. Now when I say I had stopped, I really thought I had but apparently I was still rolling forward very slowly. I only realised this when Super Sarah cried out in pain. Though I was still a little distracted as my Fitbit had buzzed to say that I had reached my steps for the day. Yes, you guessed it, I reached my 2500th step by rolling over Super Sarah’s foot in my mobility scooter! Is it terrible that I laughed?

The Fitbit is worth its weight in gold. It really works with my competitive nature to ensure that I keep walking. I just wish that my target step was not always shrouded in misfortune or seemed like cheating!