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How to Use Technology to Crush Your Health Goals

In my experience, there are two main types of technology users in the fitness world:

• The Distracted User: This type uses technology as a way to avoid actually working out. Here’s how to spot them: Go to the gym and look around. You’ll find them glued to a machine for ages, lost in their phones. They're busy texting, scrolling through TikTok, or posting on Instagram—basically doing anything but exercising. I’m gonna be real with y’all: I’m not a fan of this type...at all. Enjoy your apps all you want, but please, for the love of God, stop hogging the equipment! 😭

• The Mindful User: This type uses technology to enhance their fitness journey. They're not just focused on the gym either—they're using tech to improve all aspects of their health. For these folks, technology is a tool to track progress, improve performance, and support their goals, rather than a distraction.

Are you noticing the big difference? One group lets tech derail their workout, while the other harnesses it to reach their fitness goals. Spoiler alert: don’t be like the first.

The way you become the Mindful User is by using technology in a way that makes managing your fitness journey easier and more successful. In my almost nine years of experience, I've tried practically every type of app or piece of technology out there. I've come to the conclusion that the specific application or device you use isn't as important as the category of health and fitness it helps you improve.

There's a ton of fitness tech out there, from mental health and sleep apps to habit trackers and even hydration monitors. But trying to use tech for everything can be overwhelming and counterproductive. So, I'm going to share three key categories of fitness technology that I've personally found effective. I'll give you examples of apps and devices in each category and explain how to use them to boost your fitness journey. These are tools I've used myself - they're straightforward and have seriously improved my results. Remember, it's about finding what works for you.

1. Nutrition Tracking

We're kicking off with the absolute MVP of categories. I know I sound like a broken record, but there's a good reason for it: If there's any category you should start with, it's nutrition. Your ability to understand and monitor what you put into your body will account for 90% of your success on your health journey.

• The undisputed champion, and my personal favorite, is MyFitnessPal. It boasts the largest database of foods and food variations out there and is very user-friendly. They have a barcode scanning feature that lets you scan the barcode on different foods and automatically pull up what you're about to eat for tracking. Unfortunately, this feature used to be free but is now behind a paywall. If you want to make food tracking even easier, I don't think it's a bad investment. I've heard of other nutrition tracking apps gaining popularity, like Cronometer and MacroFactor, but since I haven't personally tried them, I can't speak to their effectiveness. Just choose one that keeps nutrition tracking simple and works best for you.

• A food scale is also a game-changer. I've mentioned before that you don't need to weigh your food, but I always recommend it, at least for a while. A food scale is an inexpensive way to understand everything you put into your body. There might be a bit of a learning curve, but once you've got it down, it'll be a breeze to track and pairs really well with a food tracking app like MyFitnessPal.

2. Workout Tracking

It’s always important to understand what you’ll be doing at the gym, when you’ll be doing it, and how you did. I view this as a triangular relationship, where each element influences the others in a continuous cycle. This ongoing process shapes and improves your future gym sessions. Essentially, you plan, execute, and then use the results of your execution to inform your next plan for the gym.

• Weirdly enough, one of my favorite workout trackers is the native Notes app on my phone. I know this might not be the fancy schmancy suggestion you were expecting, but it’s a tool I’ve used for years. I would write out my entire weekly routine, with sets and reps (the what?), divide it by the days of the week I’d be doing each exercise (the when?), and then log my results after each workout (the how?). Each week, I focused on updating my results for each movement as I got stronger and saw those numbers increase (hopefully 🤞).

• The Strong app is another strong contender (get it? 😉) for fitness workout options. I've used it enough to know that it features a simple and user-friendly interface, a wide range of pre-saved movements, and easy tracking of your workouts and results. It also lets you see your overall progress. There’s both a free and a paid version of the app, but from my experience, the free version is more than enough for basic tracking and monitoring of your progress.

• Last in this category is an app that focuses less on actual workouts and more on daily movement: the Health app native to your phone. While it claims to track a bunch of things, I mainly use it to monitor my steps throughout the day, week, and month, making sure I hit at least 10,000 steps daily. You can use other tracking apps like Strava, which are great for cardio-focused workouts like running, swimming, biking, etc. They even let you share your progress with a community of fitness enthusiasts. But for the sake of simplicity, the Health app should be more than enough if you're just looking to track your steps.

3. Progress Tracking

An underrated and often overlooked category is progress tracking. What’s the point of all your hard work in and out of the gym if you aren’t seeing and tracking the progress you’re making? Tracking your progress not only helps you stay on course toward your goals, but it can also be incredibly motivating when you see how far you’ve come and how your efforts are paying off.

• The Camera app on your phone. Yup, it’s that simple. Make it a point to always take pictures of your progress. Whether it’s weight gain, loss, or muscle increase, taking pictures does a great job of reinforcing your journey.

• Because we see ourselves every day, our perception can become skewed, making it hard to notice gradual changes. Regularly taking progress photos provides a clear visual record that highlights the transformations you might not see in the mirror. This way, you can celebrate your achievements and stay motivated, reminding yourself of how far you’ve come.

Thank you for joining me on today's newsletter.

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