{"id":85700,"date":"2017-08-03t18:17:25","date_gmt":"2017-08-03t22:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.digitopmedia.com\/?p=85700"},"modified":"2023-01-19t16:43:05","modified_gmt":"2023-01-19t21:43:05","slug":"fitness-tracker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.digitopmedia.com\/fitness-tracker\/","title":{"rendered":"4 reasons to ditch the fitness tracker and listen to your body"},"content":{"rendered":"

you\u2019ve decided to start living a healthier lifestyle. one year ago you started tracking your food consumption with a free fitness tracker app, such as my fitness pal tracker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

you’ve decided to limit alcohol intake, cut back on refined carbs, and started saying no to sweets. you joined a gym, bought a fitness tracker, and started steadily collecting splat points or whatever minutes in the orange and red zones you achieve.<\/p>\n

the weight slipped off of you so quickly in the beginning, but for some reason, your weight loss has tapered off. what\u2019s up with that? in just a year, your total weight loss is 12 pounds.<\/p>\n

one. pound. per. month.<\/h2>\n

you feel good despite the lack of change on the scale. you\u2019ve been listening to the trainers when they say push, or go for two more reps, but your bmi still sits on the overweight end. so how do you get that extra nudge, so the scale begins to move again<\/a>?<\/p>\n

it might be time for a change. your body has adapted to the workload; it\u2019s bored and it\u2019s getting tired. your body is speaking to you, but you\u2019ve been ignoring it because you believe in the fitness tracker.<\/p>\n

trackers are great, they\u2019re wonderful, but they\u2019re also dishonest. it says you\u2019re burning upwards between 600-1000 calories in one session alone and you go three to four times a week.<\/p>\n

\"fitness<\/p>\n

so you\u2019re potentially burning 2,400-4,000 calories with exercise per week. more weight should be coming off, seeing one pound is equivalent to 3500 calories.<\/p>\n

something is not adding up, and it\u2019s time to figure out why spending hours on the treadmill, rowing machine, or elliptical that\u2019s not translating to fat burn and weight loss. you can only use the excuse \u201cmuscle weighs more than fat<\/a>,\u201d for so long.<\/p>\n

it\u2019s time to break up with the fitness tracker and listen to your body.<\/p>\n

fitness tracker\u00a0– we should take a break; it\u2019s me, not you.<\/h2>\n

some great, at-home exercise videos preach \u201cmuscle confusion,” such as p90x<\/a>\u00a0and p90x3<\/a>. your fitness tracker does not monitor muscle confusion.<\/p>\n

to be entirely forthright, your fitness tracker doesn\u2019t measure anything accurately except for your heart rate. from a study of 7 different fitness trackers (see journal of personalized medicine<\/a>), 6 of the 7 measured heart rate with an error rate of less than 5 percent.<\/p>\n

the apple watch was the most accurate when it came to heart rate, with a less than 2 percent error rate. but, when it came to caloric output, the best performing fitness tracker had a 25 percent error rate.<\/p>\n

\"my<\/p>\n

another fitness tracker was off by close to 93 percent. so, when you measure your worth in calories burned or are a member of a gym you pay way too much for to stare at your heart rate on a screen, just remember that number might need to be sliced by a third.<\/p>\n

so let\u2019s burn some misconceptions about your fitness tracker. let’s look at four reasons why it might be time to start listening to your body and stop paying attention to the fitness tracker.<\/p>\n

1.)\u00a0incorrect calorie count from my fitness tracker?<\/h2>\n

you\u2019ve collected 24 splat points, saw your heart rate in the red zone for 22 out of the 60 minutes, you\u2019ve burned 963 calories and now it\u2019s time to feast!<\/p>\n

hold on a second. if you dictate your food consumption based on what your estimated caloric output is, you might be overeating, which could derail your healthy living.<\/p>\n

weight loss isn\u2019t rocket science. it\u2019s regular science.<\/p>\n

you will lose weight if you reduce calories<\/a>. which means you are burning and using more calories in a day than what you are taking in. an important component to this is knowing your basal metabolic rate (bmr).<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

your bmr is significant in all of this because it is the number of calories you need to keep your body functioning while at rest.<\/p>\n

if your bmr is 1500 and you then burn 600 calories with exercise, to sustain your current weight consuming 2100 would work.<\/p>\n

but, if you are looking to lose a pound a week or a pound every two weeks, being in a caloric deficit of 250-500 would work for you.<\/p>\n

subtract 250-500 from 2,100, and that\u2019s your estimated caloric intake, as long as you are still exercising.<\/p>\n

however, if you are in a calorie deficit for an extended period, you won\u2019t continue losing weight. this can result in cutting calories for too long.<\/p>\n

2.) can a fitness tracker causes you to cut too many calories?<\/h2>\n

for those on the opposite end of the spectrum, who begin tracking calories with an app that syncs up to the fitness tracker, this can propel them into achieving immediate weight loss.<\/p>\n

with the caloric deficiency, there will be weight loss, but quick weight loss can be traced to water weight and glycogen stores<\/a>. however, to maintain a steady weight loss, there needs to be a degree of progression with workouts.<\/p>\n

greater volume, higher workload, longer duration, whatever it is, it has to develop continuously. as your body gets stronger, you could reach a point where your weight loss begins to taper off<\/a> or stop altogether.<\/p>\n

\"fitness<\/p>\n

it can be linked back to your body adapting to the calorie restriction<\/a>. and, if there isn\u2019t change, the weight loss plateau is your body\u2019s way of telling you to make a change. regardless of what the fitness tracker reads.<\/p>\n

if you hit a weight loss plateau, you need to listen to your body. it will continue to signal to you with:<\/p>\n