Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

A couple years ago for my birthday, my sister gave me a Fitbit. And in the second that it took me to clip it to my bra, I joined the legions of fitness fanatics who track their every footprint with the goal of reaching the recommended 10,000 steps a day. 

Yes, I love my tracker. Which is why I was happy to cover the fairly new phenomena of fitness trackers for pets. Recently I wrote an article on the subject for the San Francisco Chronicle  and of course, I had to get a Poof Pet Activity Tracker for Hazel. Her activity pattern is pretty much as I suspected; she sleeps most of the day until the hour approaches when I'm due home. Then she starts moving around, getting restless and waiting for me. You can tell precisely when I walk through the door because her activity level spikes.  We go for our 50-minute walk, I nail my 10,000 steps, she's happy, and we're both fit and healthy. We return home, Hazel goes back to sleep and I follow my usual routine of watching TV or reading before going to bed. 

Now here's the thing: recently I became Fitbit "friends" with a coworker. The purpose is to encourage one another ("c'mon, you're almost there!"), act as cheerleaders ("you did it!") and occasionally throw down challenges ("how much can you do in one day?"). And I was feeling pretty good about reaching my 10,000 steps a day until I happened to notice that Kelly was consistently averaging more than me. A lot more.  Like double more. Like to the moon and back more. I thought I was in pretty decent shape until I came up against my Fitbit nemesis. 

Oh, and in case you're wondering, we're the same age, so it's not like she has the advantage of youth. At night, while I'm huffing and puffing alongside my bed doing jumping jacks at 10pm in order to reach my 10,000 steps, Kelly has already far surpassed me and is banking steps that take her into next week. She motivates me, that's for sure.

And that's a good thing. But I wish my Fitbit could "friend" Hazel as well.  Because while I like being motivated, it would soothe my bruised ego to "win" every now and then too -- even if my competition is a sleeping dog.  

Hey, I won't tell if you won't.