Can I fitness tracker help you lose weight?

I know that fitness trackers are very popular, particularly with joggers and althletically minded indivduals.  I think fitness trackers are great for desk bound indivduals as it helps your monitor your physical acitivity.  However, I personally don’t have a fitness tracker, I have considered buying one, but I am saving up so I didn’t see it as an essential purchase.   However I had always assumed that a fitness tracker would help you lose weight.  But do they?

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh were interested in testing a conventional weight-loss programme against the use of a fitness monitor to determine the latter’s effectiveness as part of an anti obesity iniative.  During the randomized control trial they tested weight-loss programmes and fitness trackers on a group of 471 obese volunteers.  During the two year experiement those wearing a fitenss tracker lost 7.7lb (3.5 kg) whereas those who just followed a weight loss programme and didn’t use a tracker lost 13lb (6kg).  I was quite surprised by this result as were the researches who couldn’t explain it.   It seems that fitness trackesr give feedback and encouragement to lose weight but those wo are better at just sticking to a programme lose the most weight.  So what is really required is persistance.

References

JM Jakicic, K K Davis, R J Rogers et al, 2016, Effect of Wearable Technology Combined with Lifestyle intervention on Long-term Weight Loss – The IDEA Randomized Clinical Trail, JAMA, Vol 316, No 11, pg 1161-71

See >> http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2553448

 

 

 

 

 

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