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When it came to fitness, I always relied on knowledge, self-discipline and commitment. When I started my journey into fitness 22 years back, the only tool I used was a watch – Alarm for waking up and for monitoring exercise duration. Treadmill panel was the closest I came to using technology for fitness. And I nurtured a secret pride of relying on my intellect instead of technology to be fit.
But that was past!
As I now work on other people’s fitness, I find that technologies like wearable and apps offer a lot of features that can shape personal fitness:
1. Makes you aware: It presents one with lot of information that otherwise would not be available – number of steps walked, number of steps climbed, hours of sleep, calories burnt through the day, heart rate and much more. The seamless collection of data and the visual representation and slices and dices of the information hits you with some stark reality.
Now, I did not need a fitness band to tell me that I was not getting enough sleep. Any person who knows to read a watch, will know how much sleep they get in a day. But, when my device provided me a 7- day sleep data with break up of deep sleep, light sleep and REM, I became more conscious. I have now started working on it.
Awareness in my opinion is the beginning of any change.
2. Assists you to track and monitor: With the information and awareness, you will be tempted to make some changes in your lifestyle. You may be tempted to take the stairs more often or to park your car a little far away or get to bed a little early. Once done, now your wearable will give you factual feedback. Your wearable will show you a reduction in your resting heart rate or drop in body weight over a period of time. This information can be shared as well. I often ask my clients to share this information with me, so that I can analyze the effect of the fitness program on some of these parameters.
I made some changes to my work and home schedule to impro威而鋼
ve my sleep timing. Now, my device tells me, I am getting 7 hours of sleep on the average. I check it regularly to ensure that I don’t fall short on sleep again.
When on a mission, tracking and monitoring till we reach our goal is important.
3. Builds your motivation: I have seen people just pace to and fro to complete the number of required steps as they fell short of their goal! No motivational speech has ever been able to make people go round and round in the same place. These apps and devices allow you to connect with your friends on the same platform. To have friends also working on the same goals helps to challenge and build camaraderie towards fitness goals.
Every morning, my husband and I take great interest in knowing who slept better among the two of us.
With friends, the journey becomes even more fun.
I have personally evaluated few apps and devices. I will share the findings of my evaluation in the 2nd part of this article. Please stay tuned.