Most digital fitness companies contacted for this story did not want to comment on the record, though some confirmed that they do see a consumer demand for calorie burn estimates. So why do digital devices still include calories?
Good rules of thumb for people who are training hard, she says, are to aim for three meals and three snacks each day, and to eat within an hour of exercising. If you’re having trouble figuring out what or how much you need to eat, Haggerty suggests working with an anti-diet or Health at Every Size-aligned dietitian. “Even so, there are ways of doing that that don’t require tracking,” she says. The only situation in which tracking calories might be useful, she says, is for people who are struggling to eat enough to keep up with their training, a common problem among endurance athletes. It shouldn’t be assumed that people have a weight loss goal attached to a fitness endeavor.” With some systems, you can essentially game your way out of calorie counts by not entering your weight others will still display an (even more bogus) number of calories by automatically subbing in an “average” weight.Ĭounting calories simply isn’t a good way to learn what your body needs, and can cause you to restrict what you’re eating in a way that quickly becomes unhealthy, says Haggerty. “You should be able to choose what you want to track.
“What is and isn’t helpful is very person-dependent,” Pak says. Other measures, like heart rate variability, can give you useful information about how well you’re managing stress, both physical and mental.īut the ubiquity of calorie counts on fitness trackers make diet culture hard to escape. For instance, heart rate info can help with highlighting exercise intensity and monitoring safety for some people with chronic health conditions. And some of the data that trackers collect can be helpful. Wearable devices and connected devices can help some people stay consistent with a workout routine, and remind them of their goals. “Almost across the board, athletes I work with have this illusion of how many calories they’re expending, and they’re usually under-eating,” she says. For example, if you feel like you aren’t allowed to “indulge” in certain foods on days you haven’t exercised, you may not have done the exact math, but you’re still thinking about nutrition and exercise in a way that’s shaped by calorie counting.Īnd that idea you have of how many calories you need in a day? It’s probably wrong, says Rena Eleázar, DPT, a physical therapist, sports performance coach, and competitive weightlifter. “I think that the hardest part about breaking up with calorie counting is that many of us who have some experience with it might be able to stop tracking, but the calorie data lives rent-free in our brains,” says Jessi Haggerty, RDN, a certified intuitive eating counselor and personal trainer. Some of us can look at calorie counts and ignore them, but many people are more affected than they realize.
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