Fitness Gadgets – Friends to motivate you!

I find a lot of techies carrying smart phones, making way into my office, looking for tips to lose weight, gain weight and other fitness related tips. As part of my job I give basic advice about a quantified diet, measurable activity and so on. One thing that does not get registered is how to stick to the advice given; they return after failing to stick to the previous advice. Indeed, it is all about their irregular behavior and forgetful nature towards the goals set which makes them need a ‘friend' who can remind them about discipline, keep a note of their activities and their diet each day.

I always thought a person who works on the computer, uses smart phones and adopts the best technology should also take help of certain friendly gadgets to achieve their goals. I feel it is most important as it helps improve their productivity and maintain a quality of life. At first, I found some health apps on the mobile where one has to enter the amount of distance they ran that day, the food and the quantity that they eat to get some clarity on their health. The apps store gives them a monthly consumption and expense package. They were not taken well by the end users because it required discipline from the user to enter the data themselves. Eventually, I found that there a lot of fitness gadgets that were launched which track the food intake and distance traveled on their own.

Microsoft had unveiled its latest wearable band today. This was surprising to me because I was waiting for Apple's watch to be launched which was supposed to end everybody’s woes. Interestingly, I read that these wearable fitness devices communicate with the fitness apps on your smart phone as well.

This should be a game changing innovation for some who are struggling to modify their behavior, calculate their calories consumed and calories burned. The other striking features of such devices are that they operate with sensors which monitor the heart rate, UV light and sleep time. They remind you about extra consumption, extra efforts and warn the person to control their diet and lifestyle.

The top gadgets that exist are Nike fuel band, which counts the steps taken per day, Jawbone up, which tracks sleep time, Griffin Adidas Micoach arm band, which communicates with the Apple iPhone about exercise. Fitbug is a fitness tracker with a coaching plan and a set progress tracker. Fitbit Wi Fi is a weighing scale which helps keep a tab on your weight. Hapifork warns you when you have taken too many servings.

With the mightiest companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google venturing into the wearable fitness gadgets market, it makes sense for the end consumer to rely on their quality and reliability. If the claims are true, I definitely find these new 'friends' to be valuable and worth the price.