Up Your Game

18 Mar Up Your Game

Chanel: “Stevo, what items of food do you think we would be, you know, if we were food?”

Steve: “…”

Chanel: “No, really. Do you think we’d be fresh, crispy vegetables, or super-sweet cake slices?”

Steve: “…”

Chanel: “Well, I know that if we both ended up on the braai, I’d be tastier.”

Steve: “And I would be the serving suggestion.”

Chanel: “…”

The above conversation illustrates a few things:

1. I like to ask Steve ridiculous questions (I was that kid – the one asking “whyyyy?” to every answer, and poor Dad playing along to my string of curious banter);
2. Most of the conversations Steve and I have involve me talking 90% of the time, and Steve’s wit peeping it’s head out near the end;
3. I have more meat on the bones than Steve has on his (still talking about actual bones here); and
4. We are ideal candidates to test the latest fitness technology. Why? Because one of us needs to toughen the meat on our bones, and one of us is the textbook definition of fit and healthy (I’m not going to say who is who).

Enter Jawbone UP, and our awesome new sponsorship. I have been a fan of the product for a couple years now, and since going on our journey, Stevo has joined the UP community too. One of the challenges we’ve set ourselves for the year, is living the #GetUP way i.e. taking 10 000 steps per day and sleeping 8 hours every night. It’s the US National Sleep Foundation’s recommendation for an active, healthy lifestyle, and we’re going to be living, breathing examples of what that looks like.

For those unsure of what UP is…it’s the most stylish of fitness trackers, powered by the Jambox-famed Jawbone brand. We’re currently using the UP24 which works via Bluetooth, and syncs wirelessly, unlike its predecessor. Everything from step counting, and activity tracking, to sleep pattern recognition and goal-calorie consumption and calculation (simply done by scanning food barcodes and inserting your goal weight), Jawbone is brand number 1 in our list of Travel Companions.

I remember when I first used the UP band in early 2013, I think I lost around 4kg just in the first month, simply because I was made aware of the number of calories I was consuming (those little Lindor balls are very deceiving), and my competitive streak pushed me to get more steps than my fellow UP team members. Two years later, and the challenge emerges again, this time to keep body and mind healthy on our creative journey, (and to get more steps that Steve, of course).

Below are some screenies from the interface (boasting our first couple weeks of no-alarm-interrupted sleep, and vast Austrian explorations), as well as some product photos we took before we ripped the packaging to play with our new, persimmon toys.

CC