Sunday, August 19, 2012

Another New Toy

The company I work for has a thing for employee wellness.  They save on insurance, have less absenteeism - I get it.  We have an on-site "mini-gym," complete with lots of ellipticals and treadmills and such, and a fitness classroom where they hold classes like Zumba, Jazzercise, bootcamps, etc.  Guess who does NOT take advantage?  Yep, this girl.  I'm not a fan of working out in front of other people, particularly people I work with.

Anyhoo, this year, my company teamed up with these guys to try to get the employees living a healthier lifestyle.  You get certain points for doing certain things, then get to spend those points in their online "mall."  So when I got the info from work, I logged on, completed an HRA, set some goals and earned some points.

One of the ways to earn points is to do workouts, and use your Polar heart rate monitor to verify it.  This is where I got a little salty.  I spent a decent amount of my own money to purchase a Polar heart rate monitor and use it religiously, but unless I spend an addition $75ish for the gadget to upload data from the monitor to my pc (and thus, their website), my workouts down count for diddly on this program.

Like I said, salty.

Company to the rescue!  For completing my HRA, my company gave me (for free) a glorified pedometer known as a fitbug.  It comes with a little USB cable, so all you have to do is download the tracking software, wear the thing daily, and plug it in to upload your steps for the day.  Easy as pie!  The program gives you 5 points for 5,000 steps in a day and 10 points for 10,000 steps in a day.
Ya know, I try not to be all pessimistic and crappy about things.  I really do.  But 10,000 steps as a goal? REALLY??  The thing is, I have a desk job.  I'm the Queen of Email.  I don't get a chance to get up and rack up steps too often from 8-5. It's only so many steps from my desk to the coffee maker.  I wore the thing for my 45 minutes of my cardio one evening, and only logged 4,000 steps during that time.  Just for kicks, the following night, I did two full workouts wearing the thing and barely made the 10,000 - and that was adding in all the steps from my day.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great my company has taken such an interest in employee wellness, even if they do have an agenda. But, dear Fitbug and nameless company that employees me - maybe you should be a little more realistic about the number of steps a full-time desk jockey can take during the course of the day.

Now.... I'm off to log some steps.
Saturday, August 4, 2012

huffin' and puffin'

Stamina?  Am I supposed to have some of that?

After 2 weeks of illness, wicked dehydration and travel, I finally got back down to my exercise room tonight.    4,000% (yes, it IS a real number) humidity didn't help much, but I made it through unscathed and 435 calories lighter.

Since that's all I have to say on the health front, I'll leave you with some yummy Hugh Laurie.  Whom I will be going to see live in August.   It's okay if you're jealous.  *le swoon*




 

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