And then.

I perked up when Maggie Mason blogged about hers as part of her Packing Light series in 2010. “Oh, hey,” I said to Graham, “looks like you’re ABOUT TO BE HIP.” I figured Fitbit sales would jump…but I still wasn’t convinced I needed one.

Then? This week? Ms. Maggie blogged about using it to track her sleep patterns, which she was working to fix, and I broke down. That’s my Achilles heel right now, and the source of some tension in terms of how I feel and when I go to bed and whether I’m rested enough to get up and, god help me, run. So I bought one. Because also? I LOVE DATA and the interwebs, and the Fitbit wins at both.

Funnily, Fitbit seems to be all the rage in my new office. Most people here seem pretty laser-focused on their health — I know a few people who clip them on for running on Embarcadero, one guy sent out an email about losing his last week, and I think my boss also just ordered one. (I remember “laser-focused on health” from my last California residency. At UPS, three of my colleagues also taught aerobics. In their spare time.)

Last night was also the first night of portioning the way we ought to if we really want to get a handle on our health and fitness. We’ve been working toward it for a while, but haphazardly. “Oh, we’ll eat fish [of whatever size] for dinner,” we thought. “And vegetables!” It’s the potatoes, the travelin’ food (back and forth to Gardnerville twice for me and once for him in August), and the cheesy poofs — even the relatively healthyish Trader Joe’s kind — keeping us inactive and squidgier than we’re comfortable being.

(Note: I have no idea how much I weigh. I have a very good idea how I feel, though, and it’s time to treat my body a little better.)

G is not overly thrilled with how I rolled out this Thing We’ve Been Saying We’ll Do For Six Months. We’d planned to have (really) small steaks last night and wanted something potato-y…as one does. I grocery-shopped after work last night; I didn’t feel like waiting for baked potatoes and the frozen french fry section was bare, so I brought home tater tots.

[Pause for the reader to reflect on fond memories of tater tots, which few of us think to eat as adults, unless we have favorite restaurants that serve them as bar food.]

[Pause for DC/VA readers to reflect on our dearly departed Del Merei Grille.]

He was amused and perhaps a little delighted by the idea, until I told him 1 serving = 10 tots and I would be counting them out pre-baking. ::sadface::

But wait! We would also be having green beans! And I did give him the larger of the two filets… And he’d added “Meat Salad Stuff” to the grocery list, which is totally an indicator that it’s time, right? Because he’s thinking about salad. (“Meat salad” is not made of meat. It just has meat in it, which was a revelation.) So the tot limit was a surprise.

Whatever. He got back at me by deciding that my Newton’s Folly (not very)hard cider (bottled in Middlebury!) is pretty tasty. Also filling. But the last one is mineALLMINE.

Tonight’s dinner: Barbecued Pork and Black Bean Soup, which I’m basing loosely on the SF Soup Company’s BBQ Pork and Black-eyed Pea Soup and/or making up as I go along. You know how I am about soup — “throw stuff in a pot and see what happens.” What could go wrong?