By Julie Cox
Having been in the fitness industry for 17 years it is sad to see the way it’s headed. I understand that trends take over, change is often good, and new ways are developed, but the recent craze with the Fitbit really bugs me. I love that people are wanting to be healthier, watch their food intake, walk more and challenge themselves but that’s about where the love stops for me. The fitness band craze has become an unhealthy numbers game.
The time spent learning how to use the fitness band, keeping them updated and just looking at them takes focus away from us being in tune with our bodies. Instead of eating a certain food and feeling its reaction to our body and system, we quickly update our band to see what it has to say about it! Wouldn’t our time be better spent learning a new exercise or something valuable about nutrition? Many people seem to have lost their way. They focus on how many calories they have eaten or burnt, how many steps they have taken and constantly refer to a technology device to tell us what our bodies should be doing.
Our bodies are the most incredible things we often take for granted, they know what is good for us and what isn’t. They can even recover and repair on their own when we are sick or have trained too hard. Our bodies’ ability to tell us what’s wrong is phenomenal. We have just lost the communication with it. Ask yourself this – Your Fitbit tells you, you will lose the weight but you don’t. Who do you blame? Can you blame it instead of yourself? Sometimes going back to basics is the key. Go back to the old-school ways of eating. Eat foods for a purpose.
IF YOU’RE TIRED,
eat healthy energy fuelled carbs.
IF YOU’RE FEELING SLUGGISH,
eat lots of greens to revitalise your system.
IF YOU WANT TO FEEL GOOD,
then move your body and exercise to release some endorphins.
Not long ago I saw an 8 year-old girl doing laps of a football oval. She was walking so fast and looking down. I said hi to her and she looked at me all angry and kept walking. I could tell she was referencing down to her band so I stopped her and asked her what she was doing. She said she gets annoyed because the day before she walked so many steps and today she won’t make the same amount. The only positive I see in this is that she’s outside walking. The negatives are that she’s only doing it because of the Fitbit.
Exercise is therapy for our minds, it is a way to output negative energy from our day (this girl was using it to fill her body with negative energy). How much healthier for her mind and body would it be for her to get that daily exercise in by playing a game of team netball or riding her bike with kids in her street? Getting angry over not getting to where you were the day before is so bad. Everyone’s day is different and we won’t always beat what we did the day before. That’s completely normal! We have put so much emphasis on the fitness band, we’ve lost the meaning of how great it feels to exercises and take a stroll outside to unwind from a hard day at work or instead of looking at the nice trees around us on our walks we are looking down at a device. It disappoints me the way the fitness industry has headed with this. We have the best tool in our bodies for tracking how we feel and what we should be doing! My advice is to save yourself the money and put the time and money into learning about food and exercise – that’s knowledge that no one can take away from you. It can’t be lost and you can apply it to your day to day lives forever – now that is what I call real value.
Julie is mum to a sassy 2 and a half-year-old girl who keeps her moving. Her passion for mums/women’s fitness has catapulted a career in a range of fields from exercise to eating healthy, supplements, and serving up great lunchbox treats.
You can find more about Julie at www.facebook.com/MumsInMotion
