I think using activity trackers like the Fitbit, the Jawbone etc. are a great idea.

I wear one myself; a snazzy little black Fitbit, if you’re asking.

Anything that gets you motivated to move around a little more can only be a great thing in my opinion.

I also like that they help us turn our activity into a number format (no. of steps) so we can track our progress over time.

More of us could do with tracking certain markers like steps moved, calories eaten, hours of sleep, portions of fruit or veg eaten, as this way there’s nowhere to hide.

There’s no “I reckon I did enough moving around today”, because you either hit your step goal or you didn’t.

The numbers simply do not lie!

However as with anything there are exceptions, and in another case, the numbers actually do lie.

In this case it’s the “calories burned” data on your Fitbit… they ain’t accurate, and unless you’re doing aerobic exercise it will HUGELY overestimate the number of calories you’ve actually burned.

Now as a standalone number, (i.e. if you want to use it to see if you’re burning more calories from one session to the next) it’s fine.

However, problems occur when you think because you’ve burned off a certain number of calories in the gym, you can eat that back from your food.

It will inevitably result in you eating too much, resulting in your calorie deficit vanishing before your eyes!

So don’t make this mistake!

James B