Bionic

January 2024 update: 

Please note that many posts in this blog are a record of a person with multiple eating disorders who sought questionable care, was excited about dangerous lifestyle choices, and believed in achieving absolute health through eating (which is something that cannot be done and is often more detrimental to one's overall health).

I do not recommend following any posted advice or using the person I was in these posts as an example for anything related to food. If you're experiencing issues related to food and feel yourself in the grip of diet culture, I suggest seeking care from a counselor who focuses on eating disorders and, in the meantime, gently challenging preconceived notions of health and wellness through your media choices. A favorite of mine and a pillar of my treatment these days is the podcast Maintenance Phase.
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Original post:

As a Christmas/birthday present to myself (I know, I know—I should have just bought myself two presents, but this one was a splurge), I ordered a Nike+ FuelBand. I first heard of it when I came across a mention of it in the Zumba instructor forum last month and almost started drooling a little.

Basically, it's a high-tech wristband that displays "Fuel" points (a made-up Nike metric that I mostly ignore) and progress to your Fuel goal for the day, steps taken, approximate calories burned, and the time. You can supposedly sync to an app on your smartphone, but because I don’t have one of those, I just unhook it and plug it into my computer to access the interface. From there I can adjust my goals (daily Fuel goals, long-term calorie or step goals, and so on), and my favorite part is that it shows a line graph of my activity throughout the day.

This is a day with two Zumba classes. Those peaks and valleys are a simple, powerful motivator.
I'm not proud of the day (not pictured) when my peak activity was half an hour of vacuuming.

It's not the most advanced gadget out there. It's not waterproof enough to swim with, and it's not a heart rate monitor or a sleep tracker. The calorie count is just an estimate, based on arm movement, and is more accurate for things like running and dancing than, say, that hour of yoga on Sunday, which my FuelBand erroneously said burned a whopping 30 calories. I have no problem proudly saying that I burn 400-500 calories in each Zumba class, however.

It goes so great with my Zumba bracelets. I've acquired a troublesome bruise on my right palm, though, from the impact of the FuelBand whenever I enter a choreography section of "vigorous clapping."

Attribute it, if you will, to too many sci-fi movies and books during my formative years, but I’m bizarrely attracted to the idea of being at least partially robot. If I had the choice to be any humanoid creature, I always said I'd be a cyborg. It's fitting; I like '80s synth music and autotune and sometimes even dubstep. So having this fancy wristband constantly reminding me to perform crucial functions like exercising seems pretty cool to me. And yeah, it's expensive, but I can also reluctantly admit to spending more on groceries this week than I spent on the FuelBand, which will last far longer than that giant bag of Brussels sprouts.

I blame you, $40 vegan protein powder.

And I am so immensely grateful for being able to exercise at this point. It turns out that Prednisone (the inflammation-killing steroid) and I get along quite well, and hopefully by the time I've tapered off it, my other new medication will have kicked in and will work to maintain relatively normal levels of intestinal functioning. This flare that I'm recovering from made me doubt most aspects of my life—will I be able to run and jump and dance? Can I teach a Zumba class or will I have to stop teaching permanently because I'm imprisoned in the bathroom?—and buying the FuelBand was a leap of faith that I would recover and be able to stay as active as I want to be. Lo and behold, thanks to support from my family and friends and (less happily) doctors and medications, I'm just about back to normal for the time being.

And I will enjoy being part cyborg for as long as I can.