New Year’s Resolutions: How to Get the Most Out of Your Fitness Tracker

New Year’s Resolutions: How to Get the Most Out of Your Fitness Tracker

Set goals when you use it, to truly move forward.

Resolutions: the New Year brings them in abundance. Some of the gifts you may have gotten during the holidays could be instrumental in helping you keep them. From gym memberships to cookbooks on healthy eating and gear that sets you up for any kind of weather, be it snow, hail or thundering sunshine, this stuff is fantastic.

But as wonderful as it all is, most of us know the real truth. Your level of success in attaining and maintaining your resolutions, (unfortunately), usually lies in how you use it all.

What about fitness trackers? Yes, I have to admit that my nifty new yellow band won’t make me fit just by sitting on my arm, as much as I may wish otherwise. (Surprise, surprise).

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A study done at Oregon Health & Science University has shown that these tools can, however, help users significantly in reaching their dreams. The key is to use them with a clearly defined purpose.

“To make activity trackers effective, users need to set a specific goal and stick with it,” said the study’s corresponding author, Luke Burchill, M.D., Ph.D.

The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that when people wore a fitness tracker without any exercise goal in mind, their health didn’t improve. In fact, in many cases, their physical activity actually declined, even when participants thought that it had increased.

In order to really make the most of your device and your time, experts suggest that you meet with a health professional like your doctor or a certified personal trainer, and have a talk.

Discuss with them your personal fitness goals, and how you can incorporate your fitness tracker into these, to help you meet them. That’s when they really become beneficial.

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