When the now controversial Peloton ad first appeared in November 2019, I think I’m the only person who fully endorsed it from the start. In fact, the first time I saw it, I turned to Rod and said, “I love this commercial.” He then raised an eyebrow and said, “Are you sure?”
Over the next few days, the backlash on Twitter and my many conversations with friends explained Rod’s eyebrow raise and exposed me as a part of the clear minority.
“She doesn’t even need to lose weight! Why would he buy her that bike?”
“He basically told her she needs to work out!”
“How could she possibly thank him?”
For me though, I saw a woman getting a truly awesome gift. A woman recording her fitness journey. A woman who isn’t working out to lose weight. A woman looking to challenge herself.
Because aside from this woman’s morning hair and workout space, everything else about the ad seemed totally reasonable.
I mean, who says the woman didn’t ask her husband to buy her that bike? Why does someone need to be overweight to work out? And, more importantly, why does weight loss need to be the impetus for regular exercise? Can’t she just want to improve her health? Also, if my husband bought me a $2,000+ bike and membership THAT I ASKED FOR, I’d be thanking him too!
Like the woman in the Peloton commercial (or the woman I believe her to be), I exercise completely and solely for myself. Save for a few weeks here and there, I’ve exercised regularly, at least four or five days a week, for the past 12 years. I don’t do it because Rod asks me to. I don’t do it to lose weight. I don’t do it to report back to my family, friends, and followers. No, I do it for me.
And while I hate exercise bikes because they make my ass hurt in an awful way and not in a sore-but-good-and-now-I-can-barely-walk-way, I DID ask my own husband for a treadmill this last Christmas. I didn’t get it – because his Christmas budget isn’t that of the guy in the Peloton ad – but I did get a Fitbit, which, yes, I also asked for.
I’m a late adopter in all things technological, which explains my delayed interest in the wristband pedometer craze. But ever since we got Fella, I’ve started walking a lot more, and I’ve become very interested in seeing my day-to-day progress.
A little over two months in and I generally like it. I take the stairs all the time now. I get up and move a lot more. I go on even longer walks with the dog, and I make sure to get in more cardio in my morning workouts. I also feel wildly successful every time I see my wrist light up with the little disco ball that tells me I hit 10,000 steps.
Unfortunately, the Fitbit has also added an entirely new layer of guilt to my life. As if being Catholic and a working mom and a woman in general wasn’t enough, I had to throw in getting all the steps for good measure.
There are now points in my day where I walk briskly around my building or up and down the stairs in my home to hit my goal. Like my daily workouts, I’m still doing it for me, but I’m also doing it in an effort not to disappoint the Fitbit.
Take the “250 steps in an hour” reminders throughout the day. I don’t mind this feature so much, but only when I’m not in meetings. When I’m in a meeting and there’s no possible way I can get up to do a few laps around the room, I feel completely guilt-ridden. And then, at the end of the day, when I look at my progress and see I only made 7 of the 9 hours, I actually find myself justifying to the Fitbit why this meeting or that is the reason to blame for my inactivity between the hours of 10 and 11 a.m. and 2 and 3 p.m. It’s madness.
There’s also the sleep feature, which is enough to drive a person completely insane. Until the Fitbit, I was under the impression I was getting a relatively decent night’s sleep – you know, because I actually felt pretty good getting out of bed in the morning. But now, when I check the app and it gives me a sleep score of 67 and “FAIR,” I feel like a total failure who deserves a better grade and a sit-down with the teacher. It says I was awake when I know damn well I wasn’t. It says my deep sleep levels were low, like there’s anything I can do about it. It judges me with baseless scoring, and then it expects me to get going like being criticized first thing in the morning is a totally acceptable way to start the day. And yes, I know, I could just take the thing off when I sleep, but why would I do that when (what if?) my score could go up the next night? Again, like there’s anything I can do to control how I sleep. It’s psychotic, but I’m all in because I will not fail the Fitbit.
This device, I’m realizing, has become yet another gadget that controls my life, falling in line with a long list of devices that I regularly monitor and charge. Is it motivating me? Yes. Is it helping my accountability? Yes. Is it creating a monster? Yes. Will it lead to therapy? Possibly.
What I also know though is that any approach to better health, regardless of the method or motivation, is completely reliant on the person. Perhaps the woman in the Peloton ad was motivated by the $2,000 price tag on the bike in her opulent living room. Or maybe it was the opportunity to show off her nice ass in a video diary. For me, it will always be how much more I can push myself just to see if it’s possible. It’s also now in a concerted effort not to let down the little screen on my wrist that’s clearly judging me.
Title Track: “I Walk the Line,” Johnny Cash. Listen here.
