Fuel

In weight management class, I'd been feeling terrible about 2012. Mostly because I've been having trouble recording things and keeping a handle on numbers. I knew I moved, but I wasn't sure how much I moved when I didn't set aside at least 60 minutes for a workout. But I work with small children, and although I'm not a helicopter mom or teacher, I am rather -- into my parenting and my teaching. That is, I'm a teacher you'll find rolling in the grass or blowing up soda bottles with mentor or putting a pile of dirt in a water table and getting it wet with water so my students (or my child) walk in the mud and get to know what it feels like. I allow bird seed in my sensory table, even though I know it goes all over the floor. I don't mind when playdoh colors get mixed.

So, I decided I needed to embrace the fact that I'm not on it as much as I used to be or I needed to find a way to track part of something effortlessly. And suddenly, in January, out comes advertisements for the Nike+ Fuel Band. It's not for "athletes" by nature. It's more for high tech folks who want to be in good health and keep an eye on how much they're moving. Think of it as a techno geeks step down from a heart rate monitor. It looks like one of those non-profit group bands, but it has a fancy LED screen on it that reports the time, the numbers of steps you take each day, the numbers of calories it estimates you burned depending on your steps and then it gives you a "fuel" number.

I asked for one for my birthday in February and it just arrived two days ago. Its' easy to wear, easy to use and I was checking it's accuracy with my steps and it was pretty spot on. The calories also matched what I usually get on my heart rate monitor when I'm in exercise class. The first night I plugged it into my MacBook and it launched the Nike+ web site and downloaded perfectly. Then last night, I plugged it in to download my information, and a notice came up saying that there was a firmware update. So I ran it and now, for whatever reason, the stupid numbers will not download to my account.

There's a bluetooth connection too, so I ran that on my phone and the updated activity and fuel numbers come up on the home screen, but when I push "Activity" it says that "There's No More Activity." But none of my numbers cord, but I can still see them on the LED monitor on the band.

So, I sent a notice to the help desk over there. I'm hoping they're able to figure out what the deal is. I've done everything we did when there was snow.