Jawbone UP

Mine is like the one on the left, except it is PINK.

Jimmy gave me the neatest gift for Valentine's Day.  A Jawbone UP fitness bracelet.  I gave him one for Christmas in 2013, and he has enjoyed tracking his fitness with it for over a year now.

So.  What does this bracelet do?

• It tracks your steps.  Every step you take is tracked over each 24 hour period.  When you initially set up your Jawbone, you choose how many steps you want to set as your daily goal.  I chose 10,000.  It is so interesting to see how many steps I take based on my daily activities. On Sundays, when I attend two church services plus Bible class, and I typically don't run, plus I tend to sit and read on Sunday afternoons, I have a hard time meeting the 10.000 step challenge.  However on the days that run, even when I run only 3 miles, I have no problem attaining the 10,000 step goal, and I usually exceed that. I can meet the 10,000 step goal on weekdays when I don't run, but it is close.
• It tracks your sleep.  This is really my favorite part.  I KNOW that I don't get enough sleep on a regular basis.  Tracking my sleep for over a week now has shown me how little I do sleep.  It breaks it down into deep sleep and light sleep.  I am not sure how much of each type of sleep is most beneficial, but the Jawbone has shown me that on most nights I have less and shorter periods of deep sleep than light sleep. It tells you how many minutes it took you to fall asleep and how many times, if any, that you woke up during the night. I set my goal for sleep at 7 hours, but I have met that goal only 2 or 3 times. 
• It wakes you up. You can choose the time you would like to wake up each morning, and the Jawbone will wake you up within a 10, 15, or 20 minute (you may can customize this even further) window, waking you up at the optimal time based on your sleep pattern.  It just buzzes on your wrist until you shut it off. I did this for a couple of days, but I turned off this feature last week when I needed to get up at different times each morning for various reasons.  You use the app on your phone to set up and modify this feature, and since I don't keep my phone in my bedroom, it was too much trouble to remember to set the alarm on the app before I went to bed……anyway, I am just using my regular alarm clock, but I may reset the Jawbone alarm again.
• It challenges you. If it sees that you are exceeding your steps taken goal, the Jawbone will challenge you to increase your steps goal.  My Jawbone has done this almost every day, especially after the day I ran 10 miles. Some days I will choose YES, I'll accept the challenge, and some days I'll choose NO, if it is a day that I don't think I will make the new goal.  Because…..if you meet your goals, you get a smiley face.  
• It syncs with your smart phone. You have to install the UP app, and that is where you track, set up, and view all of your activities.  You can access the app throughout the day to see your progress.
• It tracks your food intake. I am not using this feature, but Jimmy is.  You can scan the barcode of your store-bought foods, or manually record the foods that you are eating.  You can set calorie goals, and it lets you know if you are staying within your calorie budget.  Smiley faces included!  It also rates your food based on it's nutritional content:  green, yellow, or red. You can also record your weight and set goals for that too.
• It is a stopwatch.  You can time your exercise, and then label it as such on the app.
• Other features: include a power nap setting and alarm, activity alert, idle alert, and other reminders. Also, you can "be friends" with other Jawbone UP users, and you can see their daily activities on your app too.  That really is too much information, in my opinion, so I am only friends with Jimmy.  I like seeing how many steps he has taken or how long he slept each day.  

One day my Jawbone challenged me to drink 8 glasses of water. I could only drink 4 that day (I did drink other things….coffee, a coke), and so I did not get a happy face. 

It's a fun little gadget, and I am enjoying it very much!