How to Use Fitness Trackers to Improve Health—Without Losing Self-Awareness

[ad_1] Whereas our ancestors relied on their senses to evaluate how they have been doing, more and more, we depend on devices. At this time, in case you’re curious sufficient, you'll be able to measure your coronary heart fee, your step rely, your train depth, and your sleep high quality—generally all on one smooth machine.

In the perfect instances, these gadgets supply a bridge between what you subjectively really feel and what you'll be able to objectively measure.

That is typically a extremely cool and superb factor.

Our subjective emotions and assessments matter, however they’re not at all times essentially the most dependable. Us people simply aren’t significantly expert at quantifying our experiences and behaviors with chilly precision.

Take, for instance, a colleague of mine. He believed he was consuming inside a slender caloric window, however after cautious monitoring, he discovered that he was placing away a bonus 500 Energy a day—in barbecue sauce.

That stated, a few of us are higher than others.

Ben Johnson, the Canadian sprinter, was reported to have been capable of name out his 100 metre time inside a tenth of a second of the stopwatch readout.1

That’s outlier efficiency, to be clear, however it nonetheless makes you surprise:

How good are you at assessing your self? And, how are you going to enhance your accuracy by means of the sensible use of expertise—like health trackers—that will help you make higher choices about your well being?

Within the following article, we’ll deal with the above, plus we’ll tackle:

How correct are knowledge trackers within the first place? When is monitoring useful? (And when is it not?) Are you able to prepare your self to extra precisely assess issues by really feel?

Let’s get into it.

First, how correct are knowledge trackers anyway? Not all knowledge is created equal.

Some manufacturers produce higher merchandise than others. This isn't simply {hardware} but additionally the standard of their software program and datasets.

Past that, not all issues are equally straightforward to amount.

For instance, coronary heart fee and step-count knowledge are typically dependable,2 however many different forms of outputs—from energy burned to motion velocity—have substantial margins for error.

The under chart reveals the reliability of assorted monitoring gadgets.<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-146830" src="https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/TrackDevicesTable_f3.png" alt="An infographic chart titled 'Tracking Devices and the Health Metrics They Can Assess' comparing different devices (Pedometers, Activity Bands, Smartwatches, Chest Straps, Ring Trackers, Smartphone Apps, Medical Wearables, and Strength Wearables) against various metrics (Steps, Heart Rate, Recovery, Calories, Sleep Duration, Sleep Quality, Speed, and Power). The accuracy is indicated by green checkmarks (very accurate), yellow dots (decent accuracy), and red X's (limited or not available)." width="4267" height="2542" srcset="https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/TrackDevicesTable_f3.png 4267w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/TrackDevicesTable_f3-300x179.png 300w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/TrackDevicesTable_f3-1024x610.png 1024w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/TrackDevicesTable_f3-768x458.png 768w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/TrackDevicesTable_f3-1536x915.png 1536w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/TrackDevicesTable_f3-2048x1220.png 2048w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/TrackDevicesTable_f3-94x56.png 94w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/TrackDevicesTable_f3-295x176.png 295w" sizes="(max-width: 4267px) 100vw, 4267px"/>

(For those who’re curious, we cowl the accuracy of assorted progress indicators in additional element right here: Are Health Trackers Value It?)

Subsequent, when is monitoring truly useful? The great: Monitoring gadgets supply us extra knowledge about our behaviors and our bodies than ever earlier than.

The unhealthy: Monitoring gadgets supply us extra knowledge about our behaviors and our bodies than ever earlier than.

“What’s actually outstanding,” says Samantha Kleinberg, a pc scientist who research decision-making, “is that even a tiny quantity of surplus info has a giant unfavorable impact on our decision-making.”3

That’s the paradox of monitoring: Too little element makes it powerful to make the proper choice, however so does an excessive amount of. <img decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-146831" src="https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/DecisionMakingGraphic_f1.png" alt="A graph showing 'The Effect of Information on Decision Making' with an inverted U-shaped curve. The x-axis shows 'Amount of relevant information available' and the y-axis shows 'Ability to make decisions'. The peak of the curve is labeled 'Sweet spot', suggesting an optimal amount of information for decision-making, with performance declining when there's either too little or too much information." width="4267" height="3063" srcset="https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/DecisionMakingGraphic_f1.png 4267w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/DecisionMakingGraphic_f1-300x215.png 300w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/DecisionMakingGraphic_f1-1024x735.png 1024w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/DecisionMakingGraphic_f1-768x551.png 768w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/DecisionMakingGraphic_f1-1536x1103.png 1536w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/DecisionMakingGraphic_f1-2048x1470.png 2048w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/DecisionMakingGraphic_f1-94x67.png 94w, https://assets.precisionnutrition.com/2025/01/DecisionMakingGraphic_f1-295x212.png 295w" sizes="(max-width: 4267px) 100vw, 4267px" loading="lazy"/>

This may be expressed as an inverted U, with the candy spot on the prime of the curve.

At this time, it’s surprisingly straightforward to have an excessive amount of info. Take into account the evaluation paralysis you are feeling after scanning a whole bunch of evaluations from the varied taco locations in your neighborhood. (All you wished was a good el pastor, however now you don’t know which taqueria to select!)

Discovering simply sufficient info to make good choices is an artwork kind—particularly on the planet of well being and health, the place it looks like everyone seems to be attempting to outdo one another in the case of offering extra science, extra customization, and extra complexity.

However when all that info begins to blur along with no clear path ahead, what must you do?

For starters, you'll be able to ask your self a easy query:

Does monitoring enhance my wellbeing and efficiency?

If the reply is a transparent sure or no, you recognize what to do. (Both proceed monitoring as you have been, or drop the gadget and stroll away.)

For those who’re somewhat fuzzy, listed below are three indicators to observe for that will help you decide if monitoring is useful—or not.

Signal #1: Monitoring is lowering your stress and validating your technique(s). When Zak’s coach raved about the advantages of zone 2 cardio, it sounded logical. However when the rubber on his trainers hit the street, Zak second-guessed every little thing. Zak prided himself on his capability to grind, and easily didn’t belief that one thing that felt straightforward is also efficient.

But, the information didn’t lie. Because the weeks glided by, Zak watched his resting coronary heart fee drop—alongside along with his restoration time from arduous runs. With that reassurance, Zak started to chill out in regards to the course of—and his resting coronary heart fee dropped additional.

Zak hadn’t trusted his emotions, however he did belief the information from his coronary heart fee monitor.

Utilizing a monitoring machine enabled Zak to calibrate his personal perceptions so that they have been extra correct and life like.

For those who’re a coach who has a shopper like Zak who’s excessive performing however doesn’t comprehend it, monitoring can assist construct confidence and cut back the anxiousness that they’re “not adequate.”

Right here, you empower them by shining a highlight on current efficiency. Skilled assurance can go a great distance however may also be bolstered by dependable knowledge.

(Just lately, many individuals have begun utilizing steady glucose displays, or CGMs, with a purpose to “optimize” their blood sugar ranges. This can assist “validate” sure meals decisions… however it may also be a waste of time. Learn extra: Ought to individuals with out diabetes use CGMs?)

Dangerous omen: Monitoring is rising stress or negatively affecting efficiency. Generally, knowledge can stress you out with none upside—like if you obtain poor scores about issues past your management.

Take the brand new guardian of a new child who will get a poor sleep high quality rating.

Monitoring has a time and a spot. When scores are past your management or your priorities lie elsewhere, monitoring can create pointless stress and is counterproductive.

You possibly can at all times revisit monitoring when circumstances or priorities change.

Signal #2: Clear suggestions from knowledge is enhancing your motivation and skill. For a behaviour to happen, you want three things4:

Motivation: A compelling purpose or want to take motion towards attaining one thing. This could come from exterior sources (your partner is urging you to give up smoking) or inside drives (you’ve at all times dreamed of operating a marathon). Capability: You've a mixture of abilities, plus alternatives to specific them. (For instance, you understand how to do a easy resistance coaching routine, and you've got 20 minutes a day to execute it.) This will likely contain overcoming constraints like time, cash, psychological and/or bodily effort, social pressures, and modifications to routine.5 Immediate: A immediate is a cue or instruction that elicits an motion. (For instance, when your GPS tells you to show left, or when your stressed legs “remind” you you’re due for a stroll.) Critically, even with excessive ranges of motivation and skill, you could not take motion—or the correct of motion—with no immediate.

Health trackers shine if you’ve obtained loads of motivation and skill—and simply lack the immediate.

Take my shopper, Margaret. She used to have a glass of wine most nights, believing it helped her sleep higher. As soon as she began sporting a sleep tracker although, she noticed that her sleep high quality was a lot poorer the nights she imbibed. As soon as she acquired this immediate—her sleep rating—she adjusted her conduct.

Once you spotlight essential knowledge, the proper decisions turn out to be clearer.

On the subject of altering behaviours, generally all it takes is one key piece of information. As they are saying, “When you see it, you'll be able to’t un-see it.”

(PN’s CEO Tim Jones used the suggestions he obtained from varied life-style trackers to lastly cut back his genetically excessive levels of cholesterol—and constructed a richer, extra significant life within the course of. Learn extra: How This Man Lower His Ldl cholesterol in Half With out Medicine)

Dangerous omen: Knowledge assortment is lowering motivation or capability. When Jan, an avid leisure bike owner, discovered he may view—then demolish—the information set on native biking trails, he set to work. However as these information have been destroyed, so too was his capability to experience for enjoyment. His concentrate on velocity left him under-recovered and finally led to burnout.

If exercises have turn out to be extra in regards to the numbers and fewer about approach, expertise, and even enjoyment, monitoring is probably going not useful.

Signal #3: Monitoring helps you perceive your self higher. The tougher you're employed, the higher your outcomes.

Proper?

Not essentially.

This perception tends to get grinders like Zak into bother as a result of they suppose they’re making progress—however actually they’re simply getting in their very own method, even inhibiting efficiency and restoration.

In the meantime, there are additionally many individuals who chronically underestimate their effort and capability, and would profit from turning up the warmth. Right here, knowledge can assist us extra precisely perceive our personal potential.

Let’s take a look at high-intensity interval coaching (HIIT) for example. HIIT exercises alternate fastened durations of intense effort with fastened durations of relaxation. Nonetheless, these fastened durations of relaxation are simply estimates of restoration instances.

Coronary heart fee knowledge can create a extra individualized image of precise restoration wants, which can be sooner or slower than you anticipate.

Generally, the thoughts says sure however the coronary heart says not fairly but.

A superb coach does extra than simply merely ask for extra. Additionally they assist preserve purchasers out of the unproductive “junk quantity” zone, the place fatigue accumulates however efficiency doesn’t enhance (and perhaps even worsens).

By real-time metrics of output, fatigue, and restoration, you'll be able to higher perceive your self and your purchasers, and assist preserve everybody coaching and recovering effectively.

Dangerous omen: Over-reliance on knowledge is making you lose contact with your individual senses. Once you turn out to be overly reliant on knowledge, you threat shedding contact with your individual sense of how you are feeling, whether or not that’s starvation and fullness ranges, power and fatigue, or one thing else.

A related instance is “The Nice My Health Pal Blackout.”

In January of 2019, the calorie-tracking app (with a reported 200 million subscribers!) went down for a day. Fairly minor—until you occurred to be monitoring your macro and caloric consumption and ready for the app to let you know precisely how a lot you might eat that day… which I used to be.

When the app wouldn’t load, I acknowledged the gentle panic I felt was unhelpful. My overreliance on the app had disconnected me from my very own inside indicators, and with out it, I felt adrift. Since then, I’ve shifted my focus to how energetic I really feel and one of many oldest monitoring applied sciences out there: the mirror.

(For those who really feel such as you’re misplaced with out your besties—your cellphone and your apps—there’s a reputation for that. There are additionally methods to develop a more healthy relationship along with your tech. Learn extra: What's nomophobia?)

3 methods to make use of health trackers that will help you make extra correct self-assessments Earlier than we get to how one can do the above, let’s discuss why assessing issues by really feel will be so essential.

Whether or not it’s physique fats share or motion velocity, even supremely motivated and succesful purchasers will expertise diminishing goal outcomes from their coaching.

The size stops dropping, the variety of plates you’re capable of load on the bar plateaus, or—gasp—your race time even regresses.

Motivation based mostly purely on progress or different extrinsic goals6 will fall away throughout these instances.

Nonetheless, exercisers who concentrate on emotions of mindfulness7, mastery, meaning8, and success9 develop a extra resilient follow. Additionally they benefit from the course of extra, whether or not that’s the method of operating, lifting, winding down for an excellent night time’s sleep, or simply having fun with a meal.

So, though goal knowledge can present important suggestions and steerage, you’ll solely reap the total advantages of your follow—that's, enjoyment and outcomes—in case you preserve connection along with your felt expertise.

And excellent news: You possibly can truly use health trackers to calibrate and even enhance your capability to precisely sense what’s occurring in your physique.

Listed below are 3 ways to do it.

1. Examine in with your self earlier than you test the information. Are you able to think about asking somebody how their trip was after which ready for them to have a look at their pictures to have the ability to reply? That’s what it’s like if you rely purely on exterior knowledge about your individual expertise.

Regardless of the metric—how far you biked, what number of energy you consumed, or how briskly your coronary heart was beating—the best approach to work mindfully with tracker knowledge is to pause, breathe, after which tune into the highly effective (if not at all times correct) prediction-making powers of your mind.

When you’ve checked in with your self, you'll be able to calibrate your self-assessment by evaluating the detailed (if not at all times correct) outputs of your health tracker.

Over time, you could possibly slender the hole between two.

(Be aware: Don’t neglect to often replace your app. Algorithms and knowledge units are often adjusted for higher predictive accuracy.)

2. Develop psychological shortcuts that may sometimes stand in for goal measures. The coaches I work with often ask individuals to estimate the boundaries of their power (similar to what number of reps they will do at a given weight till failure).

Novices are sometimes horrible at estimating this—and often off the mark by 5 or extra reps. Nonetheless, the usage of goal trackers can assist calibrate their understanding, and most of the people can cut back their margin of error dramatically.

In principle, you would possibly use fancy instruments like accelerometers or blood lactate measurements, however our coaches simply ask, “For 1,000,000 {dollars} a rep, what number of extra reps do you suppose you might do?”

Although there’s nothing goal about this query, most purchasers are in a position to make use of the immediate as a form of shortcut to know maximal effort. (In spite of everything, that final rep could also be price seven figures!)

The query additionally leverages the speed of perceived exertion (RPE)—your notion of how arduous you’re working—which is likely one of the most validated sensory-driven approaches.

Not everyone seems to be routinely good at estimating RPE, however most individuals can enhance their abilities by mapping their felt expertise with occasional calibration with goal knowledge.

3. Maintain growing your capability to dial into your senses. Trackers have parts like accelerometers, GPS, and gyroscopes to sense knowledge about velocity, distance, and extra.

However people are not any slouches both.

We have now…

Mechanoreceptors that reply to strain, vibration, and the joint angles change A vestibular system that displays steadiness and angle modifications Proprioceptors that clock the velocity and fee of length-change of muscle spindles Thermoreceptors that register register warming or cooling Chemoreceptors that detect chemical modifications, similar to scent or style, in addition to modifications within the bloodstream Nociceptors—a part of the physique’s alarm system—that sense risk and ship indicators of potential hurt or misery

And that’s solely a partial record.

You've entry to an extremely wealthy community of sensory info—one thing that expertise can't start to the touch.

All of this info is fed into the highly effective pattern-recognition machine of your nervous system.

To proceed honing your capability to make use of this wealthy community of sensory info, often test in with what and the way you’re feeling.

Once you study to calibrate your individual senses with goal knowledge, you'll be able to leverage all of the cool advances in wearable tech—whereas nonetheless maintaining your individual expertise entrance and centre.

References Click on right here to view the knowledge sources referenced on this article.

Francis C. Velocity Lure: Contained in the Largest Scandal in Olympic Historical past. Toronto: Stoddart Publishing Co. Ltd.; 1990. Stat Information. Fitbit’s accuracy has a dark-skin downside. Stat Information [Internet]. 2019 Jul 24 [cited 2024 Nov 23]. Obtainable from: https://internet.archive.org/internet/20240129224809/https://www.statnews.com/2019/07/24/fitbit-accuracy-dark-skin/ Stevens Institute of Expertise. Need to make higher choices? Ask for much less info, no more. Stevens Institute of Expertise [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2024 Nov 23]. Obtainable from: https://www.stevens.edu/information/want-to-make-better-decisions-ask-for-less-information-not-more Fogg B. Habits Mannequin. BehaviorModel.org [Internet]. 2024 [cited 2024 Nov 23]. Obtainable from: https://behaviormodel.org/ Fogg, B. J. 2019. Tiny Habits: Small Adjustments Change Every part. New York; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Bradshaw, Emma L., James H. Conigrave, Ben A. Steward, Kelly A. Ferber, Philip D. Parker, and Richard M. Ryan. 2023. A Meta-Evaluation of the Darkish Aspect of the American Dream: Proof for the Common Wellness Prices of Prioritizing Extrinsic over Intrinsic Objectives. Journal of Character and Social Psychology 124 (4): 873–99. Hagan, John E., Jr, Dietmar Pollmann, and Thomas Schack. 2017. Elite Athletes’ in-Occasion Aggressive Anxiousness Responses and Psychological Expertise Utilization underneath Differing Situations. Frontiers in Psychology 8 (December). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02280. College of Rochester Medical Heart. Self-Willpower Idea [Internet]. Rochester (NY): College of Rochester Medical Heart; [cited 2024 Nov 25]. Obtainable from: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/community-health/patient-care/self-determination-theory.aspx Teixeira DS, Bastos V, Andrade AJ, Palmeira AL, Ekkekakis P. Individualized pleasure-oriented train periods, train frequency, and affective outcomes: a practical randomized managed trial. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2024;21(1):1636. For those who’re a coach, otherwise you need to be…

You possibly can assist individuals construct sustainable diet and life-style habits that may considerably enhance their bodily and psychological well being—when you make a fantastic dwelling doing what you like. We'll present you the way.