Fitness Tracking Study - Essay Example

Fitness Tracking Study Group Members Lab Section Introduction For any individual to improve their health, they must be in control of what they eat, keep an eye on their performance levels, and make sure that they do exercise. Keeping track of ones progress is often a difficult task. Therefore, it is best for one to use services such as those offered by Fitbit to track their progress and use it for self-assessment. Fitbit was utilized in this study to help track the movement of the students and help in their self-assessment of personal activity level, physical fitness, and energy balance. Physical fitness is a state of well-being of a person who can perform his or her daily activities without undue fatigue to their bodies. Physical fitness is directly related to health status. Physically fit persons will be less susceptible to ill health due to their body’s ability to resist diseases. On the other hand, a physically unfit person is more susceptible to disease. Fitbit is a small, sensitive pin-like device that has a clip to hold onto pockets or sleeves. As a person goes throughout their daily activities, the Fitbit logs this information. It logs data such as the estimated calories burned, the number of steps covered (distance covered), and the duration of sleep of its user. Many scientific studies have been done to ascertain the reliability and accuracy of the Fitbit. Mikel (2014) opines that the Fitbit was highly accurate in determining the number of steps taken by an individual. However, Fitbit is not accurate when determining and measuring the distance covered. Furthermore, it is not reliable in counting a number of calories burned. Each student in the fitness tracking study was required to collect data over a four-day period. The period of collection of data was not concurrent. The students were to collect data on the activity and food, which included continuing with their normal diet, free living and conducting a specified exercise treatment condition. The data obtained by each and group was compared to the class data. The self-assessment aspect of this study interests me the most. My interest is peaked due to the opportunity of calculating ones overall health fitness. Materials and Methods The fitness tracking study follows a precise procedure to come up with data and figures from the Fitbit. The first step of the study begins with students wearing the Fitbit for four days in a twenty-four-hour cycle. The students log their food intake and sleep schedule in the databases. The initial data logged in by the students serves as a base unit for future reference when the study is completed. The students are required to make an estimation of their serving size and food type when they are logging their food intakes. Sleep logging involves entering the time when one enters the time they go to bed and the time they get out of bed for each of the four nights. The exercise routine provided is done on two of the four days available for the study. During the exercises, the students can take breaks to recover. The exercise is done at a moderate pace, and the data is gathered and logged. The exercise involves a slow pace jogging on a treadmill for 20 minutes, stair climbing for 10 minutes and a moderate cycling pace for 20 minutes. Results Fitbit provides comprehensive figures with respect to the different aspects, which were to be checked. The first day of the study was 13 May. The figures a.1, b.1, and c.1 show the results of the sleep log, steps taken, and the amount of calories burnt. According to figure a.1, the actual sleep time was 6hours and 8 minutes. Figure b.1 shows that the total steps taken were 9,894 while the figure c.1 for the first day shows that the student burnt 1902 calories. The second-day log is done by the student also yielded three figures: sleep log (a.2), steps log (b.2), and estimated calorie burned (c.2). Sleep log figure (a.2) indicated that the student had a marginal increase in actual sleep time from the previous time (6hours 25 minutes). The log step figure (b.2) showed that 3068 steps were taken on the second day. According to figure c.2, the estimated calorie loss was 1541 calories. The figures a.3, b.3, and c.3 are the log data results for the third day of the study. The figure a.3, sleep log, showed that the actual sleep time was 7 hours and 23 minutes. The figure b.3 shows the number of steps taken on a particular day, which were 10,014 steps on the third day of the study. The number of calories lost on the third day was 1718 calories, which was captured on the figure c.3. The last day of the study was on 19 May. The figures a.4, b.4, and c.4 resulted from the three logs made by the student. Figure a.4 shows that the actual sleeping time was 9 hours and 7 minutes. The number of steps was 13,662, which are captured by the figure b.4. The figure c.4 shows that 2,088 calories were burned on the fourth day of study. Discussion Specifically, the fourth day of the study is very insightful. It was the day that registered the longest duration of actual sleeping times, steps, and the greatest calories burned. Basing on the outcome of this experiment, I would change my lifestyle so that I can enjoy the benefits shown by the Fitbit. For instance, I would ensure that I get to bed early to get as much sleeping time as possible. In addition, I would reduce the number of factors that would awaken me during the night. Moreover, I would schedule my exercises to be after lunch. The results from the Fitbit show that when exercises are done after lunch, the number of calories is greater as opposed to after dinner. The course, in general, has highlighted the goodness of physical fitness, which allows a person to perform their activities in an efficient manner while maintaining good health. The data provided by Fitbit were accurate. The number of steps counted on the 1st, 3rd, and 4th days was high which was in synonymous with the busy schedules that I had on those particular days. Physical activity level incorporates duration and intensity. In the real world, the physical activity level is used to heighten the intensity of any physical fitness program. A physical fitness workout becomes harder as the duration becomes longer, and the intensity increases. Therefore, it is evident that an individual who trains under such circumstance would enjoy more benefits in terms of burning more calories and enjoy an elevated level of being physical fitness. References Delgado, M. (2014). How fit is that Fitbit? Berkeley Science Review. 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