I've had the UP band for nearly a year now, with long periods of not using it and then falling in love with it again. I figured that since I wrote an initial review and a quick check up after using the band for a week, I should write a full on review of the band now to wrap it all up nicely.


For an overview of the band, do check my other review. The app itself has stayed pretty much exactly the same with the exception of 'trends' not being there anymore, so I felt like it was unnecessary to cover that bit again.

The band has worked flawlessly ever since I got it out of the packaging. Even though Jawbone says that it's waterproof and you can still wear it when you take a shower, I've always taken it off for it. I just don't trust something like this to actually hold water out for too long. :) I've read a lot of negative comments about the band not working after a short while, and I have a feeling that it's linked to water getting into the delicate system.


UP has definitely shed a lot of light on my daily activity levels. It's great to be able to tell exactly how many calories I burn, how many steps I take and how much I sleep. I actually look forward to syncing my band every night, just to see if I've hit my ten thousand steps every day. It helps me plan my calorie budget and if I have a more active day, I know how to adjust. It's the little things that really make this band worth having. Now that I've used it for a while again, I barely even notice it. It's just like any other wrist band or bracelet people wear, it's just about getting used to it. Sure, it's not the most elegant looking thing and might look quite odd with some fancy dress, but small sacrifices for fitness are normal in our lives. ;)

I actually feel quite bad for forgetting to put the band back on if I take it off for whatever reason. I feel like I'm missing out on important data of my life if I don't wear it! It's kinda turned into a part of me, in a way it has stopped being this device that just collects data as I live my daily life. In a way it's like a companion, something that helps you and lets you know if you're doing something wrong.


Using the band has also confirmed how much sleep I need every night in order to feel refreshed when I wake up in the morning. It's a very fine line somewhere between seven and eight hours, if my sleep falls shorter than that I just feel really drowsy and awful in the morning. UP has really helped me figure out my sleeping pattern, and it's one of the most important features of the band for me. I've gone from going to bed at 2am to actually wanting to sleep by 11.30pm. The only downside to the band is that it can be a bit uncomfortable when settling down in bed for the night, as I use a memory foam pillow and it doesn't quite give way for the band like a normal pillow would.

In short, this band has really changed the way I think about my own daily life. I have started making better decisions sleep wise and keeping track of my steps with something as delicate as UP makes it effortless and I really don't have to think about it at all. I highly recommend this to anyone who doesn't want to mess about with clunky pedometers. I'm actually really surprised how I haven't actually seen any UP bands or similar (FitBit for example) around at all in the year I've owned this thing. Are they really not that popular over here?

I'm actually quite tempted to buy the new version of this band, but with the price tag being rather high in comparison to this one, I think it'll have to wait for a little while unfortunately. :)

There's no better feeling than the post-workout feeling! I feel so full of energy despite killing myself at the gym for an hour, I just feel like going for a run now! Still feeling a bit rough with this bug I managed to catch over the weekend, but I didn't want to let it get in the way of a good workout.

I decided to wear this incredibly adorable Pacman shirt today. My other half got it from his brother as a present, but it turned out to be a bit too small for him. I thought that it would be a shame to waste such a cool nerd shirt, so it has got a place in my workout clothing. My other half always laughs when I wear this and says that Pacman is nomming on my boob.. :D


Even though I went to the gym rather early (was about 9.20 when I got there), it was quite packed! It's not a big gym, so I think it's the best option to keep going in the mornings, when it's less crowded. Anyways! I did a light cardio workout, 20 minutes on treadmill with varying speeds and incline, followed by a bit of core work and 20 minutes on the elliptical.

I've been reunited with my UP band as well. I've been meaning to carry on using it, but at some point I just started getting fed up with it getting caught on my pillow when I was sleeping. I've decided to only use this during the day now, it was an expensive little band so I want to get the most out of it. It'll mainly be my workout buddy, just to see how much I burn and to keep better track of my overall calorie burn over the day. Determined to be in bikini shape by this summer! ;)

Along the way I've picked up different fitness related things that I really couldn't live without anymore. Hopefully this post will inspire you to start coming up with your own must-have collection! And if you already do, I'd love to hear about them! :)

1. Stainless steel water bottle


Ever since discovering the hazards of bisphenol A, I ditched plastic bottles. I avoid them the best I can, as BPA is used in certain plastics and it can dissolve into the water. While the research is still ongoing (mainly tested on animals) and the risks to humans isn't completely clear yet, there is evidence of BPA causing hormonal issues and danger to infants and young children. This is enough for me to steer away from plastic. And ignoring the health side, it's more environmental friendly.

2. Running shoes


Getting good running shoes was one of the most important things for me when I started getting back into running. My gym shoes just simply don't offer enough support for my ankles and lacked the grip on wet ground. Quite a lethal combination, don't you think?

3. Sports bras


A bit of a no-brainer really! I want to be as comfortable as I can when I'm exercising, and having proper support is so vital. Keeps things out of the way and they're just a million times more comfortable than a normal bra. I've actually started using a sports bra to work, I'm constantly bending over to lift things and wearing a sports bra just keeps the girls in their place. ;)

4. UP-band


While I haven't used my band for a while again, the Jawbone UP has definitely been a great investment. When I was still getting used to my own calorie burn and activity levels, being able to track it all was very valuable. Both times I've stopped using it has been because I got fed up with it getting caught on my pillow when I was trying to sleep. I like to be comfortable when I sleep and the band was having none of it!

5. Phone


Yes, as weird as this one sounds, my phone keeps me up to date with everything. I listen to music when I exercise, I track my activity and calories through various apps (I'm going to make a post about a few later on) and it's my main platform for taking pictures as well.

And my phone has definitely taken it's fair share of battering, the amount of times I've dropped it on the ground mid walk when I've been changing the song is a bit silly.


6. Foam roller


I've been all over this one lately! The benefits of using a foam roller are simply incredible - prevents injuries, helps you de-stress (I normally find myself rolling my calves for a good half an hour at least, time just flies by as I roll away while watching TV!), keeps you flexible, gets rid of muscle knots you didn't even know you had.. The list goes on! A foam roller is a very inexpensive way of keeping your muscles in good shape and it lets you get more familiar with your own body.

I've started being really religious about tracking everything I eat and drink again. I just realised that I simply wasn't eating enough, some days I wouldn't even hit the 1200 kcal mark with the food I was consuming. I thought that I really need to start tracking it again, just to make sure that I'm eating enough in comparison to the amount of exercise I'm getting in.

And I've synced my UP app with MyFitnessPal now, as MFP takes the activity data from UP and moves it into it's own database. It then recalculates how many calories I still need to hit my budget (you can of course add your exercise to MFP manually but I just let my UP deal with that). As I only sync my UP band with the app roughly twice a day, I might think that "oh I haven't  exercised enough today for MFP to take it into account, I can stick to my 1380 calories today" and then later on in the day after syncing MFP just throws a new number at me. I seriously feel like I'm eating like a horse at the moment. I just don't feel hungry after having lunch and dinner, so eating some snacks just to hit my calories is such a task for me. I mean sure, I could go for more calorie dense options at lunch and dinner, but I'm far too concious about the fat, sugar and salt in everything to do that on a regular basis.


Just look at this! I tracked my dinner like usual and was all happy about myself, just thinking that I only need about 300 calories to hit my budget. Then I synced my UP with the app and MFP fetched that data instantly. Well, my calorie budget has gone up by 300 calories. Now I need to figure out what to eat to consume another 637 calories tonight. I honestly feel like I'm eating way too much right now, but I'm really trying to git the budget this week to see, if that changes anything for my weekly weigh in. I've been under my budget for a very long time and my body is probably preparing to plateau because of it, so I feel like it's really important to mix things up and see how it goes. Fingers crossed.


Other than that, it's been another productive day for me. Despite only needing to be at uni 13:15 today, I got up before 8am (without an alarm clock!), did some housework, watched Biggest Loser and went for a lovely, chilled walk. It's been quite a gray day today, but there was just something so stunning about it. In a way it just made the sea look like it wasn't even there and made everything look nearly black and white. I swear I have not retouched this pic at all, that's just how gray it really was today! You can really tell that it's finally the end of summer over here, which in all honesty I'm happy about. :) We had a wonderful, long and warm summer so it's about time for autumn to make it's way in.

Right, one week of use behind me, time to have a better look at this thing. :)

You probably remember me mentioning that it didn't work with my phone (and the app hadn't come out for tablets) and I had to use someone else's phone to sync the band with the app. Well, I found a way to "hack" the app on my tablet. :) You just simply find the .apk- file of the app and you can download it directly on your tablet.

As you can see, the app is incredibly colourful. I absolutely love that, it makes the app look interesting and fun. The main page of the app shows you a quick summary of your sleep and steps + a facebookesque activity feed (if you've got friends using the app and you're connected with them, they will see all of this).


When you press on either of the bars, the app gives you a detailed breakdown of your activity and sleep. I've found this so useful, it's so interesting to see how much sleep youve had, when you woke up during the night, how many calories you've burnt during the day, how long you've just sat down during the day and so on. Especially the activity tracker gives me a motivation boost to fill the meter and move a lot during the day so the bracelet doesn't start telling me off for slacking!


The food tracker is a feature I haven't tried in all fairness. I track my food with MyFitnessPal (oh and the app can be synced with it and many others) so I have completely neglected this part of the app. I did put stuff down in the tracker just to show what it looks like, I really should see if I can sync MyFitnessPal with it.


The lifeline feature basically shows you everything in one go. You can scroll through it and such, I think in the long run it'll be a good indicator for your activity and sleep, but after using it for just a week I just don't quite see the usefulness of this feature.


And this is why. The trend feature let's you compare your stats with each other (you can pick any of the trackable stats to compare, even dietary stuff) and if this feature just goes on forever without erasing any data, I have a feeling I will be using this more than the lifeline. You can also pick your mood from the main page of the app so your friends can see how you're feeling every day. It's a silly little thing and I haven't actually used it, probably because I've got nobody else on my app feed though. :D 


Overall I am very pleased with the band. It is giving me so much information I was missing, such as my steps and calorie burn. The sleep feature is by far the best thing this band has though, I sleep surprisingly well!

Got an UP band and want to team up? Throw your UP profile name in the comments and I will add you! :)

OK let's just clear it up first, I don't actually have diagnosed OCD. I just have these funny little habits that make me obsess over stuff. :D Now that I've got my UP, I feel really guilty and bad if I don't hit my 10k steps every day. At the moment I'm somewhere in the late 6000's, but it's really bugging me. I'm actually really tempted to go for a walk just to fill those steps.

Oh and I will be going over the UP app next week as promised. :) Now that I actually got it to work on my tablet, I can access the app easier and will be taking lots of screenshots of it and so on. So stay tuned for that!



But yeah, other than that my day's been quite bland. Went for a walk in the afternoon and that's it. I didn't keep my hopes up about the gym today as my other half actually hurt his leg at work last night and he did ask if we could go tomorrow morning instead. I will definitely make sure that we go tomorrow, I want my two gym sessions a week! I pay a lot of money for my membership, I want to make the most out of it.

I'm kinda nervous about my weigh in tomorrow because of skipping the gym. I feel like I haven't done enough this week to lose weight, but then again I always have these doubts in my head the night before. Argh.

Let's start this post with a nice little update: the silly 900g gain yesterday is all gone already, which just proves my theory of my body just being in a bit of a shock from the increased amount of exercise. :)


Right. I'm getting on with my UP really nicely already. It's barely noticable when you're getting on with your business (apart from when typing on the computer as you do need to rest your wrist on the desk) and didn't have any issues with it last night when I was trying to settle down and sleep. Unfortunately I had to wait until 6pm to sync my data with the app as my other half was working all day, but here's the stats from last night and today!

• Total of 8hr 38min in bed
• Fell asleep in 16min
• Light sleep 4hr 50min
• Deep sleep 3hr 32min
• According to UP I didn't wake up at all during the night, but I do remember doing so a few times
• Didn't get to test the alarm system as I kept waking up all morning :D

And by 6pm I had done 7,841 steps. :) I went for a short walk in the afternoon and done a bit of housework around the house. Hitting 10k is a lot easier than you'd think! I bet a lot of people just see a big number and think that there's no way you can reach it, but it only really takes roughly an hour of walking and then doing stuff around the house.

Today was meant to be a gym day but my other half had quite a long day at work and lots of driving there and back so we decided to postpone gymming til tomorrow evening. I did kinda see it coming so I planned a quick leg workout for myself. Just a simple, basic workout with dumbbells for some extra resistance. The workout itself was about 15 minutes, but I got insane burn in my legs in that time. Didn't want a long workout anyways at it was getting quite late.

And just to test out my new camera's video function, here's screen caps of my workout! :) I probably won't be doing a lot of this at the gym as I do feel a bit silly taking pictures / video of myself in front of people but I'll post my home workouts on my blog whenever I happen to do them. Blurry images but can't do much about it as they are just still images of the video. :p And no tripod yet so had to rely on a drawer, will have a better angle for future snaps.

1. Squat and press

It arrived today! Such a long delivery window, I placed the order on 26th July and it only arrived today. I'm so used to quick delivery on everything so having to wait for a while really got on my nerves. The actual Jawbone website was either out of stock or just malfunctioning so had to order through Amazon, which I didn't really mind as Amazon turned out to be slightly cheaper anyways.


To quickly explain what the Jawbone UP is. It's this fitness bracelet that tracks your steps, calories burnt and most importantly, your sleep. It's designed to be worn 24/7, you can even wear it while showering but they do recommend you to take it off if you go swimming. It's got a lot of different functions you can access through their free app (downloadable for both Android and Apple). The bracelet itself only has a small LED display that shows the status of the bracelet (for example if it's in active or sleep mode, if the battery is running low etc.), so this means that you need to plug it to your phone to read the data it has been collecting. You use the 3.5mm jack that's hidden under the silver cap to plug into your phone.


There's one huge downside to this thing. It doesn't work with my HTC One X. Extremely gutted about that, I'm having to use my other half's iPhone to sync the data. Jawbone's website says that it should be compatible with Androids, but of course this is one of the very few models it doesn't work with. It also doesn't have a tablet version of the app currently, but hopefully that'll change soon enough.


I'm really looking forward to the sleep function. I'm even considering having an early night just so I can start testing it out! It has a smart alarm system, which means that it will quietly vibrate when the bracelet detects you being in a light sleep state (opposed to being in a deep sleep phase). The logic behind this is that you will feel more awake when the alarm goes off, as you haven't been in a deep sleep state. You simply set your normal alarm through the app and the bracelet will then wake you up at an optimal point before the set alarm. I am of course very sceptical that I will even wake up to the vibrate, but we'll see!


I even whipped out my camera for this! My phone really produced some god awful quality pictures and they really didn't do the bracelet any justice. I will hopefully have a more detailed review of this bracelet in about a week's time, once I've had a bit more time to play around with it and get used to it + get more data to analyse. :)

Yay girly stuff today! I do shopping very rarely so a bit of retail therapy was very needed. I ordered a gym bag, some sports bras and workout trousers & shorts. I'll show them off once they arrive, hopefully I'll get them before Tuesday. More about that in a bit. ;)

I also ordered myself a Jawbone UP today. I've wanted something like this for a very long time and was reading into all these kinds of fitness bracelets when I was in Finland. The Jawbone one seemed to be most suited for my own needs, as the sleep tracker on it seemed to be the most detailed and advanced. I struggle with my sleep quite often, so it'll be so handy to know how much I actually sleep during the night. I will do a nice, extensive review of this bracelet once I've been using for a while. ^^

I spent my lunch with my friend today. We marched into Boots to get some food (two meal deals for £5, amazing offer in my opinion!) and walked across town to the beach. It was incredibly busy for a Friday afternoon, wasn't quite expecting that in all fairness! Was a lovely day so didn't mind it as much, was just nice to sit down and relax for a bit with some good food and good company. :)


I also decided to spoil myself a bit and buy hair colour. Funny thing, two months ago I bought the same colour as I got today (so a cold, dark brown colour) and over the past two months it has faded to this gingerish shade. I don't really mind ginger hair, but right now it's not the look I'm going for so wanted to cover it up.


Anyways, about Tuesday! We finally got around to signing up to Fitness First earlier today and we are going there for our first workout on Tuesday evening. Or well, it'll most likely be just induction (going through equipment etc) and me talking with a personal trainer about my back, but you've got to start somewhere right? :) I will definitely start taking advantage of the free classes right from the beginning.