The quantified self: why small can be significant

I've been experimenting with this whole quantified self malarkey since July. I got a Ftibit for my birthday, and have been wearing it pretty constantly ever since (well apart from when I killed my first one with the washing machine - thanks for replacing it, Fitbit!) Every day Fitbit monitors my activity, telling me how active I am, how many floors I've climbed, steps I've taken and calories I've burned. I now have around 4 months worth of data on my daily activity to crunch.

Why do I do this? Well, like most women approaching middle age with a thickening waist, I'm interested in not turning into a porker. With each year it gets harder to eat cake in vast quantities and stay skinny. In previous years I've tried different diets, fasting, yoga, running, cycling, etc, with varying results. What I have singularly failed to do, along with almost everyone else I know, is to stick to any one of these regimes or to affect any significant change to my health and fitness by making a sudden, drastic change. But there's something about using a Fitbit that has made me look at the concept of affecting significant change in a different way.

For a start, I've realised that I don't want to change my body that much. I'm pretty happy with my weight and level of fitness. I wouldn't mind being 2kgs lighter, or being able to lift somewhat heavier weights, but it doesn't matter if I don't achieve this. What really matters to me is that I stay at around this weight and continue to stay fit and healthy for as long as possible. The best way to do this, I now think, isn't to go to the gym more often, or to go on the paleo diet, but to keep being *quite* active each day and to keep eating *not too many* calories each day.

I don't pay too much attention to my daily Fitbit stats, but towards the evening I do glance at how many calories I've burned. If it's loads (on a day when I've cycled into town and back, for example) I'm happy. If it's not many, I'll think about factoring in some exercise - a dance in the kitchen, maybe, or walking to the pub rather than taking the bus. Small, manageable things. If I don't manage it today, no worries, but I'll check again tomorrow and try to manage it then.

When I first got my Fitbit I did calorie counting as well, recording the calorie intake of everything I ate on a daily basis for several weeks. I stopped doing that pretty quickly - it got time-consuming and dull - but I've internalised an understanding of how calorific certain foods and drinks tend to be, and can now make broad guesses at how much I'm consuming each day. This has resulted in me consuming fewer calories each week - not by a huge amount, but enough to keep my weight stable. It's also encouraged me to snack less, and to snack on less calorific items. Small changes. Manageable changes.

What's struck me is that these changes aren't particularly significant when taken one by one, but overall, the effect is quite striking. I weigh around the same as I did in July, but I'm noticeably fitter. I now cycle whenever I can, rather than every now and then. This isn't because I've decided to cycle more, it's because I try to be more active each day. I now drink quite a lot less booze each week. Again, not because I decided to drink less booze, but because I'm trying to drink fewer calories each day.

Having a Fitbit has made me more aware of what I'm doing each day, and this has encouraged me to change my behaviour accordingly, in small, manageable steps. I'd be very surprised if, this time next year, I am less fit or weigh any more than I do now. I've changed. Not much. But significantly.

Kicking the textbook: how I've started to study online

Despite the fact that I've been creating content for online language learning schools for (good grief) nearly twelve years, I've been a complete stick in the mud about my own language learning. In the past I've preferred to learn through face-to-face classes and textbook study; I've pushed boundaries in my work that I wouldn't go near in my leisure time.

This year I decided to stop being a prat about language learning and to fully embrace the myriad new digital opportunities there are. My chosen language at the moment is Norwegian, partly because I'm planning to travel to Norway next year, but mostly because it gets me in touch with my ancestral roots (my mother's side of the family are all Norwegian).

So in August I signed up to Memrise, the flashcard tool which employs spaced learning to help you memorise vocabulary. Since then I've been slogging away at their 1,200 basic Norwegian words. I'm not a big fan of learning vocabulary in isolation. I think it sticks better when we encounter it in a meaningful context, but nevertheless I've found Memrise very useful for revising the vocabulary I already know (I had 5 or 6 Norwegian lessons a few years ago, as well as many years of exposure to the language when I was a child. Memrise has helped me to remember all the vocabulary I'd passively absorbed over the years.)

I also downloaded the Collins Norwegian/English dictionary, which I find I seldom use because Google Translate is so good now. I must use Google Translate more than any other app now I think. There is very little that it can't translate - just some idiomatic expressions.

Twitter has also been hugely helpful. I've made sure to follow lots of Norwegian (and Danish) people who work in my field, and, particularly when they tweet about educational technology, I am motivated to try and understand what they are saying and (sometimes) to respond. As usual though, most Scandinavians prefer to converse in their excellent English, which makes learning any Scandinavian language extra hard. Fortunately I have several Norwegian cousins as friends on Facebook, and so I can practise my reading and writing with them.

Other digital tools that I've experimented with include YouTube, where I watch snippets from Norwegian TV interviews and the comedy show I Kveld Med Ylvis (even that has English subtitles though, which I try to ignore). I also have a Norwegian radio app, but find that, unless the children's shows are on, the language level is too high for me to benefit from it. I have downloaded a couple of kids apps in Norwegian, which are fun, but too low level.

I also dug out my old textbook and audio CD and did a few more units in that. I find the textbook quite dull, and not being able to practise the language with real people was frustrating.

After a few months of trying these varying methods I decided to bite the bullet and sign up for italki.com, a service which helps you find language teachers and partners. I met a teacher on there who I now have a Skype lesson with once a week. These have been absolutely excellent, against my blinkered expectations. For a start we can negotiate a time that suits both of us (we are both very busy) and there is no travel involved, which keeps the costs low. There are seldom any technical problems with Skype, and she can type in Norwegian as we are speaking to show me new words or explain new grammar. Although she doesn't have a teaching qualification, she has been teaching online for several years, and I find her non-pedagogic approach to teaching quite refreshing. At the moment we are speaking in a mixture of Norwegian and English, whereas with my last teacher we spoke only in Norwegian. I find that I prefer the mixed approach, as it makes me less tired and allows me to ask questions. Nevertheless we speak most of the time in Norwegian, and I find that I've improved hugely in just four lessons.

My plan now is to continue with Skype lessons and with Memrise and Twitter/Facebook. I'll probably dip into my textbook, but only as back up. One thing I'm sure of though - I will never return to fully traditional methods of language learning, and I can't believe I stayed stuck in the mud for so long!