Fitness Friday - - Woe is me

I’m having problems with my Fitbit. It seems my Fixit Guy getting his own has jinxed mine. I got him one for Fathers’ Day (I found one 2^nd hand on a local facebook site and it was too good to pass up) He charged it and connected up and at that point we realised that the step counter on my phone dashboard has disappeared. It doesn't come up when we hit the edit button… its gone from there too. At first we couldn't get it to sync with the computer either but then we got that working but still no steps on the phone. 

We deleted the ap from my phone and reinstalled it but still no steps.  I emailed Fitbit but haven’t heard back from them yet. (5 days later... not impressed)  It was very frustrating as I like checking on my steps through out the day to get an idea of how many more I need to get done to make my minimum. When I logged in after we got  back from our camping trip it said that there was no device paired with my account. What? Somehow it had been deleted. So I reinstalled it... as a new device and low and behold my step counter has reappeared on my phone. It has counted todays steps but I have lost my steps for the days we were away. Then Fixit Guy checked his phone and he had lost his step counter. He checked on the computer and now he had no device paired with his phone. We realised that what had happened is that my fitbit got paired with Fixit Guy's account so all the steps that was registering on his account were actually my steps, which accounts for why his pedometer (which he continues to wear) and his fitbit step count were so out of whack at times. He has tried again to install his fit bit and for the moment at least we both have steps appearing on our ap. Will see if it continues to do the right things. Meanwhile my status on the fitbit rankings has slid down to about 19th!

Steptember

This has been going pretty well although there was one day we didn't get our steps. Fathers’ Day. Sundays are often a challenge for us to get out for 2 walks and without 2 walks I generally find it hard to get to 10 000 steps. Plus Sunday mornings are usually pretty sedentary with our church service and after service morning tea which stretches out till  lunchtime. This week we had lunch after church as well. Then we had to pick up Fangirl from the plane at 3.30 and we had a meeting at church at 5 which was followed by soup and bread for a shared dinner. And then Doctor Who in the evening. Not much time for exercise. We did squeeze in a quick walk around the block so the dog didn't get too annoyed with us. So apart from Sunday we have made sure we have got out 10 000 steps in.

We have a new team member for our Steptember Team. I asked Fangirl’s friend Sam if she would join us. She is my friend on Fitbit (and real life too) and is usually ahead of me in steps… well and truly… sometimes I pass her but that’s usually cause she’s at school teaching and I am getting my steps in early. She goes to the gym after work and runs and blasts me out of the water (or off the track…)So she was a good person to have on board. Trouble is now I am coming third out of 4. Fixit Guy has shorter legs than me so even when we walk the same distance he ends up with more steps. He’s also a busy beaver around the house and so gets up more there too. Just as well I have Fangirl on the team to make me not look so bad!! Mind you….I have the highest fundraising for our team, well and truly. I set a goal of $500 for our team for the month. We still haven’t made it yet but there’s still time. (if you want to donate to us click on this link)

We camped for a few days this week at Theresa Creek Dam, which is only 1.5 hours from where we live but it is the first time we have been here despite living in the area for over 31 years. There is plenty of nice flat ground for camping on and trees for shade. There are no powered sites but we have gas for cooking and some light and solar panels to run the fridge and run more lights. We can also have wood fires which we have enjoyed.

As well as  having no powered sites, mobile (cell) reception at the camping area was very limited. Mostly it was no reception but occasionally there would be a little. No mobile meant no internet. That played havoc with my plans to assuage my sewing desires by watching a few of my Craftsy Classes.

One of the things we enjoy about camping is the cooking and eating we do. Being able to have camp fires meant that we could use our camp oven a little. We made a desert in it which was yummy. Our camp oven is rather large - hangover from when we camped with all our kids. I think we need to invest in a smaller one. The desert I made was enough for 3 nights!

The other cooking experiment we had this trip was with The Dream Pot that I gave  Fixit Guy “Dream Pot” for Fathers’ Day. 

Step 1: Start it	Step 2: Transfer it	Step 3: Leave it	Step 4: Eat it!
Put ingredients into the supplied DreamPot inner saucepan.  Then place saucepan on any heat source to start the cooking process.  Boil/heat/partially cook for a short time with lid on (times are stated for each DreamPot recipe). Stir occasionally.	Once timings are complete, transfer the inner saucepan into the DreamPot and close the lid.	The DreamPot will continue to cook your meal until ready. (It’s time for time, just like your kitchen oven). No further energy consumption will be used, thanks to the DreamPot’s insulation, which maintains the cooking temperature of the saucepans! No stirring or checking is necessary. Enjoy cooking one or two course meals!	After the minimum required cooking time your meal is ready to serve.  Enjoy now or later; if the meal is ready before you are, it will keep safely hot in the DreamPot.

We cooked rice in it the first night (cook for 1 min and then rest in the insulated container for 20 mins) and it worked really really well. The next day we cooked chicken and bacon stew and it was so good.

We kept fairly active whilst camping. We went on a couple of walks each day in order to get up our 10 000 steps. There wasn't any walking tracks although we did walk along the foreshore of the dam for us much as we could, enjoying the birdlife that was prolific there. 

We also walked along the road into town, up the incline to where the water tower was. We found that there was better phone reception there and so our daily walk was our chance to check emails and phone messages.

My brother posted the photo below on facebook

We pretty much did all this. Just to prove we did the sunset bit, my last photo

 So how has your fitness challenges been this week. I haven't weighed myself since we got home. Don't want to know!! I can't report my daily or weekly steps because of my fitbit hassles. Hopefully they are all resolved now and this will be a better week.

An InLinkz Link-up