Nowadays most smart-phones have the ability to also function as a step counter, but there are also other (wearable) devices to count steps, burnt calories and other data. There are definitely some benefits to this technology, but also some dangers.
Benefits of current technology
There are several ways to measure your caloric expenditure or activity with all that is available nowadays. These measurements can give quite some guidance for you to make sure you are on the right way to reach your goals, or to set targets for yourself.
There is also an aspect of health or recovery from stress, called Heart Rate Variability (HRV). This is a way to measure adaptation to a training (or life) stressor and it can give you a good indication on which days you can “push it” again or when it is better to take it easy. This does not even need fancy or expensive devices, you can even measure it with the camera of a smart-phone and an app. I am a fan of the app by HRV4Training (https://www.hrv4training.com/) and this gives a good indication when you use this every day. This is a measurement you can always measure, but you don’t have always a good indicator based on how you feel.
Dangers of current technology
As I have written in “What Keeps You From Your Ideal Weight“, the measurements of caloric expenditure are an indication at best. You should not take these numbers too seriously and definitely not use them to justify a bigger (high calorie) snack or meal since you burnt so much calories during your activity. That is, if your goal is to keep or lower your weight.
The dependency on technology also takes away the relationship with what is the best indicator of your readiness, activity or health status. How do you feel about it. Your body is more than capable to indicate that it needs time to recover, that certain activities are tough on your body, etcetera. It needs to be said that this is different from the nagging voice you can have in your mind during tough activities; telling you it is better to quit.
How to Deal with Technology Then?
So how to go about the technology that is so readily available for everyone? It might be clearer to you now that there are some benefits, but also dangers. The best way is to make sure to know which measurements are the most accurate and hold the most value and which are the opposite. The latter can still be used as indication, but you cannot base decisions on those.
Video from Garage Gym Reviews
This video from Garage Gym Reviews sums it up nicely too:
What To Do Now?
Interested how this could work for you? Get in touch to learn what training through Continuous Improvement Fitness could mean for you! Or if you have questions, feel free to leave them in the comment section or ask them through the Contact Page. I could help you out to guide you in which technology could benefit you and which is dangerous to base decisions on.
Start now, not tomorrow!