Bill bought me a Fitbit®. Do you think that he was trying to tell me something? Actually we’d been talking about wanting some way to track our activity, or lack of, since we anticipate walking a whole lot more than we do now once we move to Carcassonne. Considering that we won’t have a car it should be a relatively easy goal to achieve of the recommended 10,000 steps a day.

But just how far is that? It’s about 5 miles. I read that a sedentary person takes between 1,000 and 3,000 steps a day so you really do have to make a conscious effort to get up to make it up to the much higher level. If we make daily trips to the bakery, cafe, market, etc., and long walks along the Aude river and the Canal-du-Midi with Heather then we shouldn’t have any problem.

As with anything we buy, Bill did lots of online research to find a tracker that got good reviews and would do what we wanted. Although you can get one that you wear on your wrist, we chose the version that slips into your pocket. You do have to ensure that your pockets are empty before washing or your $100 investment will literally go down the drain.

I like my Fitbit® so much that we just got Bill one as well. It will also tell you how far you’ve walked, how many calories you’ve used, how close you are to achieving your daily goal, how many hours of sleep you got, and how efficient your sleep was. It even includes an altimeter that records how many sets of stairs you’ve climbed. I can’t wait to take that on the plane to Boston as we cruise along at 30,000 feet!