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posted by on Thursday February 23 2017, @09:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the great-status-symbols-though dept.

Fitbits and Apple Watches and the like may have their uses, but they don't appear to be effective in weight loss.

I once received a lot of blowback for an Upshot article in which I showed (with evidence) that exercise is not the key to weight loss. Diet is. Many, many readers cannot wrap their head around the notion that adding physical activity, and therefore burning more calories, doesn't necessarily translate into results on the scale.

Well, here we go again because some of those folks also believe that fitness devices — Fitbit, Vivosmart, Apple Watch — must be helpful in losing weight. Unfortunately, evidence doesn't support this belief either.

[...] What was needed was a large, well-designed study that truly teased out the contribution of wearable tech to weight loss programs. Last year, the results of such a study, the IDEA trial, were published.

[...] At the end of the two years, which is pretty long for a weight loss study, those without access to the wearable technology lost an average of 13 pounds. Those with the wearable tech lost an average of 7.7 pounds.

It's hard for many to accept, so I'm going to state the results again: Those people who used the wearable tech for 18 months lost significantly less weight than those who didn't.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23 2017, @10:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23 2017, @10:49PM (#470935)

    Diet is a key component - you can eat more calories than you can possibly burn.
    But you must also exercise. You can eat almost nothing and lose weight.... and then not be able to move because your muscles have atrophied/burned as well as the fat.
    And you must hydrate. Because hydration is a key in allowing your bloodstream to wash all those waste products caused by anaerobic activity. (It must wash them out anyway, but exercising regularly will create more of them.)
    And you must breathe. Yes, you think you breathe now. But you only only autonomically breathe to keep your cardiovascular system fulfilling the needs of a static equilibrium. Practice deep breathing and your metabolism will start acting like you're exercising a little more than you currently are. Combine that with the other 3.

    Note that nowhere above is a wearable fitness device needed. They can be helpful reminders, but only if you then mindfully act on what they're telling you, eh?

    And all of this is brain-dead simple and not easy to put into practice at all in the United States in 2017.

  • (Score: 2) by rondon on Friday February 24 2017, @02:47PM

    by rondon (5167) on Friday February 24 2017, @02:47PM (#471119)

    Is the breathing thing that AC mentioned true? I tried to verify the claim, but all I see are BS articles based on science that doesn't support their claims.