The Fitbit Life

     This post is something that I've been itching to write about since I first purchased my Fitbit back in May, but it didn't make sense to write a review until I had actually used it. Now that a couple months have passed, I feel like I've used it enough to give an honest review.

Overview

     The craze in the use of activity trackers has picked up in the past couple years as it seems everyone is on the fitness train. Although I had been interested in getting one for a while, I couldn't justify spending the money for one.  On a random trip to Target, I came upon this Fitbit Charge that was marked down to $69.99 (they are originally priced at $99) and I thought it was an incredible deal. My sister told me that she would pitch in for half of it as my present for starting medical school and with that, I honestly couldn't pass on purchasing it.  So, that brings us to this little blue guy that has been permanently adorning my wrist for the past couple months.

Things I Like 

     Although I don't think you need fancy accessories to live a healthy lifestyle, I do feel that having a Fitbit helps motivate you to make more of a conscious effort. The main thing that a Fitbit does is count your steps and how much activity you are getting in during your day. The original step goal on my tracker was 10,000 steps per day, so I decided to stick with that. In the grand scheme of things, that equates to your average daily activity plus about 30 minutes of actual exercise. To me, that seems pretty good to just ensure that you are getting some activity in. The tracker syncs up to a Fitbit app and that allows you to view your steps and your activity for the day. Additionally, the app allows you to input your water intake, your meals, and check your sleep, as the Fitbit tracks your sleep. I am pretty good about drinking my water, so that's not a feature I use too often and I am not that conscious about tracking every meal. I do like to check out my sleep pattern, though and of course, my steps and activity level. I like that I have a way to hold myself accountable for being healthy as I can go into my app and see the days that I didn't reach my goals. 

This is what the home page for the app looks like.

After a full-day including a workout.

     I haven't used this feature much, but I believe Fitbit connects to other health apps such as My Fitness Pal or Runkeeper so that you can have a better overall connection on your health. I am a huge fan of being able to sync everything up, so that's pretty neat.

What I don't Like

     Unfortunately, the Fitbit model I have doesn't track exercise super well, so although it can register that I did take steps and that I was active for a certain period of time, it doesn't register that I went for a run/walk. I believe the newer versions do happen to measure exercise, though. Also, an issue that I seem to have is that you can't input food/water data for a previous day. Sometimes, I don't have the time to be putting everything in at the moment of doing it, so it would be a nice feature to have.

General Consensus

     Having an activity tracker the past couple months has been pretty great. I have been able to assess what I've been doing with my health and motivate myself to get my 10,000 steps in for the day. I have also been able to see just how much activity I get in without actually "exercising". When I was in the city for SPP, I was easily getting my steps in just by walking around the neighborhood going to grab a coffee. Also, the first weekend of SPP, Em and I went downtown and walked around and I got about 20,000 steps in for that day. It was seriously crazy because it felt like a pretty casual walk around the city. Having a Fitbit isn't essential to your fitness routine, but it is definitely a great addition. I love having one and I'm currently trying to see how I can get the most out of mine.

     I hope my review helped you if you were on the fence about getting one. Have a great rest of your week! I'll talk to you soon! 

~Genesis<3

Day Designer and Blue Sky Collaboration Planner Review!

Naturally as a very goal oriented pre-med student, keeping a planner has been a tool that I have kept in my toolbox for quite some time now. For me, a planner allows me to organize all the tasks I have to get done for the week, and also serves as a place I can come back to when I need inspiration.


I was very excited when this little gal came out as I had been eyeing the original day designer ( It is absolutely gorgeous! You can find it here!) for quite some time, but I honestly couldn't justify spending the $57 to purchase it, especially when I knew that my schedule wasn't going to be quite as busy to necessitate a daily planner. When I found out that Day Designer had done a collab with Blue Sky and would be selling planners at Target, I couldn't wait to get my hands on one. The planner line had several different options to choose from. Some of the planners were similar in design to the original Day Designer ( in size and layout), but I decided to go with this smaller one as it was less expensive than the larger one and would be easier to carry around. I believe I paid around $12.99, which isn't too bad when compared to the original $57 price tag, and it would allow me to test out the layout before committing to purchase it for the school year.

The Layout

What sets this planner apart from other monthly-weekly planners is that instead of breaking down the week into two pages it has a page dedicated to each weekday of the month ( weekends are set up differently) allowing for quite a bit more space to organize yourself compared to other planners.  This layout style piqued my interest as when I kept a traditional monthly-weekly planner, I often found myself writing out my schedule on a list pad as there wasn't enough space to jot down in my planner.

Similar to other planners, the planner has a monthly view at the beginning of each month's section. This is a nice little place to do an overview of the month and it is where I like to keep track of my work shifts as well as jot down major events that will be happening during the month.

 For each weekday, the planner features a daily view which gives you a nice amount of space to organize yourself for the day. I like to use this page to do a rough layout for my day and jot down a couple things in the to-do section that I'd like to accomplish.

For the weekend, the planner combines Saturday and Sunday on one page and eliminates the to-do section. I'm not particularly fond of this feature ( I'll touch more on that later), but it does make sense for other people on how they set it up.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• I did like the Schedule feature as it is something that I like to give me a general idea of how much time I have during the day.
• The design is really cute and for the price point it has held up incredibly well!
• The quotes! I am a huge fan of inspirational quotes, so the fact that every day has a new one to reflect on is a pretty cute feature.
• The gratitude section. I think it's really nice to be reminded to take the time to reflect on what you are grateful for, and I think it helps to promote positivity in your day.
• At the beginning of the planner, there's a little section to jot down goals and do a reflection about yourself. I think this is pretty neat as it helps to promote productivity and self-awareness.

There's a lot of space! If you are the type of person that must write everything down, you will love this planner. The daily page makes it seemingly impossible to run out of space ( in my opinion at least haha).

Cons:

• Too much space. For the people that need the space, I'm sure it's a lovely feature, but I don't tend to jot down too much during the day. Honestly, the excess of space might be because my current schedule is lax in comparison with a school year schedule.
• The daily style. As a visual person, not having the week laid out on two pages wasn't my favorite because it didn't allow me to get a feel for what my week looked like. I'm sure that sounds a bit silly but for me having a mental picture of my week allows me to organize myself a bit better.
• Weekend layout. I am not a fan of not having a to-do section on the weekend page. I would've at least like to have had a couple lines where I could right down a few tasks that I hoped to get done over the weekend.
• Decorating would be pricey. Currently, I just add some washi to the daily pages to add some flair, but if I wanted to add more decoration it would add up quickly.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I'm glad that I tested the planner out. It allowed me to see whether or not I would like the layout style without haveing to break the bank. Would I repurchase? eh, most likely not. Althought the original is beautiful, the planner offers way too much space and it would definitely go to waste. I might reconsider once I start med schoool and I see what my planning needs are, but for now I personally would hold off. I am definitely going to finish using it, but I'm thinking afterwards I might go for the personal planner (check it out here!).

I hope the review was helpful, and might have helped in the decision of what kind of planner to try.

~Genesis<3