Weight Watchers ActiveLink - My Little Digital Friend Part 1

I'll just say it: I'm madly in love with the ActiveLink. Don't worry; my husband knows about my emotional affair.

As I was writing this, it kept becoming longer and longer and longer. Therefore, I'm going to make this a multi-part post. I don't know how many parts because I'm going to write a post and publish almost right away. I'll stop each post once it starts feeling too long. :) I'll tag all of them with the label of "ActiveLink" so you can find them all easily.

I purchased the ActiveLink the second it was available in my city. November 11, 2012. Yes, I remember the exact date. I pre-ordered and was counting down the minutes until it would arrive. It's been my constant companion ever since. I plan on taking it to a nice dinner on our one-year anniversary. ;)

For those of you that don't know, the ActiveLink is a little device that you clip to your bra, belt, or pocket. It tracks all of your movement throughout the day. Then, you plug it into your USB port on your computer and it converts all your movement into activity points. But...it's so much more than that.

It's inspirational. It's motivation. It's encouraging. Everything you'd want in a friend! Sometimes, if I'm tired and groggy, it even laughs at my jokes.

Before ActiveLink, I was clocking 1-2 ActivityPoints per week. I thought I was hot stuff. My dogs didn't. Fast forward 10 months. I'm earning upwards of 60 AP's per week!!! WHAT?! I know! In less than a year, I went from 2 to 60 AP's a week! That is just how amazing the AL really is.

Here's how it works: Once you purchase and activate the device, you wear it for one week. This is called your assessment period. It is determining your current level of activity. Simply wear the device each day, morning to night, and follow your normal routine. There is no need to reduce or increase your regular activity during the assessment period.

After the assessment period is complete, it assigns a challenge. For me, I wasn't even hitting the minimum required baseline of activity per day. Therefore, my challenge was to earn just 4 AP's by the end of the 12 week period. That means, the first week or two, my goal was to simply reach my baseline! While I wasn't earning AP's those weeks, I was still slowing increasing my activity. My challenge 1 was many months ago, but here is a screen shot of the results:

See that little grey line? See you it jumps weeks 4, 8, and 10? It did that because I was an overachiever. Can't fool this device! It knew I was doing much more than what it originally assigned me, so it readjusted my goal to be higher. This readjustment also works the opposite direction!

Ok--that's going to be it for this post. I'll write more in a day or so. :) Please let me know if you have any specific questions about activity in general or the ActiveLink.