When it comes to tracking my weight and diet, doubly so.
If there was a way to weigh in, without having to think about it, that would seriously work for me.
Turns out, there is a way. And it's awesome.
A few weeks back I reviewed the fitbit ChargeHR activity tracker and was pretty impressed with the results and the way the data magically appeared on my fitbit account without me having to do much at all.
I mean, obviously I had to do something. You can't meet your daily step goal without actually taking some steps. But of course, the cool thing was fitbit tracked it all for me, even integrating seamlessly with my preferred running app, Endomondo.
Still, what's the point of all this exercise I'm trying so hard to pretend isn't happening to me? Being fit is nice, I suppose - especially the feeling good part of it. What would be even better would be to feel... what's the word?... "attractive"? That involves dropping a few kilos and then annoyingly, keeping them off.
Turns out, the most effective way to do that seems to be eating less and exercising more. I know, boring, yet true.
The fitbit app/dashboard does a pretty good job of making you feel guilty about everything you eat, and I've been able to find most of the stuff I bung in my gob in their online database when I log my meals. You can even look things up by their barcodes, although annoyingly some sandwiches don't always come with a barcode.
This part of the process is still pretty tedious and I look forward to a time when you can just take a photo of your plate and the app will work out the calories from the picture.
Which brings me to the other part of the equation; tracking my weight. That used to be equally tedious - I'd often forget what I'd weighed in at between the time I got off the scales and the time I could be bothered picking up my phone. This of course allowed for a certain "margin of error" when it came to noting any improvement or deterioration, once the real figure had been adjusted by a time delay and wishful thinking.
Well the fitbit Aira takes all that guesswork (lying) away.
These scales look just like any other set of electronic scales... actually, quite a bit cooler than most, especially in black. They run on 4 perfectly ordinary AA batteries. There's a little bit of setting up to do to connect them to your WiFi network, but not much really. All you'll need is another device that's already connected to that network; like a phone or a laptop and your fitbit account.
The rest happens automatically. The fitbit Aria somehow knows it's you every time you step on it, it weighs you and measures your BMI too. You can tell the scales have detected the right person because they flash your initials up on the screen before sending all that information back to your fitbit account via your WiFi router.
So simple, yet so clever. You can register up to 8 different users so the whole family can send their weight through the cybersphere to their fitbit accounts. Apparently the Aria differentiates between users by their previously recorded weights (if there are 2 people who are close in weight, you have the option of scrolling between the users with a quick tap on the scales).
I'm not sure what happens if you manage a REALLY dramatic weight-loss between weigh-ins. Would the Aria still recognise you? Of course, the reason I don't know this is sadly I've never experienced a dramatic weight-loss between weigh-ins.
Much to the Domestic Manager's relief, you don't even have to be a registered user to use the fitbit Aria; you can just step on the scales and be weighed as a guest. I think she's worried about her weight being stolen out of the cloud and used for nefarious purposes, but I've been feeding my details into my fitbit account for ages and haven't experienced any Jennifer Lawrence-style leaking of my personal bits to date. In saying that, the Aria can actually Tweet my results if I want it to. I'm not sure WHY I'd want it to though, and I'm pretty certain the rest of Twitter isn't that interested either. There really IS some information the rest of the world doesn't need to know.
Of course, the real question is, has the fitbit Aria helped me lose weight?
Answer; hey, it's only a set of scales.
But at least I feel luxuriously lazy using them.
Click here for more information on the fitbit Aria
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