Arguing with my Fitness Tracker App

I am one of those women who struggles with her weight. My weight is actually terrific for a woman of five feet seven inches. Trouble is, I am barely five feet tall. It also doesn't help that I am over fifty, and my metabolism is well aware of it.

I will admit that I may not have been as attentive to my caloric intake over the last few years as I should have been. And I may I also have neglected to keep in touch with my doctor as often as I should have. After a while my doctor sent a few of those reminder cards: “We haven't seen you in a while!” “We miss you!” “Just call us and make an appointment.” “OK seriously, where are you? This isn't funny anymore.”

I felt so bad that I broke down and did the unthinkable. Yes, I finally decided to go to the doctor. The doctor let me know that I was doing everything just fine. I just need to fix my weight, lower my carb intake, raise my protein intake and monitor my exercise. Oh, and being over fifty means that I also have to monitor vitamin and mineral intake as well as all of my hormones.

Or I could take a few pills.

I am not take the easy-way-out kind of gal. I have no objection to taking pills, but I will do everything humanly possible to avoid it. Throw in a dash of type-A personality and you get the picture. There goes all my free time. It is now dedicated to not taking pills. Some call it an obsession, but I think that's ridiculous. This is a competition. It's me against the pills, and I will win. More importantly, the pills will lose.

I have been exercising for years. That part of the equation was fine. But I realized that I might need a little help with the rest, so I bought a fitness tracker. It would be my conscience, a personal trainer without a voice. It has all the bells and whistles. I can even wear it swimming. I put in all of my information and started proudly wearing it. I loaded the app on my phone. The tracker syncs to the app and inputs my exercise automatically. I input my food every meal. At the end of each day you press the button and let the app know that your finished your diary for the day. Then a message pops up that states if every day were like today you would weigh X lbs in X number of days. Positive reinforcement. I am in.

Then I got my first message. The app told me I was under my caloric goals it set for me, and I was OK with that. I have always thought that in the case of calories, less is more. Apparently my fitness tracker disagrees.

The next day, the warning popped up again. Only this time the warning was a little more stern. Actually, it was the same warning. I just hadn't taken the time to read the entire warning. When I read the entire warning, it told me that it would refuse to generate a news feed or give a weight projection because I hadn't met my caloric goals. News flash, Fitness Tracker: I have been tracking my information longer than you think and I still don't weigh what I should according to you. I have a feeling you are using New Math.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, New Math was a system taught in the late sixties and early seventies designed to make everyone using it feel good about math. And it did. It also made everyone get the wrong answers. Today, we call New Math “estimation.”

There is no place in the fitness tracker app to explain my disagreement with their method of calculation.

The warning also told me that I might be causing bodily damage because I am not getting enough nutrients. The NIH was also mentioned. Bringing in the National Institutes of Health to give me a warning is a low blow. I hate to argue with the fitness tracker app or the NIH, but trust when I say I have enough nutrients stored in my body to live for a number of days as long as I drink water.

Now my fitness tracker has moved on from warning to straight-up shaming. Yesterday, I apparently didn't walk the number of steps in the morning that I had on previous Saturdays, and it let me know. Loudly. Really, fitness tracker app? I didn't worry about my steps because I knew that I was going shopping in the afternoon and would be walking all afternoon. There is no part of the app that lets me explain my plans for the day.

I noticed that a colleague of mine has the very same app on her phone. We start talking about nutrition, losing weight and eventually the dreaded app. In a low voice, as if she is afraid the app will hear, she asks if I too was shamed for eating under it's recommended calorie intake. I acknowledge that yes, I have gotten shamed by my fitness tracker app. She asked if I was increasing my calories. I laughed out loud.

We decided to have lunch and discuss the tracker. I believe we would technically qualify as the first support group for under-calorie-shaming by a fitness tracker app. We had a healthy salad for lunch, and we laughed. And laughed some more. I'm hoping the tracker app folks aren't too upset that there we are laughing at their messages. They really should raise the bar on their standard for motivation.

Maybe the tracker app should take a page from my book. It should have some jokes instead of reminders. I am thinking that there should be a separate tracker app for women over the age of fifty. The categories could include calories burned during menopausal moments. Sweating while not exercising. Exercising and not burning any calories because you forgot to press the go button. Calories burned while being weepy in your car. Calories burned while wishing you hit the lottery. Calories burned while singing loudly, driving your car and not caring if the windows are open. Calories burned in a night sweat episode. Calories burned while changing the sheets after waking up from a sound sleep after a night sweat episode. Calories burned while not cooking dinner. Calories burned while being in a fog. Calories burned trying to remember things you forgot. And my personal favorite: calories burned while being everything to everyone.