When I visited my son and his family in Boston in the States last month, my son convinced me to trade my old Fitbit in on an Apple Watch. I had bonded with my Fitbit. We had spent four years together. It was a love / hate relationship, more hate than love, but a relationship nonetheless!
I had looked at Apple watches before and decided that they would give me too much information. I didn’t want an alarm telling me that I have exceeded my pulse rate for my age! I didn’t want a warning that the oxygen levels in my blood were dangerously low! By telling me that my heart was beating erratically would give me a heart attack!
Apparently I could turn all those frightening alarms off and only get the information I needed. Now, who wouldn’t want to answer their phone by talking to their watch and read text and WhatsApp messages just by glancing down at their arm? Another big plus was that my exercise routines could all be monitored and the results given every evening would keep me in peak physical fitness!
I did have another very real problem. The Apple watch looked like a normal watch. My Fitbit didn’t. I wore my Fitbit on my right arm. I had a dozen different coloured watches that I matched with my outfits every day and wore them on my left arm. A few years ago we had visited friends in Naples, in Florida. I was taken to a shop that opened up a whole new world for me! I saw row upon row of different coloured watches stretching as far as the eye could see. For day or evening wear, less or more bling, the choices were endless! And they all cost a mere 6 dollars!
Feeling embarrassed I only bought six that day but desperately wanted more! There were stores all around America so the following year, driving through a little town called Kennebunkport, in Maine, my collection of watches doubled! I was in heaven. There were new styles and colours and they were all still only 6 dollars! I could match earrings, scarves and watches to every outfit!
That’s sad! I’m sharing far too much!
So, I got the Apple watch, rose gold with a black strap. I said goodbye to the annoying Fitbit and psyched myself up to do battle with a new, more advanced enemy. Back at my son’s house I mentioned my dilemma. It would look a bit daft, even for me, to wear two watches. And then I was given some amazing news! My son could get any colour strap I wanted that would fit my new Apple watch. A pack of twelve cost only 20 dollars! With huge restraint I tried to control my excitement and readily accepted his kind offer. Two days later they arrived.
Now, being a pensioner and with our economy in such a precarious state, I needed to recycle my six dollar watches. I couldn’t just send them to landfill! When I approached my daughter to ask if she would take them off me, her eyes lit up! She is now the proud owner of my collection of fancy coloured watches. She has also continued the ritual of matching them to her outfits every morning. Must be genetic!
But there is another down side to my Apple watch. It can communicate with son’s Apple watch and we can compete in our daily exercise routines. Sounded like harmless fun at the time so I accepted his challenge. I am quite active so didn’t feel that I’d be too useless. In fact, I thought it would show me up in quite a good light! The aim was to get 600 or as close to 600 points as possible every day, for a week at a time. There are exercise, calorie and standing rings which need to be closed. Steps don’t even feature!
I won the first week. It was not too onerous and I felt quite chuffed with my performance. My son, however, was devastated! He had been beaten by his aged mother! The start of the second week was very different. Like most men he is competitive. I’m not. Every evening I’d check my points. I’d usually be either six hundred or fairly close. My son is five hours behind us. Every morning I found that his score was either slightly better than mine or he had achieved his 600 goal!
I lost the second week! That was it! Game on! My husband posted a message on our family WhatsApp group. Son, you’ve poked the bear! He had. It became all out war! My husband and I were doing our usual four kilometre walks every day. Three times a week I do a morning dance class, once a week, yoga and regular exercises at home. Some days that wasn’t enough and I’d have to set the watch to ‘indoor walking’ to try to get more points! If I chose’ Other’ I could get points for ironing, washing up, cooking, housework and gardening. I was fast becoming obsessed!
One morning last week my son sent me a video of a man crawling along the sand on his stomach with the caption, ‘Mom, you’re killing me’! I was beginning to feel the strain as well and mentioned having a less energetic day on Saturday. Naively I thought that he would at least give me one day off. But no, Sunday morning he had reached his 600 points. He had walked on his treadmill in his gym at home while watching a film.
Life is not fair. I don’t have a gym with a television screen in my house. I am reliant on the weather behaving so that I can get out and walk. But I am happy to continue along this exhausting, unfair and sometimes stressful path to help my son lose some weight and get back to his peak physical fitness. Mothers show their love for their children in many different ways! This is certainly different!
So, between you and me, getting six hundred points a day won’t always be possible, especially as winter approaches. But I shall keep on trying. Perhaps I might even begin to enjoy this torture! Or, perhaps, the bear will finally stop feeling the pokes and go off somewhere to hibernate👠
Jenny Burrell 