At some point last year, I got really into the counting-steps craze.

It’s a simple concept rooted in a decades-old Japanese marketing campaign for a pedometer. The device was called Manpo-kei, or “10,000-step meter,” and its inventor believed walking that much every day would help Japanese people stave off obesity.

Recent research questions that precise number but agrees that the more people move, the better. Still, 10,000 steps daily remains the popular goal, and now there are many ways to help people count their paces.

When I started tracking my steps more closely, I relied on my iPhone and its Health app. However, I don’t carry my phone with me every single place I go.

A wearable pedometer, therefore, made a lot more sense — it would stay with me when I do menial tasks like dust around the house or walk to the microwave to heat up lunch. So I started studying watch models from Fitbit, a leader in health and fitness tracking, even though I hesitated to buy one.

I struggled to justify the price of a fancy fitness watch when I already have perfectly fine timepieces and a phone app to do the rest of the work. I am also pretty low-tech, so the thought of joining the smartwatch crowd made me wary.

But I would look around and see how many people have smartwatches and fitness trackers, and it made me wish I could just take the plunge.

Then Christmas rolled around, and guess what my loving husband got me. I guess all that hemming and hawing had an impact.

Any wearable fitness tracker would have been great, but he splurged on the newer Fitbit Versa, which offers a wide range of movement-tracking capabilities. In addition to monitoring my steps and acting as a normal watch, I can log my regular exercise, how much water I drink and even my sleep patterns.

The Fitbit has fulfilled my desire to keep track of how much I’m moving around and also has put a watch back on my wrist, so I need to look at my phone less when I’m out and about. Its capabilities expand with the required phone app, so I can view breakdowns of a night’s rest or my exercise on a given morning.

Seeing this additional activity helps keep me accountable — I can aim for more hours of sleep or make sure I’m meeting my gym goals.

“Keeping me accountable,” however, can also translate to “pretty darn addicting.” While I might not look at my phone as much when I go on a head-clearing walk, I find myself staring at my wrist to make sure the Fitbit is registering my steps. (During the workweek I put in more than 10,000 a day, but that drops off drastically on weekends.)

And because the watch tracks your activity when you are awake and asleep, I rarely take it off for extended periods of time. Logically I know it doesn’t matter if data for one or a few days isn’t registered, but I’ve been on a roll since Christmas and the thought of breaking my wearing streak compels me to keep it on.

Overall, though, I’m very happy that I now have something that helps keep me moving throughout the day. Truthfully I didn’t need much incentive before I had the Fitbit, but its overall package of features helps me in other areas of my life as well.

Funnily enough, my husband got himself an Apple Watch a little after he gifted me the Fitbit. Now, instead of staring at our phones all the time, we stare at our wrists instead.

“She Speaks” is a column by women writers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Reach Celia Downes at cdownes@staradvertiser.com.