gurupanguji
I understand the impulse. Exercise sucks. Who doesn’t want a pat on the head for doing the Hard Thing? Trust me. I’ve turned heads in public for letting out a string of expletives whenever a smartwatch fails to correctly log a five-mile test run. Are you kidding me, I have to do it again?! What do you mean this walk didn’t contribute to closing my Exercise ring? Did the 45 minutes I spent ambulating around this godforsaken strip mall mean nothing to you, you overly expensive wrist brick? How dare this five-thousand-dollar smart mattress cover not give me credit for this luxurious afternoon nap as I attempt to fix this cross-country jet lag?
I’ve got a bone to pick with ‘getting credit’ from your fitness tracker | The Verge
The number of times I’ve crashed out over a Garmin telling me my workout is ‘unproductive.’ But why should that matter? Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge
Seeing it all typed out, surely we can all recognize how ridiculous this sounds. Yes, it would be annoying if a smartwatch or fitness tracker repeatedly failed to accurately record your data. But fixating on that misses the bigger picture. Fitness trackers are tools meant to help you measure progress as you work toward health goals. But the only “tracker” that really matters is your body — and it never fails to record an activity.
This is not new to the human psyche. However no amount of reminders are nearly enough I find. The homework nature of it all combined with my Indian school upbringing puts me in a natural state to sometimes lose track of why I am doing something.
I've worked really hard since December 2023 to go from 186lbs all the way to 123lbs in Sep 2024. Since then, I've carefully and deliberately worked hard to put on muscle weight back to 133lbs. One of the tricks I leveraged to help me achieve my goals are streaks. For some reason - streaks really help me keep track. However, I've also injured myself 2x in that time frame because I wanted to keep that streak going instead of listening to my body.