Are fitness trackers worth the money?
Fitness trackers are something I was resistant to for many years. I thought, why do I need to know how many steps I am walking each day? There is way more to fitness than that and I’ve got the big picture things under control. And why do I need a watch sending me my cell phone notifications? Won’t that make my phone take over even more of my life than it already has? The small added benefits of being aware of my daily step count didn’t seem worth the distraction it would bring.
Well, curiosity won out and once I had used a fitness tracker for several months, and my opinion completely changed. It not only increased my health and fitness almost immediately but kept me off my phone a bit more. Double win! Before owning one, I made sure to get an hour work out in 5–6 days a week, but didn’t really think much into adding any aerobic work outside of that hour. I could sit on the couch or at a desk all day, but I felt I’d succeeded as long as I’d spent an hour working out that morning.
When I started using my first tracker (which was a Fitbit!), I would compete with myself each day to try and get the minimum required goal steps, which was set to 10,000. I realized that from being a dog parent I didn’t have to do much additional walking outside of my normal dog walks to meet my goal. After a few weeks of becoming consistent with 10k steps per day, it became a habit and my body felt weird if I didn’t meet my goal.
As my step consistency increased, I started researching the benefit of regular steady state aerobic activity. I learned it not only provides added benefits to my cardiovascular health, but gets me extra sun on my walks and helps my body recover from exercise. It wasn’t a coincidence that my body felt so good!
What about my worries that this addition would cause too much distraction? I have my tracker set up so that I only receive the minimum amount of phone notifications, and this has helped me not look at my phone as often throughout the day. I don’t need to look to CHECK for text messages, because my watch will let me know. This has helped me cut WAY back in screen time.
An unexpected benefit: improving sleep quality. Fitness trackers share sleep reports every morning and mine showed me where I could improve my sleep hygiene, increasing my nightly average of sleep to over 8 hours. This helps a great deal in my recovery from workouts and my mental health.
If the price fits your budget, I do recommend purchasing a fitness tracker. When used correctly, it can be a tool that will help you improve your fitness level, like it did for me. Do some research on what brand to purchase based on which features and analytics you want most. Once in hand, make it your mission to master the features of your new tracker so that it can be a positive tool in your life. Then, get to stepping!
