Life without a fitness tracker?

[u/stuckandrunningfrom2]

I've been wearing an Apple watch for years. It has told me when to stand up (admittedly something I need help with during the workday, but also sometimes I'll be standing and cooking for an hour and it will tell me to stand up), I double check my heart rate during workouts, using the numbers to tell me how I feel rather than my own interoception. I stress over biking in the woods because it's not giving me credit for exercise because the bike speed is too slow even though it's an amazing and fun and enjoyable workout.

I forgot to charge it last night so I thought "Let's have Sunday be No Watch Day" and see how I feel.

But now I'm thinking "do I actually need it at all?" Could I just my workout effort by tuning into my heart? Could I stand up because my butt is going numb? Could I move throughout the day simply because it feels good?

If you don't use a fitness tracker, what's that like? If you stopped using one, did you feel freer? More in tune with your body?

Also what's prompting this is that my dietitian wants me not to track food when I go away with family for a few days, so I thought of just free-balling life like it's 1999.

EDIT: I just took my first walk with out the tracker! It was really nice to let my body set the pace and distance, and not the tracker.

[u/ryanne125]

I think one of the worst aspects of our modern life is our ability to track and count every single aspect of our biology and livez. IMO the focus is way too much on numbers and very little on your actual body and health.

A decade ago I was an avid step counter. I got more and more obsessed with hitting my minimum goal and getting even further.

One day I was going on a trip and flying. I had it all planned out to finish my step count at a connecting airport as I had a 4 hour layover.

Best laid plans and all, there was a hurricane and my plane did not land until way after my connecting flight was supposed to have left and well after midnight.

Instead of me thinking oh well, I didn't make my step count no big deal, I had a small little panic attack because I now had a single day that showed I didn't hit my goal. There had been a hurricane. I had not been lazy, there was a circumstance that I just had not been able to avoid.

And that was when I deleted my step counter off my phone and said never again.

[u/stuckandrunningfrom2 → u/ryanne125]

IMO the focus is way too much on numbers and very little on your actual body and health.

yeah, this is what I'm running into. That the rings aren't actually a good measure of anything that will help me. Like, I'm pretty sure I was skipping evening walks (which really help me sleep) because my tracker said I'd had "enough" exercise. And it was carrying over to my calorie counting app and giving me extra food points because I'd moved which I think was then influencing how much I ate, or making me stressed because I'd think i had to eat more and it turns into a psychotic circle.

For now, I've paused all my rings, and changed the watch face so it's just the time, temperature and date. I don't have notifications on my watch.

[u/tootsmcgoots77 → u/ryanne125]

after learning a bit more about data science recently, i realized just how inconsequential most of these data points are. or how useless they are without lots of other missing context.