You don’t need a fitness tracker to improve your health, but it can be an effective tool to monitor your progress and motivate you to further. Tracking all your activity gives you an insight into what your body is doing, and many find that once they know what they’ve achieved, doing it better or faster or for longer can become an addictive challenge. If you’re such a person, here’s the good news – Fitbit’s range of products can track a lot.
Go Further Every Day
Using a fitness tracker isn’t just about counting your steps, it’s about ascertaining your general activity and pushing you to become more active throughout the day.
Of course, increasing your basic activity levels is a step in the right direction, so if wearing a Fitbit tracker encourages you to walk to and from the train station instead of jumping on a bus, that’s a good start.
Fitbit trackers such as the Surge, Blaze and Charge 2 also have altimeters that will count the number of stairs you climb each day. Start ditching the lift as a matter of course and you’ll find you’ll gradually improve your general fitness level without having to change into your workout gear.
Push Harder Every Session
Thanks to its built-in GPS, the Fitbit Surge is a great watch for training sessions, especially if you’re running or cycling. The GPS tracks your speed, distance and pace while you train, while Pure Pulse sensors on the Surge, Blaze and Charge 2 track your heart rate – without the need for chest straps – and display it so you can see how much effort you're putting in and how quickly you recover.
Having all that data on your wrist gives you a clear picture of how you’re doing during today’s workout as opposed to yesterday’s, or even last week’s. That knowledge allows you to push yourself that bit harder when you’re training – increase your pace and hit a new personal best, or perhaps just go a bit further than you’ve gone before.
While analysing all the data from your Fitbit after a workout can help you understand your body and fitness levels, using it in real time to raise the bar while you’re training is arguably even better.
But don’t go thinking you must have a watch with integrated GPS to make the most out of your training sessions – a device such as the Fitbit Blaze and the new Charge 2 maintain their svelte figures while accessing the GPS built into your phone, delivering similarly comprehensive data on your wrist during training.
Try Some Weight Training
It’s all too easy to become obsessed with your bathroom scales when you’re trying to lose weight, but it’s important to remember that sometimes they can lie.
Just because you’re not losing weight, it doesn’t mean you’re not getting fitter. In fact, you can put on weight and still be getting fitter and healthier – it’s all about whether the weight is made up of muscle or fat.
A regular set of scales will tell you how much you weigh, but the Fitbit Aria Smart Scale will also tell you your body composition. Your weight may not be changing, but if your body-fat percentage is dropping you can be reassured you’re on the right track. A reduction in body fat will likely coincide with a reduction in body measurements, so use a tape measure to check your waistline regularly too.
The Fitbit Aria scale also makes it incredibly easy to track your weight and body composition over time by wirelessly sending your results to the Fitbit app.
Stay Healthy and Appy!
All the data from Fitbit trackers and scales is recorded on the Fitbit app, giving you a detailed overview of your health and wellbeing every single day.
To help you push yourself even further during training, the app allows you to set daily activity goals and weight aims, schedule training sessions and measure your achievements against those of your friends.
You can also log everything you eat and drink and offset the calories you consume against the calories you burn each day. It’s never been easier to keep control of everything your body is doing.
If you want to see if all your hard work and effort is paying off, simply check out how well you’re sleeping. The Fitbit tracker can also monitor your sleep, logging deep and light sleep sessions throughout the night, making it easy to see if your sleeping patterns improve as you become more active and healthy.
It’s a Long Road
Whether you’re a hardcore athlete who is looking to push their performance to the next level, or an average Joe who wants to be a bit more active and healthy, listening to your body and understanding what it’s saying are key.
