All the ways a fitness tracker could help you live a healthier lifestyle

Is a smartwatch or FitBit right for you?

A fitness tracker or smart watch in action. (Pixabay/Pexels stock image)

A fitness tracker might not seem necessary to improving your health, and for some people, it’s probably a take-it-or-leave-it kind of item.

However, if you know you struggle with sticking to a new healthy routine, a fitness tracker may be exactly what you need to revolutionize your life.

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Many people struggle with increasing their activity level -- and fitness trackers make it easier to introduce changes to your routine.

Still, ultimately, you’re the one who does the work, not your fitness tracker. But that doesn’t mean a tracker isn’t an amazing tool to change how you approach your health and exercise regimen.

Here are all the specific ways it can help:

1. By making exercise more effective.

If you purchase a fitness tracker that reads your heart rate, you can get a lot more bang for your buck, so to speak, when it comes to the effectiveness of your workouts.

We all have a target heart rate we should be reaching during exercise, but if you’ve worked out without a fitness tracker, you probably haven’t spent a lot of time tracking your heart rate.

A fitness tracker makes checking your heart rate extremely easy -- and with a click or tap of a button, you can know whether you’re meeting your goals. Don’t waste any more time. Use your fitness tracker to be as effective as possible in the gym.

2. It encourages activity.

While an exercise routine is a necessary step to becoming more healthy, you will do best if you mix workouts with regular activity throughout the day.

Even with a solid routine, sitting all day for work can be detrimental to your health.

An exercise tracker will encourage you to get up and walk around by counting your steps. Set goals to increase the amount you walk per day, and use your fitness tracker to stick to those goals.

3. It’ll help you analyze your sleep habits.

Fitness trackers won’t just track your activity while you’re awake, they will also analyze and track your sleep habits. A fitness tracker can give you valuable knowledge about your sleep, including how much you wake up during the night.

A tracker can help you discern whether you have issues with sleep that need to be addressed by a doctor, or if changing your habits would lead to better rest. Try out different sleep routines and use your tracker to see what habits help for the better.

4. This is an opportunity for accountability.

Most fitness trackers have an app where you can connect with friends and family members to increase your accountability. You can set up your app to display the number of steps you’ve taken per day and encourage friends to motivate you if you’re falling behind.

If you struggle with motivation, being accountable to other people may be the key to changing your habits.

And your friends may appreciate you being available for their accountability needs, as well!


Don’t let a lack of motivation hold you back from changing your life. An investment in a fitness tracker just might be an investment in your health.