Early Birthday Gift- Fitbit

My daughter, Clara decided to come home this morning to have brunch with my husband and me; it was so lovely seeing her. She also surprised me with an early birthday present, a Fitbit. I am so excited! I have been wanting one for quite some time. All the reviews are great and it sounded like something I would really use. Clara even helped me set it up this afternoon!

If you haven’t heard about Fitbit’s, they are awesome little gadgets. The company’s slogan:

“Fitbit is dedicated to helping people lead healthier, more active lives”

… is exactly what I hope it does for me. Fitbit is a physical activity tracker that is supposed to help you become more active, eat a healthier diet, sleep better, and just make you a healthier person in general.

It tracks daily activities throughout the day including the number of steps you take, how far you have walked, and the calories you have burned. It also is able to tell how vigorous the exercises are and how many calories are burnt. What I think is one of the best aspects of the Fitbit, is that is monitors sleep quality. I would love to know how I am sleeping and if it correlates to the days I fell tired.

There is even a feature on it that will send me messages that are supposed to encourage me to keep moving and working hard. A few of my friends from Tai Chi have them too and we are able to become “Fitbit” friends and work together and encourage each other.

The data gets sent to my smart phone when I connect to Wi-Fi, I have gotten pretty darn good at my smartphone since getting it.  Clara showed me how to look at it on the computer and see how much I have walked and all the other features. She is such a digital guru. 😀

I am really excited to start using it and seeing how much I actually exercise and how it compares to what I eat. I am not necessarily looking for it to help me lose weight, but more to help me stay healthy, motivated, and have fun!

I will keep you updated on how I like my early birthday present and how it is working!

Until next time,

Nancy

Everyone Wants Pretty Hands

Unfortunately, no one had found the fountain of youth yet. Today, while I was having my coffee, Clara was “Snap Chatting” me photos of her newly decorated living room. Yes, I said “snap chat”. She downloaded this app on my phone where you can send photos back and forth that only last for a couple seconds. I don’t really understand it, but she loves it. Anyway, I sent her a photo of me holding my cup of coffee and couldn’t get over how “old” my hand looks.

I have never really spent much time looking at my hands, but I understand why they say your hands show all the signs of aging. I couldn’t stop looking at them in awe. I know I don’t look like I have aged as much as my hands show.  So I jumped on the internet to find some ideas how to get rid of these “aged hands.”

I read that hands really do show the signs of aging more than most parts of the body. The years of sun exposure, the exposure to the elements, hard work, and constant washing and scrubbing really take a toll on our hands. The skin on hands thins with all the exposure to daily life and more veins become visible, age spots appear, and it is common for hands to become dry. All of this information was pretty much common sense to me, and I wanted to know how to reverse that aging.

I found this website saying that taking care of aging hands is similar to the skin care during menopause; a subject I am pretty knowledgeable on. It suggested exfoliating your hands to remove all the dry skin before moisturizing. Buffing your nails also helps make your hands look younger. I never really thought about moisturizing my hands specifically, I just put lotion on them when they are dry, so this was a new concept for me.

The site also said the moisturizing and protection are the most important in having beautiful youthful hands. It said to use a good quality hand cream and apply it throughout the day to rejuvenate your hands.

After reading all of these articles I have decided I need to find a good hand cream to reverse aging. Do you use anti-aging hand creams? If so what kind do you use and is it effective?

Until Next Time,

Nancy