February: Time to Step Away from My Phone / スマホと距離を置きたい2月 - My Actifit Report Card: February 2 2026

日本語は後半にあります。

【English】

It's been quite cold lately, but today there was no wind, and it actually felt relatively warm.

I had one errand that required a payment at the post office, so I took the payment slip and headed out... Right after stepping outside, I thought, why not walk to a farther-away post office instead of going to the usual one nearby? So that's what I did.

I've still been eating a lot of hot pot lately, and cut way back on snacks. Since the beginning of the year, I've successfully lost about 1 kg. Compared to my peak weight last fall, that's a total of 4 kg down. That said, there's a limit to how much I can reduce my food intake, and I know my exercise level is still insufficient, so I'm really determined to push my walking much harder!

To be honest, January was a very indoor month for me. What was I doing with all that time? I got completely hooked on what's known in Japan as "poikatsu" (ポイ活) — basically, "point-earning activities" or "reward points hustling." (It's a very common thing here: you earn redeemable points by watching advertisement videos, clicking on links, answering surveys, and so on through various apps and websites. Those points can then be exchanged for Amazon gift cards, points from other services, even Bitcoin, or sometimes directly transferred to your bank account as cash.)

What I especially liked was using the points to buy stocks. Throughout January, I diligently accumulated points and used them to purchase small-cap stocks or investment trusts. It was genuinely fun at first... but by the end of the month, I finally hit my limit.

Even when I thought I was just letting the ad videos play in the background without really paying attention, my brain was apparently absorbing them anyway. It started feeling like my mental cache was completely full and overloaded — just like when a browser or smartphone gets bogged down because the cache has built up too much junk data, slowing everything down and making things glitchy.

My thoughts wouldn't organize properly, I couldn't write coherently anymore... and I realized, this is no good. So yesterday, I deleted every single poikatsu app from my phone.

Whether I'll be able to cut ties with poikatsu permanently remains to be seen. But at least for February, I'm putting it on complete hold. Instead, I'm going back to my old habit: leaving my smartphone in a different room at night and trying to get as much sleep as possible.

Tonight's dinner was lemon hot pot. I used lettuce instead of napa cabbage, and for the finish, ramen noodles! It was my first time trying that combo, but it turned out really delicious.

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【Japanese】

このところ寒い日が続いていましたが、今日は風もなく、比較的暖かく感じられる一日でした。

郵便局で支払いが必要な用事が一件あったので、払込用紙を持って外へ・・・出たところで、どうせなら少し遠くの郵便局まで歩いてみよう、と思い立ちました。いつもの、最寄りの郵便局ではなくて。

相変わらず食事は鍋が多く、最近はお菓子を食べる量も減っていて、年始から約1キロの減量に成功しました。昨年秋のMAX時と比較すると、トータルでは4キロ減っています。とはいえ、食べる量を減らすのには限界があるし、運動量が足りないことは分かっているので、もっともっとウォーキングを頑張らなくては！と思っています。

実を言うと1月はだいぶインドアで、何をしていたかというと、いわゆる「ポイ活」にハマっていました・・・海外にもこのようなシステムがあるか分かりませんが、広告動画を見たり、クリックしたり、アンケートに回答することでポイントをもらえるやつです。ポイントは様々な特典と交換できます・・・Amazonギフトカードとか、他社サービスのポイントとか、ビットコインとか、銀行振込で現金にできる場合も。

私が好きなのはポイントを株の購入に充てることで、1月はせっせとポイントを貯めては、小型の株や投資信託を買っていました。最初のうちは楽しかったのですが・・・月末になって、ついに限界がきたようです・・・広告動画も、流しているだけで見ていないつもりでも、しっかり見ているんでしょうね、脳内にキャッシュが溜まったような感じになり、考えはまとまらないし、文章は書けなくなるし・・・で、こりゃダメだと思いました。で、昨日ポイ活アプリを全て削除しました。

ポイ活と永久に縁を切れるかは分かりません。でも、この2月は控えます。そして以前やっていたように、夜寝る時はスマホは別室に置き、できるだけ睡眠時間を長くとるようにするつもりです。

今夜はレモン鍋でした。白菜の代わりにレタスを使い、〆はラーメンで！初めて買いましたが、おいしかったです。

This report was published via Actifit app (Android | iOS). Check out the original version here on actifit.io

Walking