I’m Anisha
I’ve had a long illness – I’ve been struggling to lose the weight I put on. I’d stopped exercising and I wasn’t recording my food either. I don’t know whether it’s menopause, mental health or my illness, but when I lose weight, I put it back on again. Relatives have given me two fitbits before, but neither of them lasted very long. When I’ve had them, I’ve found that they’ve supported my weight loss and activity levels, but I couldn’t afford a new one and the kids weren’t going to buy me another one.
Getting digital
So, before I’d mainly use the phone for social media and texting. I still struggle with apps and sometimes when you want to tell the time quickly, it doesn’t come on, so I wear a normal watch on my other wrist! I got the Fitbit set up for me at the Share Shack. She told me what it did and set up an hourly exercise prompt. At home, my nephew shows me how to do things. For example, he’s been loading the daily diet intake, and adding blocks, so I just need to go through and find them. So that’s made life easier for me. I wasn’t too worried about the tech because I knew I could just go back to the Share Shack and the staff there would help me.
Keeping track and getting out
The advantage of the Fitbit is being able to track my steps. It’s magical, really, isn’t it? This tells me now how many steps I’ve done or not done. If I’ve had a day where I’ve been more sedentary then I’ll make up for it. I’ve realized from the fitbit, I actually need to more a little walk down the road that and it’s got me back on track. I used to run before I got ill and I’ve started again.
I have also used it to monitor my menstrual cycle, mood, diet, sleep and my oxygen. With my sleep for example, I think I’m developing sleep apnea. Although it’s not a medical device, I can tell the GP “I think I’m having some problems here” and I’ve been referred. The other nice thing is that I’ve set an alarm on it to wake me up, which means at bedtime I can read instead of being on my phone.
One things leads to another
So I because I started walking and running again, my back pain returned, so I’ve started doing Yoga, Tai Chi and Pilates. The Tai chi is very gentle, but it’s nice because my back feels better, my shoulders are less creaky as well. Then, because of the exercise classes, I’ve made some friends, which is nice. When you see someone else with a Fitbit, we ask each other questions about how it’s going.
Words of wisdom
It will motivate you to do other things. It tracks a lot of the things that we worry about as you get older. It has helped me massively. I would have been much bigger size wise if I hadn’t got the Fitbit back. Mostly, it’s helped my mental wellbeing because I go out and walk and rather than just circling inside, so it drags me out. It’ll get you moving and once you start moving, there’s so many other health benefits to it. I’m hoping my physical fitness continues to improve my hormones balance.
