A few months ago I wrote a blog entry about getting fit in China. How living in China has made me healthier than I ever was in America and how easy it was to walk 10,000 steps a day.
10,000? Now that seems adorable to me. Soon after I wrote that article my $100 fitbit bracelet broke. (The charging part broke and since I’m in China I can’t replace it.) But I ended up with something better: Xiaomi fitness bracelet.
Xiaomi is a Chinese company taking the Chinese technology market by storm. (They aren’t available in America yet, but maybe soon will be.) They take the most popular products (iphones, fitbit, goPro cameras) improve them, and slash the price. For example? The xiaomi bracelet has more features than the fitbit and costs a mere $13. At that price it can break every other month and still be cheaper than the fitbit.
One of the best features of the Xiaomi bracelet is you can connect it to Wechat. Every night, around 10:30, it sends out a message on your wechat showing you how many steps your friends have taken. My friends are very active, and many of us have these bracelets. Competition, especially such a public display, is the best motivator.
And my friends are monsters! I’ve been a bit quiet on my blog recently because I’ve been just too damn busy to write. We have a weekly activity schedule that includes two nights of badminton a week, hiking, beach parties and picnics, homemade dinners, paddle boarding, archery and frisbee. Not in a month, weekly.
With this type of schedule I barely have to try for 10,000 steps. In fact, I’m on a role. I have met my goal 50 days in a row. My average is 14,000 steps a day (which is 10 kilometers or about 6.2 miles per day). And compared to my friends I’m super lazy. On my nightly update I am usually 4th or 5th with my friends getting 25,000+ steps! (That’s more than 10 miles walked in a day.) One friend got tired of always being so low on the list he started running at night and now he regularly beats me.
I even went out and bought sports clothes! I was doing all these sports in my regular clothes, jeans, khaki’s etc. But playing badminton in jeans just ain’t cool. So now I own sweat wicking shirts, fancy leggings and speedy shorts. Soooooo much better. (In fact I’m thinking of wearing the sweat-wicking shirts to class in the summer when it gets hot. Better than wearing sweat-soaked shirts like usual.)
Actually, I’ve been getting mistaken for a jock more and more. At the Xiamen frisbee tournament last fall (Which I sat out due to being unable to walk, much less run, with my torn calf muscle) two, count ’em, TWO people asked me a question about frisbee strategy and play. When I answered “beats me,” they both looked at me and said “but aren’t you an expert player?” Other people have (mistakenly) asked me to join teams and stuff thinking I will help them. This is an unbelievable thing for a book-ish nerd like myself. And once they get to know me, or actually watch me play, they get over that notion pretty quick. But still, I’m pretty psyched people think I’m sporty if even just for a moment.
So it would stand to reason that with all this activity I’d be super fit and skinny now, right? Well, no. And that’s due to the other activities I do when I’m not playing sports. You’ll have to wait for my next blog post for that!
You forgot to mention Xiaomi works only in Asia for competition and doesnt work in Europe or America ahah
I will be always the last one if I dont wake up early and do sport T_T
Sometimes you beat me! If you wake up early. 😉
Good job! Is there pollution where you’re living that ever impacts your ability to exercise? Or is that strictly in the bigger cities?
Wow, a torn calf muscle, that is brutal. Did you have to do PT? Use crutches?
I torn my quad once (strained it and stupidly kept playing volleyball). Crutches, PT with screamingly painful massage, etc.
Of course there is pollution, but luckily Xiamen is on the ocean (literally, the city is a a big island) so we don’t have it as bad as other places and doesn’t affect excercise so much. (Though lung cancer is the number one cancer in Xiamen, as in all of china.)
And my torn calf muscle suuuucked. It took me several months before I could walk properly. I never cancelled class, but the normal 5 minute walk turned into a 30 minute slog where I arrived in tears to the classroom. It was a bit tough for awhile. I’ve been doing DIY care so obviously it’s been slow to heal. I got a massage once and it hurts for days after so I didn’t go back, haha even though they said i should do it a few times a week. It’s been about 5 months and it hurts only after I play sports, which is better than before. So I’m hoping after a few more months I’ll be ship shape.
I am sooo scared I’ll do it again though. So scared.
I love seeing your photos of Xiamen (my late husband’s hometown) and seeing how much the city has changed since we visited in 1983. There’s no comparison.
Congratulations on your fitness. Keep up the good work