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.