A few weeks ago, as NBC broadcast the U.S. women's gymnastics team standing on the podium, gold medals being draped around their necks, I sat on my couch, my arms waving wildly in the air. These events were not connected.

I was driven by neither pride nor patriotism: It was a few minutes before midnight, and I was 29 NikeFuel points shy of hitting my daily target of 3,200. If I was going to surpass my goal, I'd have to get moving. Or at least get my Nike+ FuelBand moving.

For the last month, I've been wearing a FuelBand all day, every day. The band retails for $149, and it's a brilliant piece of design work. A thin, rubberized bracelet not much wider than a rubber band, it serves several purposes: it acts as a watch, a calorie counter, and a step counter. But mostly, the FuelBand is on your wrist to track how much fuel—sorry, NikeFuel points—you earn each day.

What are NikeFuel points? I'm not exactly certain, but I've become kind of obsessed with them anyway. According to Nike.com, "NikeFuel counts all the activities of your athletic life. Running, walking, basketball. Nike+ devices measure your moves and turn them into NikeFuel. And since NikeFuel is calculated the same way for everyone, you can compare and compete with anyone."

Whatever these mysterious points are, you know they must be good if they relate to your personal fitness. And the more you buy into the FuelBand, the more important this mysterious unit of measurement becomes. As I am writing this, it's 1:58 p.m. Today I woke up, puttered around the apartment, had breakfast, walked the dog, sat at the computer for three hours, fid lunch, then sat back down for an hour. According to the FuelBand, I've burned 294 calories and accumulated 693 fuel points, which is brutally short of my daily goal of 3200. I can see exactly how far I have to go by looking at the row of 20 LED lights that line the bottom of the band and range from red to yellow to green. I've lit 5, which leaves me still in the red. What those mean reds tell me is that I need to get up and get moving.

That's where the FuelBand is excellent: It's a constant reminder of what you have (or haven't) accomplished. And here's where the design genius of the FuelBand is important: It's cool-looking and unobtrusive enough that you can wear it all the time, regardless of office dress code. Plus, even if you can't find a way to utilize it as a fitness tool, the FuelBand is a cool party trick—people are wowed when I hit the button and the dull black strap lights up like a flux capacitor.

My biggest issue with the FuelBand is that it can't possibly be terribly precise. Since it tracks its own movement, your scores are entirely tied to how much your wrist moves. So things like push-ups or bike rides come up lacking. Similarly, the band doesn't know if I'm carrying groceries or not when I walk home from the store, and if you're unscrupulous, it's easy enough to just shake your arm around and rack up points.

I've always been a big guy. Even when I played basketball in high school and was running about 40 miles a week, I could generously be described as husky. Since then, I spent a few years making things worse with a sedentary writer's lifestyle. But as I've aged, I've had to accept that fitness is an obligation, not an option. I HAVE to do something, anything. You think this is a game? In a sense, that's exactly what the FuelBand hopes to make your life: One big game, with improved personal fitness as the final goal.

The logistics go like this: Upon unpacking the FuelBand, you register your bracelet online and tell your FuelBand your height, your weight, and which wrist you plan to wear it on. Then you click it on your wrist and go. Holding down the button on the band wirelessly syncs it with your iPhone. If you don't have an iPhone, you can charge/sync by manually plugging it into a computer's USB port. This is also how you charge the band—the battery lasts about three days on an hour charge.

It's simple enough to use, though the first time I tried wirelessly syncing, I somehow managed to erase three days of results, and I nearly chucked the band through my television. I'm not sure how many FuelPoints that would have been worth.

After a while I settled into a groove with the gadget. I now check my points throughout the day and am constantly plotting how to hit my goal. Sometimes that means walking the dog an extra time, or just going outside and jogging around the block. Sometimes that means doing upper-body calisthenics on the couch while watching "Pawn Stars." I wore the FuelBand last week while playing 18 holes of golf and racked up almost 4,500 points by lunchtime. Trying to give my squirming dog a haircut gave me a big points boost, and I get a sizable bump every night while cooking dinner, as long as I sautée left-handed.

I've unquestionably been more active since I got the band. I've lost a few pounds, but more than that I just feel healthier and more aware of my body. Last week I actually started thinking about how to push it further—I've been hitting my goal every day, so how should I up my daily goal, and what more can I add to my daily fitness routine?

When you hit your daily target, the FuelBand erupts into a three-second-long, low-fi (almost 8-bit) celebratory light show. It isn't much, but seeing those LEDs dance is now what I work for all day long.

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