Talking Nutrition

17 - The Truth About Fitness Trackers.. BS Or Accurate?

November 14, 2022 Kristine Andali & Johan Vesters
Talking Nutrition
17 - The Truth About Fitness Trackers.. BS Or Accurate?
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Wearables like Whoop, Oura ring, FitBit, Garmin, etc. can be great for tracking stuff like heart rate, sleep duration, or step count. However you’d be surprised how inaccurate they turn out to be when it comes to how many calories you burn on a daily basis.

In this episode we first discuss the research on fitness trackers and how tracking calories burned may actually be holding you back from effectively losing weight. We then talk about how you can use your fitness tracker in a better way and share what we personally use.

Finally you'll learn how to manage energy balance without tracking calories burned and how to not get too hung up on the numbers while still having effective workouts.


Related article:
https://www.vestersnutrition.com/are-fitness-trackers-accurate/


Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction

03:49 - How accurate are fitness trackers? Here’s what the research shows

08:35 - Why that’s a problem for weight loss

14:02 - How to use your fitness tracker in a better way + What we use

24:54 - How to manage energy balance without tracking calories burned

31:43 - Outro: Effective workouts + not getting too hung up on the data


Studies mentioned:

-“Accuracy of Heart Rate Watches: Implications for Weight Management.” (PMID: 27232714) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27232714/

- “Reliability and Validity of Commercially Available Wearable Devices for Measuring Steps, Energy Expenditure, and Heart Rate: Systematic Review.” (PMID: 32897239) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32897239/

- “Wrist-worn devices for the measurement of heart rate and energy expenditure: A validation study for the Apple Watch 6, Polar Vantage V and Fitbit Sense.” (PMID: 34957939) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34957939/

- “Accuracy and Acceptability of Wrist-Wearable Activity-Tracking Devices: Systematic Review of the Literature.” (PMID: 35060915) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35060915/


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0:02

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to talking nutrition [Music]


0:29

what's up guys welcome back to talking nutrition episode 17 today truth about fitness trackers are they


0:36

or accurate we'll find out


0:43

let's find out no I think I think right off the bat I want to say like we're not here to trash for distractors like we


0:50

we're both using them uh yeah and we have used a bunch of them in the past


0:55

we both think they're great but hey you know it's a catchy title you know


1:02

now like I think there's a lot of good stuff out there these days you know we got whoop we got which is what I'm


1:07

currently using we got Aura ring if you use that no I I just don't want to go okay yeah


1:16

we got Fitbit of course which is like the one that kind of made the 10K steps like famous you know yeah


1:23

um Garmin I think that's what you got right Garmin yeah yeah cool so I mean the list


1:29

goes on there's a bunch a bunch of different ones and they're all pretty much fine you know


1:36

they're all fine like they're a little bit different um but they do have one thing in common


1:42

that is that they're not that great at tracking calories burned so as you already know we never


1:48

exercised to burn calories you know like of course it counts but that's not our goal here that's what we're going to


1:53

talk about today we're going to talk about the research so what the research says about how accurate real tracker


1:59

sorry really are trying to be too fast there uh why it's a problem for weight loss


2:06

um and then we're going to get into using your tracker the right way and how we kind of use it with our clients


2:12

because there is definitely a time and a place for your tracker don't get rid of it


2:17

and then we're going to talk about managing energy balance without tracking calories burned right because remember


2:22

we have that equation calories in calories out how would you even like manage that without knowing calories out


2:28

we'll get into that now let's see let's see anything else


2:34

um not really I think I just want to jump right into it but just right off the bat again like know that we're not against them


2:40

know that there's a lot of differences they all have that one thing in common and I think as well like if you use two


2:47

different ones like put one on each wrist you're going to get two different breedings right yeah have you done that


2:53

uh I haven't no actually I have with the Fitbit and my my uh whoop yeah once I


2:59

remember now I forgot about that yeah I have what about you I haven't done it now I think uh


3:06

I think Sam Miller did a whoop like Aura ring like comparison kind of thing I have to go back to that podcast I


3:12

remember you did something like that I'm curious because they're both great I think yeah um


3:17

sorry I just like I do have a choke on your own specs


3:24

there's times where I'll choke on my own spit and like literally have like


3:30

she's almost just happened oh like almost every reel that we post and


3:35

you're talking I see like myself like drinking water in between for that reason you know yeah


3:41

you gotta keep sipping you know like I know oh no okay so we're good yeah


3:49

um we're gonna I'm gonna talk a little bit about some studies here basically


3:55

starting from 2016 to 2022. so


4:02

um they're they're almost similar right um but essentially what happens here is


4:09

that every year or so new generations of fitness trackers come out and so they


4:15

have did you hear that did you hear that thing yeah it's like in the background like No No


4:22

One's Gonna notice it um so they have to kind of you know keep


4:27

testing these right and I think it's good to do so but uh in 2016


4:35

um a study looked at the accuracy of the Apple watch FitBit charger Samsung G and mile Alpha I don't even know what my


4:41

Alpha is okay to measure heart rate and energy expenditure


4:47

all four accurately measured heart rate with a small error however energy expenditure turned out to be anywhere


4:54

from like 9 to 43 off which is a big range


5:00

um yeah and then and then in 2020 a systematic review including Apple watch


5:07

I mean there's a bunch I don't know here infectica Fitbit Garmin Jawbone myo


5:13

Misfit so now there's like way more right Samsung Under Armor


5:18

um whatever there's a bunch here um different brand the difference between Brands heart rate and step count


5:26

turned out to be accurate so pretty much same type of thing however this was not the case for energy expenditure again


5:34

um so the most recent study looked at uh


5:39

more recent released wearables so the Apple watch 6 polar Vantage V and Fitbit


5:44

sets uh while they did find well they did find out measuring heart


5:50

rate all three did not do well in terms of energy exposure uh there's a trap


5:56

happening here um so average of 15 to 25 percent error


6:01

which is pretty big um and then a final systematic review in


6:08

2020 came to the conclusion even the newer fitness trackers cannot be trusted trusted if we're talking calories burned


6:15

right so um at the end of the day we can't put too


6:22

much emphasis here because it's really just not accurate


6:27

there's a massive margin of error here 15 to 25 percent on the energy center so


6:36

when I use you know my Garmin um I'm really only using it for steps I


6:44

don't even look at the calories burned I know there are some people out there


6:49

that they're not necessarily putting a ton of emphasis on


6:55

the calories burned in terms of like oh I can eat this amount because I burned


7:00

this amount but they like to compare it day to day which I think is okay right


7:07

oh yeah um but if you're putting if you're putting so much emphasis on it to the


7:13

point of like you're you're changing up your nutrition um or you're letting it like dictate how


7:21

hard you work did a workout that's not you know that's not going to


7:27

be a good thing because you can end up you know eating way over in a surplus and then you know it really just isn't a


7:34

good indication of your effort necessarily put into a workout I mean


7:40

that's that's my opinion right it's just not going to be accurate for that yeah I


7:46

totally agree there I think that you're you're actually like that's exactly how I think about it too like if


7:52

you have the same measure like every time then it's okay you know you can at least compare it's the same with skills


8:00

and all that stuff like sure even if we look at the body fat skills those tend to be like pretty even like


8:06

the expensive ones are very inaccurate yes that's okay because if you use the same one in the same conditions


8:13

you at least have a measure to look at you know and that's the thing okay cool whether you are burning 3000 calories


8:20

or it's actually 3200 or 2800 whatever at least you can compare if you have


8:27

that same tracker same conditions and all that so I do think like that's that's okay as well you know right for


8:34

sure but what does that mean for like weight loss if we have that 15 25 percent


8:41

yeah so save your maintenance is at like 2 000 right maintenance calories is 2


8:48

000 but your tracker says it's 20 more like 2500 you might be basing your


8:54

deficit off of 2500. if weight loss is the goal which would mean that instead of a deficit you'll be


9:01

eating you know at maintenance or potentially in a surplus so this could be a reason that you're actually not


9:07

making um progress fat loss wise in a deficit if you're basing it off of the numbers


9:14

under tracker I remember mine usually SATs around 3


9:21

000 something and a couple of weeks ago it was like four thousand I was like I'm not eating four thousand


9:26

or I'm not burning 4 000 calories you know like yeah I was losing weight uh but


9:32

I was eating about I've been about 2200 I'm reversing now so it's higher already it's the very end


9:39

of the cut that would have been a huge deficit you know right I would have been starving


9:46

like losing a lot of weight and you know it's just not the case right and uh before we get on


9:53

you brought up a very good point and it's at the tracker doesn't know about past diet attempts and BMR stuff right


10:00

yeah so when you're looking at a calories burned


10:06

like that's talking about your metabolism right and so when we look at metabolism you you're fit it's quite


10:15

literally impossible for the fitness tracker to be accurate because it cannot


10:21

take into consideration BMR so your basal metabolic rate which is the biggest factor in your metabolism it


10:29

can't take into consideration thermic defective food which is the third biggest Factor can't tell how much


10:38

you're burning through you know digesting food um and it also like there's different


10:44

things that influence you know BMR and metabolism and that's you know past


10:50

dieting history it's potentially medications you're on


10:55

um you know stress things like that so it's


11:00

it's just quite literally impossible for it to be to be accurate and why we


11:05

should not be putting too much you know weight into it yeah and to make it even more


11:11

complicated like your body can get more efficient or inefficient with burning


11:17

calories basically yes it's never like a stagnant Place really yeah so it's not like you're it's not


11:25

like you're burning 2 000 calories every single day right it's gonna fluctuate depending on what you're doing


11:32

and that's that's the thing that a lot of people like you'll see this online where people will say energy balance is


11:38

not true you know it doesn't work I mean I sure if we if we're gonna say that


11:44

energy balance is just exercise and just food like sure like then like that


11:50

wouldn't work but that's also not energy balance like there's so much it's not just like two


11:55

things and you know there's way more going on like you said we got thermic effect we got neat exercise uh beamar


12:02

you know that's calories out then your scatters in then there's a


12:07

difference between what you actually consume and then absorb so I mean honestly


12:13

we could talk about calories burned as much as we want but we're not gonna know or like the two camps right so people


12:20

are like okay it's only calories and calories out and then people like oh no it's like it's only hormones right like


12:26

there's like this constant debate between these two and the thing is you cannot you can act you cannot look at


12:33

colors and colors out TDE BMR without hormones because hormones influence


12:40

things like BMR right so it's like you quite literally


12:46

cannot separate the two yeah and that's even when we look into thyroid issues


12:51

and PCOS and yeah you're you're your tracker can't


12:57

tell if you have thyroid issues and PCOS yeah you know or or menopause like yeah


13:03

I think a lot of people have get the idea and they're not wrong for this but they get the idea


13:10

um that those hormonal you know changes


13:15

are the reason they cannot lose weight but it does boil down again two calories


13:21

burned right that's also why unfortunately you know some people with PCOS or


13:26

uh you know or thyroid issues when fat loss is the goal unfortunately we might


13:31

have to diet on much lower calories yeah than usual and that is


13:37

that's already hard you know yeah but that would be long story short


13:42

that would be because those hormones are influencing calories burned yes


13:48

we cannot separate the two and counters in two because if we look at cortisol like hey some people unread some people


13:56

overeat it's going to affect energy balance right I mean there's so much going on there you know yeah yeah


14:01

totally but again I really like fitness trackers I've been using them for such a long


14:07

time I got my old school step tracker right here we go I actually have mine on


14:14

I use this you got one too yeah cool which I'll talk about in a second yeah yeah sure so I've been using that one


14:21

because that's like that's the only thing that whoop is really missing in my opinion like right is there no snap


14:26

tracker on this thing you know um but okay like like how would you use it the right way uh because they're they


14:34

are great there's a lot of good functions and I will say I'm not affiliated with whoop or anything uh I just really like


14:41

it myself um but the number one thing I look at is sleep first of all


14:46

so well we'll talk about kind of like how you can use yours in general but like I'd like to share my experience too


14:52

because the thing I really like there is that with woof you have a sleep journal and


14:58

you can literally choose questions or habits basically and every morning


15:04

you get asked like hey did you do this yes or no no you should take your magnesium yes or no did you breathe uh


15:11

meditate whatever it might be you know there's a whole list to pick from and when you do that and over time let's say


15:18

a couple weeks months you start to see hey how does this affect my sleep


15:25

something might really help in terms of like for example magnesium that's huge like that's that's the one that for me


15:32

like has been one of the biggest ones and I know that so now I'm not tracking it anymore but I saw a big difference


15:37

there you know over time I said oh but I don't take it versus when I do


15:43

take it it's actually a big difference same with reading which is a big one for me too


15:48

um so many things you know other supplements like l-theanine I


15:54

checked I think there's a few I think where I did meditation like journaling uh reading a bunch


16:02

but long story short you can actually start to find out and do a little bit of your own research like on yourself


16:08

of hey okay we have all this stuff that's supposed to help with sleep of quality and quantity now let me


16:14

figure out what I can do to improve mine and that's super cool I think you know because it might be way different from


16:20

person to person I think you mentioned this a while ago where you said like you can just fall asleep like staring at


16:27

your phone right why wasn't that you no that was not me oh I I really


16:33

thought it was you I remember someone someone said that they were like hey like I know the blue light kind of


16:39

like is supposed to keep you awake but I I just passed out you know when I when I watch YouTube videos I really thought it was you sorry my bad


16:46

um but that's for sleep you know you can really start to see hey you know am I going to bed at the same time am I


16:51

waking up consistently Etc now steps of course were very big on steps


16:57

um and I'm sure that you're gonna bring this up too in a sec with your new step tracker or old I guess yeah um


17:03

but that's the number one way for us to kind of like manage


17:08

um our overall movement right is it really ten thousand steps or is it like 1100 or sorry 11 000.


17:17

who knows it's probably at least a little inaccurate but at least we have a measure there you know


17:23

um of hey does it say that you're moving like 2000 steps and we could probably bring


17:28

that up you know on the other hand if you're already hitting 10 11 12 whatever okay then we


17:35

know that needs is taken care of the biggest chunk of your you know TDE now uh for things like hard zone trading


17:43

heart rate zone trading I do think it can be very beneficial I'm not as experienced with that myself


17:49

and however now that might cut and I'm literally just saying this for accountability now that my cut is over I'm going to start doing cardio


17:57

which I really hate but okay this week is going to be my first session in a very long time and we give this


18:03

recording um and I do think as well you know another thing body temperature I do only


18:09

know that the aura ring does that I'm not sure of any other wearables to do that as well but that


18:16

could be a very good one especially if you're not on hormonal birth control of course women


18:21

um because that way you could actually track ovulation right yeah so that could be not a good one too


18:28

but we never look at calories burned but let's go back to your uh your tracker I'm curious now yeah so I have a


18:35

couple two things here so I used to wear the whoop um so you really like it for sleep but


18:41

that was actually one of the reasons I stopped wearing the Boop so I wore it for years training


18:50

um and I really liked it you know for um a period of time and I like the HRV


18:57

and all that but by the end of me wearing it


19:03

um I think it could have been like where I was too you know within my season of transitioning from


19:10

competition to not but um I started like really being more in


19:17

tune with myself you know my body as a whole and it would tell me that like I


19:23

had a poor night's sleep when I didn't feel like that at all um and like I would wake up feeling good


19:30

ready to go and it would tell me like my recovery was crap and like I think there is


19:37

it it still can be right like you feel good but recovery might not be as good


19:42

and like but I just I really was like transitioning into more of like just


19:49

basing things off of how I felt and so um yeah I do think there was like


19:55

inaccuracies there with sleep and with the HRV um so it started to get into my head a


20:03

little bit and so when it started to get into my head I was like no like this does not work this is not worth it for


20:09

me like I'm not going to put so much emphasis on this you know tracker thing


20:17

um that I don't even know that is 100 accurate right so I stopped using it for


20:22

those reasons and I just went off of how I felt you know whether I felt like I


20:28

had a good sleep waking up how's my recovery you know soreness fatigue that


20:34

kind of stuff um and then so I never used it again but


20:39

it's not to say that I don't think it's good like I have clients who use it so I know I am not opposed to it by any means


20:48

um and then with my Garmin so I wore my garment for a long time


20:55

um and I was just using that for for steps and then again I've kind of like


21:01

got into this like season where I'm I want to disconnect more


21:08

um just from like the computer my phone the TV Electronics in general like I


21:14

just want to disconnect and be on nothing essentially so


21:20

um I started I stopped wearing my garment and because I was basically only using it for style points and


21:28

uh my steps I got this pedometer


21:33

and I did compare it so this pedometer


21:39

is definitely more accurate and it's because you know when it's on your wrist


21:45

you're moving around it all day right depending like I'm a hand talker I'm like I'm doing stuff with my hands it's


21:53

counting that as steps with this I just clip it onto my pants and I was like holy crap like this is


22:01

per this is like definitely less than what my um my Garmin was saying but if


22:09

anything like I would rather it be less than overestimating but I do but I do


22:15

believe that this pedometer is definitely more accurate and I just


22:21

wanted to not wear my watch for a while because of like emfs and stuff like I don't know if


22:26

anyone knows about this stuff but like I just want to be disconnected from that um


22:32

so that's that's my thoughts there I think that even you know I put so much emphasis on the


22:38

Garment for so long with steps there's still inaccuracies there


22:44

um but it's again it's not like I would say I'm never gonna use the Garment like it's still a really good thing to use to


22:50

track your steps um but I just wanted to kind of like take a break from it so yeah that that's


22:56

just my my story in in terms of the whoop why I stopped using it


23:03

um and just different and accuracy as you can see with with either of them


23:08

yeah and I think that's actually a really good approach and I'd say that's that's a good way to


23:14

go about any type of metric that's objective right so we


23:19

as coaches too I think sometimes we can get really because we're both very big on Macros and steps and all that which


23:27

is to teach and the goal is actually to get you better doing without afterwards right


23:33

right it's not necessarily like hey you know you're gonna track your steps forever it's more like hey you know we're doing this now so that you get


23:39

more active so that it becomes a habit so that you are just someone who walks more you know


23:45

right um safer tracking and all that good stuff anytime you realize that you did the


23:51

right thing you you said hey you know I notice this now you know I'm gonna kind of stick stuff back from it and see how


23:56

I do you like it okay cool I think that's a good way to do it and I think of course there is something to


24:03

be said about hey you know some dance with weight loss and stuff like trying to avoid the skill when weight


24:09

loss is the measure or the goal and then we can measure and I do think sometimes we we need to work through those things


24:15

and get uncomfortable and be okay with that a little bit you know totally and to see the measure for what it is it's


24:20

just a measure it's not the goal but then also when when we learn from it


24:26

um it's okay to step away from it you know and it's okay to use a lesson if you are aware of how it makes you


24:33

feel you can base it off that and that's way more important yeah


24:39

because you don't have to keep using it and if you notice like hey I feel great but my recovery course sucks


24:46

are you going to let that number then decide today or are you just gonna laugh how you feel exactly yeah


24:54

so how would you go about like managing energy balance and without tracking you know whether that's bulking or you know


25:01

Etc weight loss yeah so without tracking calories burned is what he meant


25:07

um yeah so um I mean we do this every


25:13

single day with clients uh so we control the amount of calories the client's


25:20

eating I mean us too um and really just get as consistent as possible with that


25:28

um and then tracking steps there's another one right so easily track steps


25:35

with a pedometer or your garment or anything like that um and then we track


25:43

um body weight like body weight in averages um so we take okay three to seven days a


25:51

week you know weighing in and we track the average of that week or like we look at monthly averages and then


25:57

measurements and photos same to our thing just to see how you're progressing right from the control of


26:06

calories the tracking of the steps you know exercise things like that


26:11

um and then like I just said books we see how you're moving over the course of you know a long period


26:18

um it's hard to know if you're in a surplus or if you've got maintenance or


26:23

if you're in a deficit without having like weeks or months of data I mean I


26:30

guess you could say well I'm gaining body fat you know I must be in a in a


26:36

surplus but we still you know with maintenance and deficit we would need you know uh data over time in order to


26:46

see that yeah because you actually don't know there's


26:51

not like a sign that turns on like oh you're in the deficit you don't you don't yeah


26:56

no plus then there's the body kind of working against you not like not even like working against you it's just kind


27:03

of like doing its thing you know it's adapting it's yeah burning fewer calories burning more


27:08

calories so yeah good point like you do want to look at the like longer term Trends yes


27:16

and really again like with the calories burned like we're we're just gonna know and that's


27:22

okay but like don't put too much emphasis on on that number because I think it can


27:27

really hold you back and you said it already you said what if your expected maintenance based


27:34

on or sorry what if your tracker says like 2500 but you're basing your deficit off that


27:40

which brings you to 2000 which would actually be your maintenance like right maybe like working really hard but not


27:47

seeing any results you know yeah that's a big difference 15 20 25


27:52

whatever sure they're getting better but that's still huge and that's still way


27:57

too much to base your energy balance on and we don't know that you know and a


28:02

lot of people too will get upset if they don't hit like a certain amount of


28:08

calories burned in their in their workouts which I think is


28:14

it's just not not a good mindset to be in right because again it's it's you're


28:20

basing effort off of something that is not even accurate like at all so


28:29

um I I mean easier said than done but like if I had a client who was


28:36

you know putting too much efforts here first I would educate them on like why this isn't accurate but also I would


28:42

probably just encourage them to take their their watch off you know during their workout and really just focus on


28:48

the quality of the Reps and their effort they're putting in yeah which might even give you a more


28:54

realistic view of your needs because then that tracker is just the rest of the day


28:59

right you know that's something that but often neat they uh they don't realize like


29:08

what like it's I mean this is getting like nitpicky but yeah we're tracking


29:13

steps we're tracking outside of exercise so if you go on a run that does not


29:19

count as neat neat is non-exercise activity right so we're wanting to


29:26

um measure how much movement you're doing outside of the gym because you


29:33

could be working out for an hour or running for an hour and then sitting


29:38

down the rest of the day and that's you know you can still be sent to you can still be technically sedentary


29:45

um because you're not moving the rest of the day so that is why we track steps or


29:52

we track neat is because we want to make sure we're moving throughout the rest of


29:57

the day um it I mean I will sometimes leave my watch on by asking or something when I


30:04

go for a run then I'll just look out my watch and be like Oh and then I'll look at my watch at the end and minus that


30:10

many steps off and just make sure I'm still hitting you know eight to ten K outside of that run


30:17

yeah and that that is a way better kind of


30:22

method I guess of tracking steps and uh something that I might even start


30:28

applying like with some people where I would say Hey you know like when we're training let's actually take it off but


30:34

like you said it really depends like for most people we wouldn't even have to do that yeah I mean it's getting nitpicky


30:39

but the point of steps is neat yeah that's the thing yeah


30:47

I had a check in on on Monday yeah this Monday and uh we're talking about needs and


30:53

steps and I was like hey you know let's get the steps up a little bit more we're towards the end of a cut I think I see


30:59

the steps going down let's bring him up again let's hit that 10K every day let's try you know I know it's a little


31:05

challenging but let's let's go for that it's Ariel add a run he's like no yeah yeah let's not do that because the


31:12

point here and that's that's a big takeaway here is that we do that without the added stress response yeah of


31:19

exercise that's the whole point it's the additional movement in a parasympathetic state


31:25

without stress so that we get to manage stress we get all the benefits there too


31:31

but uh yeah I don't know I feel like we we're almost like wired like that you know


31:37

yeah and it's going back to the caters burn then you know heart rate to stuff


31:43

something like an activity doesn't have to be and we've all come from Crossfit


31:48

like we're very familiar with this but like it doesn't have to be like you dying on the floor like rolling your in


31:55

your own sweat like I mean sweat is another thing that's just thermoregulation it's not a


32:01

stamp of approval that you had a good workout you know no yeah like I I do get it I I know that feeling


32:08

so I know yeah I do too I love sweating it's cool it's cool yeah that's the


32:14

thing but like what I am saying is that that doesn't have to be the case every single time I


32:20

don't know like I do my bodybuilding workouts and I am like oh my gosh like I


32:26

am dying in my workout but I'm not sweating at all and then I walk away


32:31

feeling you know really good I don't walk away feeling like I'm trashed but in my workout I'm like it's very


32:38

challenging um but I'm not sweating but does that mean I didn't get a good workout in no


32:44

and this is where that where whoop also you know with the destroying stuff it's


32:50

more kind of like the the higher intensity stuff you know because if I compare my crossfit workout then when I


32:58

switched to like bodybuilding stuff way different were you in the green like every day


33:04

I was like you know yeah exactly I have like super low strain you know I'm


33:10

lifting and we're lifting weights I'm doing my best here you know yeah yeah but my strain is so low I don't get


33:15

it my my green scores were like all over the place like 90 99 of this you


33:21

know how's it going you know and then I actually read up on it a little bit more


33:26

and I was like oh yeah okay um you know it's it's not as much like


33:32

if you resist in trains or like we we can't really go off that stray metric either you know


33:38

okay a lot of good stuff today what do you think wrap it up yeah cool


33:45

so guys fitness trackers are not useless by any means track your sleep your steps maybe body


33:51

temperature heart rates if you want to do like heart rate zone training or you know compare


33:57

maybe HRV but I mean for calories burned it's just not that accurate so try not to train


34:04

for that reason right we do our exercise we lift weights we do cardio Etc because we want to get


34:10

healthier better make a stronger faster Etc that's the stuff we want to focus on we


34:16

want to improve right not necessarily just burns many calories as possible


34:23

thank you for listening we'll talk to you next week


34:31

thank you for listening if you want to help us grow the show please make sure to leave us a five-star rating or share this episode on your Instagram stories


34:37

now if at any point you feel like you need more help you can always reach out to Christine or myself directly via any


34:43

of the links in our show notes because we're here to help thanks again and I'll talk to you in the next episode [Music]

Introduction
How accurate are fitness trackers? Here’s what the research shows
Why that’s a problem for weight loss
How to use your fitness tracker in a better way + What we use
How to manage energy balance without tracking calories burned
Outro: Effective workouts + not getting too hung up on the data