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#TakeTheLeap with a FREE Fitbit Charge HR!

When TELUS got all of us Team TELUS ambassadors to participate in their #TakeTheLeap challenge I was the last to really reach my stride, so to speak.

When TELUS got all of us Team TELUS ambassadors to participate in their #TakeTheLeap challenge I was the last to really reach my stride, so to speak. Vancouver's Dai Manuel is a fitness expert and his entire deal is to help people stay fit, so he nailed it out of the gate with his piece about leveraging technology to get into shape. Montreal's Tanya Toledano leapt into better sleep and wrote about this unconventional approach to using tech to stay at her best. The North Shore's Jessica Blumel took the leap and wrote about how staying on top of physical activity not only keeps her body in shape but her mind as well.

Honestly, "fitness" is pretty far from my radar most of the time. I spend hours every day working in front of my computer but I also get outdoors often to go exploring, fishing, and just generally participating in westcoast outdoorsy activities. I have a pretty high stress job running this media company but I do my best to keep up with my 7 year old son, I try to get enough sleep, and my wife and I try to be conscious about what we eat. I manage to stay in fairly good shape despite not having a regular workout routine.

Life lessons from a 7 year old: take your boots off, roll your pants up, and be sure to get good and wet!?????

A photo posted by Katie Kronbauer (@katiekronbauer) on

Last summer I started wearing a Fitbit, because as I creep up on 40 I'm finding it a little harder to keep weight off. Pictured below is my son and I cleaning a fish, and I'm wearing the Flex model which is super basic, tracking activity (basically how many steps you take) and sleep. It got fitness a little bit onto my radar in that I set a basic goal of 10,000 steps per day on it and it tracked how often I'd take that many. The days when I wouldn't I'd be reminded of it as I logged in to the app on my phone and the dashboard online, and as I got that reminder (guilt!) I'd actually make an effort to walk more as opposed to driving, and to get up and go to lunch and dinner instead of ordering in. It's the small things. Seriously.

When I came on board for #TakeTheLeap TELUS sent me the Fitbit Charge HR, which tracks your heart rate, your sleep and does a better job of tracking activity beyond just the steps you take in a day. At first it was a novelty to learn about my resting heart rate, and it soon became apparent that it was something that I should pay attention to. I didn't even know what a resting heart rate was prior to getting this thing but as it showed that I had a fairly high one compared to most people I know who are my age (I asked around, a lot!), I kept a close eye on it. What I learned was eye opening: the days that I'm sitting at my desk I have a higher resting heart rate than I do when I'm on the road traveling. You can see the dip below on my dashboard that I screen capped today. The past 9 days have been spent filming for our BC Was Awesome TV show, and I haven't been on my computer very much. My resting heart rate has come down considerably, and so it's forced me to consider taking more time away from my desk, and adjusting the way I work. I know that I love being away from my computer, while still working, but it's not the easiest thing to do when most of your work revolves around communicating via email, phone, etc. But my health might force me to do more of it. And that's pretty rad.

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We're giving away a Fitbit Charge HR to one lucky person in a draw. All you've got to do is like this photo on our Facebook page and you're entered to win!

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