ActiveLink update.

Back in April, I wrote a blog post about getting started with the Weight Watchers ActiveLink. I won't re-hash all the specifics (read the old post for those), but here's a quick recap: ActiveLink is a monitor that you wear every day. It records all of your movement and assigns you WW Activity Points based on your whole day's activity. For the first 8 days that you wear it, it assesses your normal activity and then assigns a 12-week challenge based on your current activity pattern.

I am currently in week 10 of my first challenge, and I must say that I LOVE this thing! Based on my assessment, my original goal for week 12 was to earn 4 activity points per day. I was sick during my assessment and less active than usual, so I initially thought that goal sounded easy. WRONG. Turns out that earning 4 activity points on days where I have a race or tough cardio workout is very easy. Earning 4 activity points on a regular workday with no cardio workout is very, very hard.

I have tried everything: cleaning more, taking the stairs, walking to talk to co-workers. The only thing that gets me to my goal on a regular, non-workout day is getting home early enough to go for a walk with my husband. (Or, as others might call it, getting in a workout.) The reality is that I do a fairly sedentary job and spend a minimum of 90 minutes per day commuting. That is a whole lot of sitting time. Want proof that most of us sit too much? Get yourself an activity monitor. Within 2 or 3 weeks, I was already considering fairly drastic lifestyle changes to cut my commute and increase my activity. I'm still thinking about making those changes in the long term.

In the short term, I'm just being more diligent about getting workouts done, especially cardio workouts. Knowing that I will plug in my ActiveLink at the end of the day and stare at a big fat "0" is often enough to get me to the pool for a quick swim or convince me to go for that walk at the end of the day. In fact, by week 4 or so, I was doing so well that ActiveLink suggested upping my challenge to 5 Activity Points per day. I gladly accepted!

10 weeks in, I haven't totally succeeded in achieving my goal of spreading out my activity throughout the week, but I am doing better. ActiveLink builds you up to your challenge goal with smaller goals in the early weeks. In the first week, I was struggling to meet my mini-goal of 2 Activity Points per day. Now, I almost always manage at least that. On a weekly basis, I pretty much always make my goal (ie: 35 Activity Points/week), but I still earn most of those on the weekends. This week, for example, I have earned:

-22 on Saturday (10-mile run plus cooking and cleaning)
-15 on Sunday (triathlon)
-3 on Monday (work from home day with a workout DVD)
-3 on Tuesday (TRX in the AM and a day in the office)

The pattern is clear. I'm already 5 Activity Points over my weekly goal, but I didn't hit the daily goal on Monday and Tuesday, even though I did some exercise both of those days.

This brings me back to what I said about cardio workouts. The ActiveLink really rewards cardio (walking, running, biking, swimming) over any other exercise. The workouts I did on Monday and Tuesday were more strength-based, and those just don't earn many activity points. I would earn more going for a 30-minute walk than doing an intense 45-minute TRX class. This can be frustrating, as I'm a big believer in strength training with no intention of giving that up. But I have to keep in mind that the ActiveLink is from WeightWatchers, which means that it is focused on weight loss, and one glance at any "calories burned by type of activity" chart (like this one) clearly shows that cardio activities burn more calories. I know enough about fitness not to abandon my strength training just to do more cardio, but one positive of the ActiveLink is that it motivates me to do at least a little cardio (say, a short run or walk) even on strength training days.

All in all, I'm a fan of this little device and activity monitors in general. If you are thinking about trying one out, I say go for it. I can't promise that you will lose a ton of weight and become incredibly fit (that hasn't happened to me), but you will learn a great deal about your activity patterns and where you can make some positive changes.