Friday with Heidi: Ruled by Gadgets?

I’ve started running (again!).

Don’t worry, I am not going to run a half marathon again, that Reading one last year really was my second and last time.

However, FastTrack Fit Camp are sponsoring the Binfield 10km event in May and I thought it was only proper that I entered and did my bit.

After all it’s only 6 miles — what can go wrong?!

I decided that if I am going to run it, I may as well aim for something specific and so set myself a time target. There was no rationale to this decision. It was more like think of a number!

I asked Karen to write a programme for me and now I need to track my time and distance to make sure that I hit the pace she’s laid out.

To do this I am using an app on my phone called Endomondo and it’s great and fully functional and does the job. However my phone is too big for the little pocket in my leggings, I don’t like the armbands much and I find it all a bit clunky. So I have got myself a wrist run tracker from Garmin. A simple thing that tracks my run, beeps per km I travel and has one big button to press.

As I wasn’t sure I’d got it all set up correctly I thought I’d do my first Garmin run with my phone as well so I could make sure at least one of them tracked me.

Interestingly it wasn’t the run stats that I found most interesting.

• Both apps know my weight.
• Both apps tracked my run to the km the same.
• But both apps had a very wide difference in calories burned during the workout.

Now I don’t care much for this information. It’s a run. I’ve done it. I’ve worked out.

But if you were tracking calories and eating accordingly – or more likely eating treats accordingly you could be way off if you relied on these gizmos.

For a 5km run my Endomondo tracker declared that I’d burned 620 calories.

My Garmin proudly announced 496 calories.

Truth be told neither really know how many I burned. They don’t know my muscle mass or my BMR (basal metabolic rate). It’s a guess at best based on my weight and gender.

I have nothing against the new apps and gadgets that are available for us to track our health and fitness. But I do think that we can allow them to rule our lives.

We can end up comparing ourselves to others if they do more steps than us each day.

We can get into a pickle when we track our calories each meal and activity each day and micro manage it to within 5 or 10 calories and wonder why we’re not changing shape or weight.

Worrying about whether we’ve had enough deep sleep each night that stops us sleeping properly!

Try this.

• Just eat real, fresh food until you feel satisfied.
• Move when you can and are able.
• Rest when you are tired.

Not too tricky really 🙂 Let me know how you get on.

I wanted to let you know about a couple of things coming up.

1. Sunday 20 March 9am at Bearwood Recreation Ground is our Sport Relief Big Pants Family Fit Camp. Wear your pants on the outside of your leggings and come along ready to workout!
2. Sunday 20 March 10am Bearwood Recreation Ground (Alnutt Pavilion) Managing the Menopause Minefield. Nutritionist Diane Stephenson talks about what to do to help you get through this phase. This will finish about 11am, there is no need to book and is free of charge.
3. Next week I’ll be announcing our 6 week lose a clothes size / feel better challenge. So watch this space for a super opportunity to be ready or Summer by the first week of May.

Have a great weekend!