- “If you want to change some behavior, whether it’s flossing your teeth, eating more fruits and vegetables, or getting more exercise, keeping a record of that behavior is a sensible place to start,” says Blair.
- The activity tracker without counseling wasn’t enough. Only those who wore the tracker and received group and telephone counseling lost more weight—about 13 pounds more—than the control group.
http://www.nutritionaction.com/daily/diet-and-weight-loss/fitness-trackers/
Fitness Trackers
Can they help you lose weight?
Rupert Murdoch wears one on his left wrist. “This is a bracelet that keeps track of how I sleep, move, and eat—transmitting that information to the cloud,” the international media mogul told an audience in Sydney, Australia, last November.
“It allows me to track and maintain my health much better.”
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Personal activity trackers—like the Jawbone Up, Fitbit Flex, and Nike+ Fuelband—are the latest personal fitness gadgets.
“Some of them, like the BodyMedia armband, measure total energy expenditure, as well as intensity of activity and bouts of activity,” says Steven Blair, professor of exercise science at the University of South Carolina.
“If you sit for 10 minutes, and then get up and walk for one minute, it detects the different intensities and durations,” Blair explains. “It’s a more complex device that gets us closer to the truth than simple pedometers or accelerometers.”
Are activity trackers worth their price tag—from $10 for a step counter to over $100 for a more sophisticated armband?
“If you want to change some behavior, whether it’s flossing your teeth, eating more fruits and vegetables, or getting more exercise, keeping a record of that behavior is a sensible place to start,” says Blair.
A recent study hinted that activity trackers might help people lose weight.
Blair and his colleagues enrolled 197 overweight or obese middle-aged adults in a weight-loss program for nine months. Fifty received only a weight-loss manual (they were the control group), 49 got the manual plus an activity tracker to wear, 49 got the manual plus counseling sessions but no tracker, and 49 got the manual, the counseling, and the tracker.
The activity tracker without counseling wasn’t enough. Only those who wore the tracker and received group and telephone counseling lost more weight—about 13 pounds more—than the control group.
But for people who just want to know how physically active they are, “it’s not necessary to have a really complicated and sophisticated device,” notes Blair.
“A simple pedometer could tell you how many steps you’re getting. And if you’re getting 3,000 per day and you know that’s not enough, you can set a realistic goal of 1,000 more. And next week you can check to see whether you met that goal.”
Source: Int. J. Behav. Nutr. Phys. Act. 2011. doi:10.1186/1479-5868-8-41.