HACKER Q&A
📣 aosaigh

Do you use (and recommend) a fitness tracker?


I’ve been long considering buying a fitness tracker in an attempt to be more active and track progress with regard to activity. I’m already moderately fit but a serial procrastinator who is bad at planning.

I’ve been put off by privacy concerns, a feeling of “I don’t really need this” and wondering whether or not they are actually effective.

I’d be interested to hear peoples experiences with them and whether they have had a positive effect in their own right.

  👤 lawlorino Accepted Answer ✓
It probably depends on what kind of person you are to be honest. I'm a data scientist so naturally I quite like the measurement aspect of it all, it's very rewarding to see improvement in key metrics that correlate with my overall well-being like sleep, heart rate, running distance and so on as I change my workout routine.

Combined with calorie tracking I've found it's helped with weight loss as I can measure my calories burnt versus consumed more accurately. Before this I had a habit of starting dieting and working out more which lead to me drastically undereating and feeling awful after a week, then I'd default back to my older patterns. Now I am achieving more sustainable weight loss.

My watch has a GPS also for tracking runs or cycling which I've found really useful also, it's much more reliable than a phone.

👤 stugeeeee95
They are helpful to an extent, they only really show you basic activity and can give you notifications to get you moving and active. But I find the best way to get up and active is to actually find something that really motivates you, like a competition of sorts of something to get a bit competitive about.