There was a time that I would come home from work, after dragging myself through those last 1.5 hours at the office. Somewhat later I would be lying on my bed. Then, later that night — after dinner, I would head for a restless sleep, just to wake up repeating the same rhythm that would continue to drain my energy.

What was happening to me?

Workload? No, I quite enjoy my work. Stress? Not really. Sick? Had myself checked up. I decided to blame it on the lifestyle. Time for radical measures. Now, not even 3 months later, 20 pounds of body weight have disappeared and I’m bulking with energy again.

Dieting is a pain. Working out is tiresome. I envisioned that lack of motivation would be the first obstacle to overcome. I needed something that would kick my butt if needed. Yet here I am. Not one day have I starved myself. Not one morning have I woken up all sore from working out. I’ll tell you how.

To start off, I want to take you back to 2007, when I saw a TED keynote of Kevin Kelly, called “The next 5000 days of the web”. Ever since, I have been fascinated by the internet of things and the possibilities this entails. The company I work for at present, specialises in employee surveys in order to improve organisations by getting feedback from their employees. With this in mind, I decided to guinea-pig myself into an experiment: How can the internet of things improve my vitality as an employee? And in what extent can organisations benefit from the outcome?

I keep track

I bought myself a Fitbit fitness tracker. It’s a small wristband that keeps track of my movements. Basically, it counts my steps and it converts that to the amount of calories I burn. It comes with an iPhone app that allows me to monitor my results. I manually enter my food and water intake and I create my personal goals. A wifi connected scale (the Fitbit Aria) keeps track of my weight and fat percentage and sends it to the app.

Being able to see progress directly on my phone anytime is incredibly motivating and makes me more aware of what I’m actually doing.

I just move

The first thing the app taught me is that I was doing it all wrong. Before, I would force myself to go and run for 30-40 minutes. Along with the calories, I would burn all the motivation to do it again when I woke up the next morning with a sore body. In the first week that I was using my Fitbit tracker, I was surprised how much calories I could burn by just walking. I set my personal goal to 3000 calories (over 10,000 steps) a day, and there are few days that I don’t get to it. I scheduled some 15 minutes walking breaks during the day and a big walk for lunch. Sometimes I would go for a long evening stroll with my girlfriend.

So walk a lot…

I watch my food

With the iPhone app I monitor my food, so it can compare incoming calories to the ones you burn. I have set my goal to a daily 500 calories deficit, which means I can take around 2500 calories a day. Like I mentioned before, I have never starved myself, but I became genuinely more conscious about food. There are a few things that I am avoiding. Anything containing too much butter (saturated fats) or sugar is a big red warning. No processed food. I take healthy snacks like nuts or fruits. And I try to limit carbs.

But besides that I pretty much eat anything.

I eat more often, but smaller portions. My stomach is always filled, but never bursting. The continuous presence of fuel revs up the metabolism, and at the same time it makes my stomach used to containing less food.

I drink water

The Fitbit app also lets me track my hydration. Drinking sufficient water is important for vitality. The most obvious benefit of drinking water is that it fills you up. The human body gives hunger signals when it’s in need of hydration. I drink water and I feel less hungry.

Another benefit is that it also speeds up the metabolism. A dehydrated body, as opposed, will slow down. The organs will drop in efficiency and the body will be less capable of burning calories. Water will also flush toxins and it will also keep the joints lubricated.

I set my daily water intake goal to 85 oz. I have a big bottle of water with me all day.

I tone up

To speed up my weight loss, but also to get more in shape, I started doing small workouts. I found that the most efficient way to be the “7 minute workout”. A 5 minute run brings me to the park, where I do 2 7-minute sets. The intensity really pumps you up and after a few sessions, I could feel the difference. 2 or 3 times a week is good enough for me. With that I take my antioxidants, and I make sure to hydrate enough. Warning: this could give you sore muscles the first few times if you are not used to it.