Advances in technology have opened the doors to what we can now do without even having to leave our homes; we now have easy access to information, communicate effortlessly and even socialise virtually.
I’m sharing below how our smart phones can help us to get healthy, but we should use it as a tool without becoming over dependent or restricted by it.
To get active
There are numerous remarkable gadgets or apps that we can use to become healthy and fit. These make exercising fun, interactive and social as we can also share what we do with family and friends, to challenge or motivate them.
We can learn new exercises that we have never done previously, like doing HIIT, tabata or yoga as can follow a video demonstration.
Apps can track our exercise and we can monitor our distance, speed, calories burned and heart rate. We set ourselves targets and are then motivated to improve and can see our progress over time.
To eat healthily
There are apps that we can use to track what we eat and drink, check how many calories we consumed in a day, breaking it down to fat, sugar, protein and carbohydrates.
In addition, we can use apps to scan barcodes when doing our grocery shopping to identify if it’s a healthy or unhealthy food. We can also learn how to cook by watching healthy cooking videos and find many recipes online.
To help unwind
Also there are apps to help us relax, teaching us how to meditate and guiding us to deal with anxiety or stress and to find our healthy balance. There are apps to track the quality of our sleep through the night and the following morning we can check whether we slept well.
Are you actually using these apps to improve your health?
As seen the benefit of using technology is that it is an excellent tracking device, allowing us to improve our habits. It’s only when we know what we are (or are not) doing, we become aware and can then correct it.
For example, many people think they are active but it’s only when they count their daily steps do they realise how many steps they actually walk. I recommend when setting your health goals to consider how much time you have and if you have any health conditions. Having unrealistic goals can have the opposite effect, because if you don’t achieve these you will feel guilty and have a sense of failure.
There are times we can get caught up in buying the latest gadgets, collecting the data and not actually utilising it. I suggest first using the inbuilt health apps in your smart phones or download the free apps. There is no point buying expensive gadgets to track sleep, heart rate, step count, etc. if you will not use them.
Avoid feeling overwhelmed
Keep it simple by tracking just a few things, instead of feeling overwhelmed with too much information.
Also, you don’t want to feel enslaved by your gadget by having to input every meal into your online food diary. If you begin to obsess about the numbers, it will take away the fun from exercising and meal times.
I ask my clients to look at their plates and use visual cues, so they are not weighing foods and then inputting into an app, instead my clients become intuitive eaters, and learn how to make the best decisions for themselves.
Even though technology is useful, the information overload can at times be counterproductive when we become over dependent on it, get addicted to it and after some time feel that we cannot do without it.
As discussed use technology to get healthy and hold you accountable, but don’t forget it’s only useful if you will use it to make the right changes.
Want some professional guidance?
Use the information as a guide and if you are not seeing improvements or are not getting closer to your goals consult an experienced professional to get the advise you need.
If you have been trying to get healthy, but are not seeing results and want a FREE DISCOVERY CALL. Please get in touch with me by either replying to this email os schedule it by clicking here.