The Best Way To Use Your Fitness Tracker

This is a guest post from William Benetton.  William loves to travel and write about all kinds of sports. Also, few months ago he designed his first website and if you are interested in you can see his web-design project right now. He can’t imagine his life without travel, sport, self-improvement and sweet coffee.

A fitness tracker, no matter if you’re referring to a fitness belt, smartwatch or any other type of equipment, is very similar to a gym membership.

When you get your gym membership you already see yourself having 6-pack abs, fit and with the perfect beach body. After a few months, you realize that there was no or very little progress made and making the purchase of a fitness tracker hasn’t really changed your life.

For those of you that found themselves in a similar situation or for those that merely want to buy such a device but are not sure how to use it to maximize its benefits, the followings rows will come as enlightenment.

Source: pixabay

Remember, it’s a Fitness Tracker Not a Magic Wand

After buying your fitness gadget, you need to resist the urge of thinking you just got a magic device that will make you fit by merely counting your steps, calories intake and the rate you burn them.

What you just bought is a tool that will help you get fit, if you manage to use it right. Besides that, it can contribute a lot to the motivational aspect, there’s entirely nothing a fitness tracker can do all by itself.

You will need to interact with your fitness tracker to be able to see results and, just as the name suggests, the best way of interacting with such a device is actually doing fitness-related activities. The desire to become fit and having a healthier lifestyle needs to come from within and a fitness tracker is merely a tool that you use to get there.

Forget About the Calorie Count Function

The most-frequent mistake fitness tracker users make putting all their trust in the calorie count function to design their fitness program, goals and even types of activities. Even the most advanced and expensive, fitness trackers are unable to offer you an accurate calorie count so you should entirely forget about that.

For the best results, you should always take advice from a nutritionist and calculate your calorie intake manually for everything you eat.

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Make Sure to Set Daily Goals

Most models come with a beneficial function, setting daily goals or milestones. This is an excellent path you can take in your quest to get out of the comfort zone and really make things happen.

Start by using the tracker for a week, doing nothing special rather than your daily routine. Then, try to set progressive goals that will, eventually, get you to the end goal: a fit body and a healthy lifestyle. Of course, like with any other goal in life, it is very important to have a realistic approach when setting fitness milestones.

Staying too close to your comfort zone will bring frustration from the lack of progress the feeling that it’s going to take forever to get in shape. On the other hand, going with unrealistic goals might put you in the delicate position of not being able to reach them, generating negative feelings such as self-pity or even hate.

Use the Social Functions as Well

It’s not yet very clear to scientist why most people feel more motivated to go out for a run or hit the gym when being accompanied by a friend.

The most interesting part about this behaviour comes from the fact that it doesn’t even have to be a physical accompaniment in order for it to work. Talking to a friend over FaceTime that is also going to the gym, will make you feel a stronger desire to go as well.

From this point of view, a fitness tracker is excellent because it integrates a lot of social media networks that will help you stay in touch with friends. Yet another positive effect of getting social with your fitness activity is the sharing your progress with others that are also interested in fitness or even at the same level as you are.

On one side you get a lot of credit for your accomplishments and on the other one, it brings out a sort of competition that is very healthy and brings positive results.

Source: pixabay

The bottom line regarding the effects of a fitness tracker over your mission to become fitter and live a healthier life, is that you should view it as a tool that makes it easier for you to track, log data and analyze certain aspects regarding your activity, diet and habits that can be improved. It won’t do magic all by itself and it will definitely not yell at you to go to the gym or go for a run.