Does My Smartwatch Want Me Dead?

A content warning for talking about counting calories and weight loss.

I accepted a deal on upgrading to a newer model of smartwatch and wonder now if it was a bargain for death and injury. There was nothing really wrong with my old watch, but it was a few years old. The pale pink band had become a bit grubby (but that part could have been replaced if I ever thought about it). Sales people really know what to say and convince me to replace my stuff

The thing I used my old watch for most of all, was timers.  The stopwatch function was my main go-to function, I really love to find out how long it takes me to do things like braid my hair, or knit one row on whatever knitting project, or how long a medication might take to kick in and work, etc. I set timers for steeping tea or to challenge myself to clean or work on something annoying for a period of time..  normal watch use, I imagine.  It was very nice to control music while commuting, and find out what’s going on with the weather or air quality. For all the time I wore that begrimed old watch, I really wasn’t using it to facilitate a starvation diet.

Sometimes I take bad advice to change things unnecessarily, I’m not confident with technology and often go with the flow of whatever someone who seems more knowledgeable might suggest I try. It’s not going great right now! Maybe I was wrong to upgrade, or maybe I need more time to accept the differences. I’m not going to return the new watch (though I still have until September to do so) but I am dug in and just accepting my fate to be monitored in a more unenjoyable way now

It will probably be boring but here are a few of my gripes-  When I’m exercising, the colors are not as varied and fun anymore. It’s such a small complaint but has bothered me everyday for weeks now. It used to be a black background with white text/numbers on the timer and then other things were displayed in red, yellow and green (heart rate, target zones and such). It looks depressing now, just a blocky display in black and white with grey.  The X button to stop is red. Really!?  I’m hoping there is a setting or another app that can bring more interesting tones to my precious workout time but rarely feel like looking into it as it’s been a total frustration since powering on. The watch can measure my “stress” somehow and it gets extremely high whenever I’m thinking about or working on getting the smart watch functioning as I want it!! 

Water intake is being measured in ounces instead of the vague “cup” or glass as it was before. Maybe it’s to enhance accuracy but that’s not a big part of my health goals. Information is overrated and can be so toxic in many situations  Why did I need to know how much my skeletal muscle weighs?! There is a function to count calories I never used on my old watch but because it was already placed in the active tiles on my new one I’ve been using that to assure my suffering. There is a certain number of calories it displays that I have been obsessed with never surpassing! It would be easy to remove this function but I am going to keep on counting for a while

Maybe there are people who can be ok and even helped by counting calories, but it’s extremely toxic for me to engage in! There is no way for me to do it without becoming inspired to change my diet toward restriction.  In some ways, I am really happy to be low-key harming myself this way, it’s summer, and who doesn’t want to be smaller as our bodies are sometimes revealed in the heat?! But I reluctantly admit I need to stop it. I’m “thin enough” and honestly, whenever I’ve crossed into that controversial “too thin” size category it’s very embarrassing and cringey over time. It does feel amazing and such a flex of self-discipline while living among so many pathologically large Americans. My previous watch had the capability to do the same calorie tracking, but I wasn’t using it for some reason. And I think my life seemed better for it! 

After the Summer Solstice I promised myself I’d try to be more cheerful and positive through the rest of the year (a fake it till you make it type of nonsense plan in the face of no more mental health treatment) but I’m not sure that’s a realistic possibility anymore.  

Life is not all bad, the fresh pink watch band is a visual improvement for sure. Maybe I’ll learn to live with this and accept the differences but so far it’s really set me into a bad pattern.