5 Reasons to Try a Fitness Tracker

As more people lead a highly active lifestyle it’s hard to keep up with a fitness regiment. Wearable technology, like fitness trackers and body monitors, could be changing the playing field of bettering your health. It is the next step to an artificial intelligence (AI) society being designed around us where technology hones in so you can make precise adjustments.

Wearable technology is one of the top fitness trends that just may be switching from trend to must-have. With sales projected at $4 billion per year alone, these wrist wrapped personal trainers offer unique health advantages.

The jury is still out on complete validation of these devices, namely fitness trackers. Some say it’s just a gimmick while others say it is what you’ve been waiting for to gain an edge on maintaining optimal health results.

These 5 reasons to try a fitness tracker may just get you to finally light that fire under your butt and get you back in the swing of things.

Improved Health

The general statement of ‘improved health’ applies well to a fitness tracker because, overall, if you become more aware of your steps, heart rate, sleep patterns and other stats chances are you’ll do something about it.

According to The University of Illinois at Chicago,

“In addition to devices that alert authorities about serious medical issues, there are very popular wearables like wristbands and watches that are allowing users to take an active role in their health. According to Huffington Post, by 2018 an expected 130 million wearable devices will have been shipped to consumers.”

Rehab

Recovering from surgery is a challenge that significantly slows down activity. Wearing a fitness tracker could help. It not only shows a patient their improvement but it is an everyday opportunity to build confidence, self-esteem and hope.

Published in BMC Medicine, the study ‘Patient-centered activity monitoring in the self-management of chronic health conditions’ reports on the benefits of various applications of wearable technology when struggling with or recovering from a health challenge,

“Activity monitoring has the potential to engage patients as advocates in their personalized care, as well as offer health care providers real world assessments of their patients’ daily activity patterns.”

Heart Support

Let’s face it, most people don’t move enough. It’s usually a commute to and from work and maybe some activity on the weekends but recently, sitting has become the new smoking.

According to Dr. James Levine, director of the Mayo Clinic-Arizona State University Obesity Solutions Initiative,

“Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death.”

Wearing a fitness tracker could change this. People utilizing these devices are taking the stairs instead of the elevator, walking during lunch hour, bicycling to work or starting office fitness tracker competitions. The incentive to up personal numbers is creating a type of ‘exercise social media’ which in turn could be significantly strengthening cardiovascular health.

Johns Hopkins cardiologist Seth Martin, M.D., M.H.S., comments,

“Fitness trackers are a great tool for heart health,…It gives people information and empowers them to start making changes for heart health,…And often, their activity level was not something they were paying attention to before they started tracking.”

Weight Loss

There has been some misunderstanding when it comes to fitness trackers helping people lose weight. Like so many quick fix weight loss attempts, some advertising misrepresents the ability of fitness trackers, inflating belief that all you have to do is wear one and the weight will drop.

No technology can override desire so if you have the will to eat poor food and do little exercise you will probably gain weight. If you have the will to exercise and eat right while incorporating fitness tracker info for support, you will probably succeed and lose weight.

Individualized Goals

In the past, if you wanted to increase your workout you would probably experience slow change in the form of weight loss and/or muscle building. Utilizing fitness tracker info gives you a solid gauge on how to implement goals and actually see real time results.

Each day, or for that matter, each hour you can check systemic vitals that only a doctor was once able to do. At the same time you can watch your amount of steps, floors climbed, and overall miles covered rise and fall accordingly. This is invaluable info which can take individualized goals to a new level and make sticking to such goals that much more possible.

 

Maybe, these 5 reasons to try a fitness tracker could catapult you beyond the mundane, every day schedule that may include a stale gym workout or neighborhood run. Using wearable technology could very well instill a new enthusiasm for embracing better health.