Sleep Number - A New Bed

In my opinion, one of the overlooked areas of fitness is sleep. Sleep is an important way to stay healthy and boost the immune system, but we often focus so much on diet and exercise, that we forget to sleep.

My husband and I had the same mattress for over fifteen years. We decided to buy a new one and to go big or go home when shopping. We understood that we spend a third of our lives sleeping and that we needed something great to help us in this area. We went with a Sleep Number i8.

Although it was delivered to us a couple of weeks ago, the jury is still out on the bed. We're waiting for our bodies to adjust to see if we start seeing a difference in our sleep patterns and the tired feeling we get during the day.

I do feel like I should mention that thus far, the customer service has not been great. When the bed was delivered, the installers couldn't figure out how to get the remotes that adjust our bed up and down to work. Once they left, after promising we'd get a call from customer service, my husband was able to figure it out right away. We never got the call we were promised and then we realized that the under-bed lighting was missing. A call to customer service resulted in yet another scheduled install with a large time window, but they did get it done.

Fitbit

Now that I had a personal blender to help me get more antioxidants in my diet, it was time to move towards fixing my lack of exercise issue. My first step was to go to my local Target and buy a Fitbit.

Fitbit is a series of devices that you clip onto clothing or strap to your wrist and it tracks your steps throughout the day. We've all heard of these types of pedometers, so what makes this one so special?

I went for the Fitbit One. It can clip to my belt or slip into my pocket and is small enough that I don't really notice it. There are some watch options, but I don't really like wearing items on my wrist because they usually end up at my elbow.

This pedometer, however, doesn't just count your steps. It calculates how many calories you've burned throughout the day and even tracks any restlessness during your sleep. Since sleep is also an area I'm looking to improve, this was definitely the device for me.

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The Fitbit takes all the date it collects and the syncs it with your computer and an app you can install on your phone. It will also let you see the progress of your friends (if they allow that in their settings) so that you can see how you compare and how your friends are doing.

After only having the Fitbit One for a week, I went back to the store and picked up a Fitbit Aria. This is a scale that syncs with the Fitbit dashboard so I can track both devices in one place.

I've had my Fitbit devices now for over a month and so far they have confirmed what I already knew, I don't get enough exercise. As I work to change this, the Fitbit will be a great tool to track how much I've progressed.

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