Gadgetory

as you will know if you've seen my personal YouTube channel the bio near I'm not only a tech lover I'm also a big fitness enthusiast therefore the idea of a fitness tracker a device that combines Tech and fitness into a single product is right up my street getting all your biometrics right on your wrist and seeing your progress charters over time is like something from a superhero movie of course there are practical less nerdy benefits to a fitness tracker should be able to help you lose weight improve your fitness and adopt healthier habits with regards to sleeping eating exercising and moving but does the reality live up to the hype what is your fitness tracker actually measuring anyways and just how accurate is it really fitness trackers come in all shapes and sizes and include a wide variety of different sensors and features depending on the brand almost universally though they are rather reliant on a heart rate monitor that can be used to calculate rough calorie expenditure along with motion sensors that detect movement the premise is simple the harder your heart is working the more you're exerting yourself and therefore the more calories you're burning now if you measure the calories that are coming in via a diet app such as My Fitness Pal you can see the difference an attempt to maintain a deficit so if you consume fewer calories than you use your body turns to fat burning and you lose weight but if you consume more calories than you use your body has a surplus of calories and it stores these as fat you gain weight it's simple maths in arguable but with loads of problems first just how accurate are these trackers the heart rate monitors used in the vast majority of trackers work for our technology called pulse oximetry an infrared light is used in order to penetrate the skin and this then looks too subtle changes in the color of the blood these colors represent the oxygenation of the blood which of course increases with each heartbeat this is far from a perfect technology though consider that many other things can also impact blood oxygenation or otherwise change the appearance of the blood vessels for instance when you're lifting weights contractions will alter the amount of blood reaching the limbs as well other changes such as vasodilation this is why chest warm polar straps are more reliable than wrist worn devices especially for resistance workouts the best fitness trackers use complex algorithms that analyze movements in order to try and ascertain what activities you're engaging in then they can alter the heartrate interpretation accordingly these are best described though as estimates and that's not the extent of the problem here it's also important to keep in mind that heartrate alone is not an ideal indicator of calorie burn the assumption is that when the heart pumps faster it shows that you're creating a demand for oxygen and energy and that's probably engaging in an activity that's costly from an energy perspective in reality though many things can increase your heart rate in fact fitter individuals actually have a lower resting heart rates because the strength of each heart rate is greater allowing their hearts to beat less frequently blood pressure air pressure ambient temperature mood and more can all also impact on your heart rate to be fair good fitness trackers don't rely on the heart rate alone the combinations of heart rate and movement compares against patterns derived from huge data sets via machine learning but it is still ultimately in an accurate picture it's also problematic that most smartwatches only take a measurement of your heart rate once every few minutes or so unless you're engaged in some kind of workout this is intended to conserve energy while also allowing for average resting and maximum heart rates to be calculated the truth though is that the amount of calories you burn during a gym session actually only has a small impact on your total daily calorie expenditure far more important are your levels of activity throughout the day you're walking around you're getting up you're jumping up and down for joy your Smart Watch may remind you to get up and walk around every now and then but it might also miss your quick impromptu dance routine in the kitchen or a quick little run to get the bus it's very possible that the real secret to impressive weight loss is just to be more energetic and active throughout the day and your fitness tracker has no way of really reflecting this what's even more concerning though is what is ultimately done with all this information as said the central hypothesis driving the SmartWatch industry is that losing weight is a simple matter of calories in versus calories out this is the same view held by many fitness experts bodybuilders nutritionists and others but not all of them another crowd maintains that counting calories is actually ineffective for a large number of the population the answer according to this perspective has more to do with the metabolism hormone balance insulin sensitivity gut bacteria nutrient density and more these are the people pushing intermittent fasting ketogenic diets and the paleo lifestyle as superior ways to get into shape the benefits of which would again theoretically be ignored to a large extent by current fitness tracking protocols so allow me to be so bold to present my take on this divide yes it's true that burning more calories than you consume will result in weight loss the problem is that we have no idea how many calories were actually burning a lot of the time smart watches in the calorie counting crowd rely on a number called and AMR to do their math this is your active metabolic rate the number of calories that you burn during a normal day of activity in turn this is calculated as your BMR basal metabolic rate the number of calories simply required for breathing and thinking plus any activity engage in on top of that so first we need to get the BMR and then we can calculate the AMR you'll enter your height your weight and your gender this is necessary because taller people require more energy just to go about their usual business they have more body to look after likewise men and women also burn slightly different amounts of calories with women usually requiring a little less food on a daily basis but there's a glaring omission here that being muscle mass you see you muscle is metabolically active it requires energy to maintain and to use that means that someone who is 75 kilograms and very muscular will burn more calories in someone who's 75 kilograms with no muscle even the strict calorie counting crowds will attest to this there are ways around this you can do a similar BMR calculation using your lean body mass this is a much more useful figure as far as calories burned go very few fitness trackers will allow you to enter this information however none that I know I've asked for a body fat percentage as the default when you set them up and some even require additional expensive purchases in the form of BMI scales others just don't have the option full stop and the problem runs much deeper do you really think that all individual differences when it comes to calories burns can be put down to body weight and muscle mass there any two people who are roughly the same height and weight will burn the same number of calories hormone balance actually plays a big role here if you have a higher level of testosterone for instance and you'll burn more calories and build more muscle likewise thyroid hormones levels insulin and more all also play a role don't believe that hormones can make much difference to your physique and take a look at someone uses steroids they would have the precise same numbers as anyone else on a fitness tracker but they'd look a whole lot different and I'm not suggesting you're gonna use steroids but while you might not have the sky-high testosterone levels of someone who uses performance-enhancing drugs a slightly higher or lower number against the average could still have a minor impact on your weight loss likewise many women who start using all contraceptives will find that they either gain or lose weight as a result and again this isn't picked up by a fitness tracker or by MyFitnessPal similarly many health conditions like hypothyroidism polycystic ovaries metabolic syndrome and more can drastically alter the way your body utilizes energy from food again you might not be diagnosed with hypothyroidism but if you're struggling to lose weight despite what the numbers are saying you might still have a slower metabolism than average it's better to think of these things as spectrums rather than binaries in many cases so in short if it were possible to precisely count calories going in and out then this would lead to an accurate prediction with regards to your weight gain or weight loss the seeing is our idea of how to calculate calorie burn is probably pretty primitive the resulting number might end up being more misleading and helpful so both groups are right but if all this sounds very negative then forgive me my aim here is not to claim that fitness trackers have no benefit I'm actually a big fan of them the truth is that for most people the calorie calculations are going to be accurate enough in order to be useful calorie restriction is a great place to start for anyone who wants to lose weight and it's only when you find that that doesn't work for you that you need to start considering other options to help improve your metabolism and general health and fitness as Tim Ferriss points out sometimes just having a single metric to track can be incredibly valuable even if that metric isn't completely accurate or doesn't pay the complete picture and that's really where fitness trackers do come into their own they're highly useful devices for simply letting us track our general fitness levels and levels of activity or to identify areas where we could be doing better of course fitness trackers also do much more than just count calories and steps they can also be useful for training in heart rate zones see my video on seven minute workouts more on that they provide sleep tracking meditation modes and more I'm really excited for the future of these devices - and how they might be able to advise us on our Crona types or look at heart rate variability to estimate recovery projects like the aura ring are showing promise in this regard but by simply making us more aware of more aspects of our health any fitness tracker can help us to improve in many areas of our lives that which is measured improves just know the limitations of that device and don't take its word as law there's far more going on in our bodies than they can measure or than even we fully understand so I hope you found this video useful interesting guys I know it's a bit different if you did then please leave a like and share it around that'll help us out immensely let me know in the comments 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