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How reliant have you become on fitness tech?
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Yeah...I love my fitbit. I had the OG model in 2012 and lost most of the extra weight that I put on after my dad died a few years before, and it completely changed my lifestyle. I started off with "getting steps", and eventually took up running, and at some point started logging food, using strava/map my run, and playing pokemon go while running. I started getting faster, which I knew because I was recording my pace, and I started going longer until I was about the most fit I've ever been (I was always skinny when I was young but didn't exercise regularly). I ran my first half marathon in 2:04 on a hilly course in 95 degree weather. Even now, when I am reading or watching a show, I have a tendency to be reading or watching it on my phone while I walk around the house or fold laundry or whatever. I have a hard time being completely sedentary, and it's all because I got that fitbit in 2012!
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susanpiper57 wrote: »Yeah...I love my fitbit. I had the OG model in 2012 and lost most of the extra weight that I put on after my dad died a few years before, and it completely changed my lifestyle. I started off with "getting steps", and eventually took up running, and at some point started logging food, using strava/map my run, and playing pokemon go while running. I started getting faster, which I knew because I was recording my pace, and I started going longer until I was about the most fit I've ever been (I was always skinny when I was young but didn't exercise regularly). I ran my first half marathon in 2:04 on a hilly course in 95 degree weather. Even now, when I am reading or watching a show, I have a tendency to be reading or watching it on my phone while I walk around the house or fold laundry or whatever. I have a hard time being completely sedentary, and it's all because I got that fitbit in 2012!
Ok that's inspiring, and makes me want to keep my fitbit
Thanks for sharing - I hope the journey just keeps getting better for you
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susanpiper57 wrote: »Yeah...I love my fitbit. I had the OG model in 2012 and lost most of the extra weight that I put on after my dad died a few years before, and it completely changed my lifestyle. I started off with "getting steps", and eventually took up running, and at some point started logging food, using strava/map my run, and playing pokemon go while running. I started getting faster, which I knew because I was recording my pace, and I started going longer until I was about the most fit I've ever been (I was always skinny when I was young but didn't exercise regularly). I ran my first half marathon in 2:04 on a hilly course in 95 degree weather. Even now, when I am reading or watching a show, I have a tendency to be reading or watching it on my phone while I walk around the house or fold laundry or whatever. I have a hard time being completely sedentary, and it's all because I got that fitbit in 2012!
Ok that's inspiring, and makes me want to keep my fitbit
Thanks for sharing - I hope the journey just keeps getting better for you
I'm at public url: //www.fitbit.com/user/22WC9G if you want to be fitbit friends The downside is that I am getting back into running after my last pregnancy, and I'm annoyed at how much slower my pace is, even though I know I'll get my endurance back with time. Because of course I'm tracking my slow pace lol. Everyone responds differently to tech, it's just worked really well for me. 0 -
Reliant or dependent, nope. I do use it to see keep track of how I'm doing. For instance, I know I maintained 19.0 MPH on the indoor bike today for 40:46, averaged 208W for the whole time, including the warmup, and averaged 250w for the last 26:33 of the ride. Average H/R was 120
I can compare these figures to other efforts to see if I'm working harder or not.
I know this morning's effort was about 5% lower than last night overall, but I maintained a higher rate of speed over the shorter duration.
Essentially, it keeps me honest.
I also use it to calculate how many calories I can eat back. I try to eat back only about 1/2 of my exercise calories.0 -
susanpiper57 wrote: »susanpiper57 wrote: »Yeah...I love my fitbit. I had the OG model in 2012 and lost most of the extra weight that I put on after my dad died a few years before, and it completely changed my lifestyle. I started off with "getting steps", and eventually took up running, and at some point started logging food, using strava/map my run, and playing pokemon go while running. I started getting faster, which I knew because I was recording my pace, and I started going longer until I was about the most fit I've ever been (I was always skinny when I was young but didn't exercise regularly). I ran my first half marathon in 2:04 on a hilly course in 95 degree weather. Even now, when I am reading or watching a show, I have a tendency to be reading or watching it on my phone while I walk around the house or fold laundry or whatever. I have a hard time being completely sedentary, and it's all because I got that fitbit in 2012!
Ok that's inspiring, and makes me want to keep my fitbit
Thanks for sharing - I hope the journey just keeps getting better for you
I'm at public url: //www.fitbit.com/user/22WC9G if you want to be fitbit friends The downside is that I am getting back into running after my last pregnancy, and I'm annoyed at how much slower my pace is, even though I know I'll get my endurance back with time. Because of course I'm tracking my slow pace lol. Everyone responds differently to tech, it's just worked really well for me.
@susanpiper57 Thank you for that! Very kind, but I would be an anchor on your list to be honest. I can't run...well, no more that a couple of hundred yards. My feet are kind of messed up, but thank you 1 -
susanpiper57 wrote: »susanpiper57 wrote: »Yeah...I love my fitbit. I had the OG model in 2012 and lost most of the extra weight that I put on after my dad died a few years before, and it completely changed my lifestyle. I started off with "getting steps", and eventually took up running, and at some point started logging food, using strava/map my run, and playing pokemon go while running. I started getting faster, which I knew because I was recording my pace, and I started going longer until I was about the most fit I've ever been (I was always skinny when I was young but didn't exercise regularly). I ran my first half marathon in 2:04 on a hilly course in 95 degree weather. Even now, when I am reading or watching a show, I have a tendency to be reading or watching it on my phone while I walk around the house or fold laundry or whatever. I have a hard time being completely sedentary, and it's all because I got that fitbit in 2012!
Ok that's inspiring, and makes me want to keep my fitbit
Thanks for sharing - I hope the journey just keeps getting better for you
I'm at public url: //www.fitbit.com/user/22WC9G if you want to be fitbit friends The downside is that I am getting back into running after my last pregnancy, and I'm annoyed at how much slower my pace is, even though I know I'll get my endurance back with time. Because of course I'm tracking my slow pace lol. Everyone responds differently to tech, it's just worked really well for me.
@susanpiper57 Thank you for that! Very kind, but I would be an anchor on your list to be honest. I can't run...well, no more that a couple of hundred yards. My feet are kind of messed up, but thank you
No worries, and no need to run Whatever exercise you like best will work best for you in the long run. Good luck with the rest of your journey! 0 -
susanpiper57 wrote: »susanpiper57 wrote: »susanpiper57 wrote: »Yeah...I love my fitbit. I had the OG model in 2012 and lost most of the extra weight that I put on after my dad died a few years before, and it completely changed my lifestyle. I started off with "getting steps", and eventually took up running, and at some point started logging food, using strava/map my run, and playing pokemon go while running. I started getting faster, which I knew because I was recording my pace, and I started going longer until I was about the most fit I've ever been (I was always skinny when I was young but didn't exercise regularly). I ran my first half marathon in 2:04 on a hilly course in 95 degree weather. Even now, when I am reading or watching a show, I have a tendency to be reading or watching it on my phone while I walk around the house or fold laundry or whatever. I have a hard time being completely sedentary, and it's all because I got that fitbit in 2012!
Ok that's inspiring, and makes me want to keep my fitbit
Thanks for sharing - I hope the journey just keeps getting better for you
I'm at public url: //www.fitbit.com/user/22WC9G if you want to be fitbit friends The downside is that I am getting back into running after my last pregnancy, and I'm annoyed at how much slower my pace is, even though I know I'll get my endurance back with time. Because of course I'm tracking my slow pace lol. Everyone responds differently to tech, it's just worked really well for me.
@susanpiper57 Thank you for that! Very kind, but I would be an anchor on your list to be honest. I can't run...well, no more that a couple of hundred yards. My feet are kind of messed up, but thank you
No worries, and no need to run Whatever exercise you like best will work best for you in the long run. Good luck with the rest of your journey!
And all the best to you on yours! 0 -
I like my toys. I have a watch, a chest strap, wireless earbuds (with onboard music) and use them all. I like running with one earbud in, so I can still hear what is going on around me. I don't take my phone when I run, as it's too frikken big to carry, so my watch tracks what I've done plus I rely on it to keep my pace at my goal for the run. I don't wear the strap that much but am going to start wearing it more for better data.
I wear both earbuds in the gym as I like my music better than what is played there. I take my phone to the gym to record my workout in an Excel sheet.
To each their own. I'd have a tougher time hitting my goals if I didn't have some of the toys.1 -
When I came here to MFP, I'd already been active (sometimes even competing) for around a dozen years, and used to using (the then more primitve) tech for monitoring workouts: Heart rate, pace, distance.
Can I work to accomplish a faster pace at the same heart rate? Did I accomplish my distance goals? Was my pace on-water faster this year, faster/slower with this technique change, faster/slower with this double partner? For next weekend's race, is our double faster at 20, 24, 30 spm in the settle? Was I hitting my HR targets for workouts in my perioidized training plans? Was my resting HR getting lower (yeah, training!) or higher (uh-oh, maybe overtraining?!?). How did weather conditions (water, wind) affect pace?
It was kind of weird to me when the Fitbit-style tech started coming out, and people started competing with their buddies to get steps (for a couple of months, until they all got bored with it, in most RL cases near me). It was kind of weird to me to come to MFP and find out that so many people think HRM are all about calories (WTFlip? Something they're not really all that fab at?)
I started with separate HRM, pace/distance GPS, stroke counter. It's cool that I can now get pretty good estimates of those, all from one device.
So, to answer your question: I'm a data geek, and I love tech. But it's mostly about heart rate, pace, distance . . . still.
Now that I'm calorie counting, I also use it for some calorie estimates, if the device seems like the most plausible source, i.e., not for everything.5 -
I find fitness trackers (fitbit currently) very useful mainly for objectifying things like NEAT & analyzing trends.
Helpful mainly due to having an erratic schedule with excessive NEAT contribution staggered with off-days with questionable NEAT (much more variable vs. work days)
I've been able to stay in shape even without/before using fitness trackers; however, my decisions/ability to account for NEAT was more of a guessing game or crap-shoot mainly driven by subjective feelings (am I feeling more fatigued, ravenously hungry, cold, etc.) vs. objective measures. For myself, fitness trackers just take a lot of educated guessing out of the equation and allow me to be more proactive implementing future changes needed to diet by looking @ trends
Has helped me mainly from over-dieting accompanied with the absence of spontaneous movement (being so tired, fidgeting/spontaneous movement turns into thoughtful movement)1 -
Maybe I’m thinking of reliance as different than obsession.
I rely on the info I get from my wearable tech for a whole host of reasons.
Primarily-like @Keto_Vampire, a consistent (even if not “accurate”) takes a TON of guesswork out of this process and helps alleviate stress about what to count and what level of active I might be or how many hours of walking should I log on vacations or extra this/that or the other thing.
For someone balancing training load with the deficit I need to lose enough weight that it’s an impact on health and training-anything that helps find a way to consistently quantify that balance is a huge plus.
And I also rely on the data collected while I’m training (running) to monitor HR, distance, pace, my route, other assorted metrics that I’m not looking at on my run. This info helps quantify improvement, training load, recovery metrics, need for changes in my program. It also helps me hit the intended targets during my training.
Plus there are additional things monitored (like resting HR) that help gauge recovery/improved fitness/stress/etc.
Do I rely on it? Yep.
But it’s not the end all and be all, nor do I when a meltdown if it’s not working (you’ll forgive my quadruple redundancy during my actual marathon though...). I do appreciate ways to encourage more movement and ways to quantify how well I’m doing that. But the only time I’m going to go crazy on that is if I need 673 steps to beat my brother for the week.
I use my devices but consider them to add convenience and value to my life. I did all these things before I had a tracker of any kind. It’s just far less stressful for me now.6 -
Duck_Puddle wrote: »Maybe I’m thinking of reliance as different than obsession.
I rely on the info I get from my wearable tech for a whole host of reasons.
Primarily-like @Keto_Vampire, a consistent (even if not “accurate”) takes a TON of guesswork out of this process and helps alleviate stress about what to count and what level of active I might be or how many hours of walking should I log on vacations or extra this/that or the other thing.
For someone balancing training load with the deficit I need to lose enough weight that it’s an impact on health and training-anything that helps find a way to consistently quantify that balance is a huge plus.
And I also rely on the data collected while I’m training (running) to monitor HR, distance, pace, my route, other assorted metrics that I’m not looking at on my run. This info helps quantify improvement, training load, recovery metrics, need for changes in my program. It also helps me hit the intended targets during my training.
Plus there are additional things monitored (like resting HR) that help gauge recovery/improved fitness/stress/etc.
Do I rely on it? Yep.
But it’s not the end all and be all, nor do I when a meltdown if it’s not working (you’ll forgive my quadruple redundancy during my actual marathon though...). I do appreciate ways to encourage more movement and ways to quantify how well I’m doing that. But the only time I’m going to go crazy on that is if I need 673 steps to beat my brother for the week.
I use my devices but consider them to add convenience and value to my life. I did all these things before I had a tracker of any kind. It’s just far less stressful for me now. I don't wear wireless headphones during races because once I had an issue connecting bluetooth, and I have my phone tracking pace as well as my watch. I feel ya on redundancies during actual events. But I don't freak out if I don't have tracking on a normal weekend run, although I certainly like it if I'm in training! 0 -
I was so 'hooked' on my Fitbit and achieving the numbers every single day - was pretty obsessed for close on 4 years until it broke....I decided to go cold turkey and not replace it - best thing I ever did! I now don't focus on step related workouts for one thing and I'm maintaining my weight just as I did when I was wearing a tracker. It turns out I don't need some gadget to motivate me to keep moving, I do it out of habit and enjoyment.2
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I have a fairly low tech pedometer and a somewhat modest step goal. It does not give me reminders or sync to anything. I don't look at it constantly but having it helps me make sure I am more active than I would naturally be.
The only app I use is MFP. I don't do as well managing my weight without a food diary. I could not use it for a day or a week and be fine but long term I overeat by a few hundred calories when I do not track. I could do it on paper I suppose. I have a pretty good idea of calorie counts of foods I commonly eat after a few years of tracking but the act of tracking (prelogging) helps me make better choices.
I went years without these things and find they make things easier for me not cause anxiety or stress.2 -
My original bit of fitness tech was a stopwatch and used as a metric to improve performance. I invested into a Polar HRM in 1995 and used that for years to gather more data. I later invested in a Polar H7, which does the same, but pairs with your smartphone. I wear a Fitbit Flex 2 to track daily activity.
This is simply to keep me honest. It provides a daily reminder on whether or not I'm meeting my own expectations.3 -
I don't use any tech or equipment I'm simply too poor to afford it. All of my exercise is done inside my room except for when I go on walks outside. I use dumbbells for muscle building and I use my body for everything else.5
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I use Runkeeper on my phone for walks and some hikes, and a dumb pedometer (non-transmitting, can't even download data) the rest of the time. I really like the pedometer because I am extremely sedentary and it helps encourage me to walk. Runkeeper is great for letting me know distance, pace, and calories. I do sometimes find myself getting a little too obsessive about tracking the calories of my exercise and getting upset if I don't have my phone to tell me my burn. That is when I know it is time to unplug more and just enjoy the exercise. But the distance and pace information are valuable to me to help me better gauge my fitness, and help me decide on a route depending on how much time I have/am willing to spend exercising on a particular day. It's also great for teasing my husband who is astonishingly terrible at gauging distances and takes me on hikes that are much longer than promised. I now have a much better sense of his underestimation thanks to Runkeeper.0
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I am completely into fitness tech facilitated through my Garmin Fenix 3 HR. I see countless threads on motivation - the data provided by fitness tech is a huge motivator for me.
I am in my late 40s and have been in sustainment for years, which largely means there are few big fitness breakthroughs. I'm not losing or gaining weight. There are no "before and after pics". I am in great shape, but my lifting and running PRs are in the rearview mirror, looking back to my teens and 20s. Fitness technology is what keeps me interested and engaged when this otherwise becomes monotonous and a grind.
My Garmin provides a calorie burn estimate which I l balance against my food log to determine how much I can eat each day. It counts steps, calculates miles, captures my GPS location for cycling, running, and open water swimming maps, tracks my HR, captures my workout durations, keeps performance stats, etc. The info is used to compete in challenges, is dumped in to other apps for analysis, and is used to communicate my fitness activity on social media. Returning to the analog world of the past sounds very boring and tedious...
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I'm really enjoying reading others thoughts on this. I love tech, love playing with and using it, but to be frankly honest, I could become obsessive about it. Like I said before though, I just never thought of the simple idea of tracking trends vs hitting my numbers for a single day, so I'm now looking at watch, phone, tablet and apps a bit differently - I can do trends without getting obsessive. Thanks again for all the input folks 1
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Tbh, all of my bests have been earlier in my life when I wasn't using tech. Then again, so were all my injuries. Since I've started using tech I've noticed I've has a better eye for exactly how far I was pushing myself. Reliant? Yeah. But not in what feels like a bad way. For instance, the HRM I use on every run is massively useful in gauging when I need to dial it back. And I feel that's really gonna pay dividends in the long term... thinking of my knees still functioning so I can play with my grandkids 30 or 40 years from now.0
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