I’ve never really put two and two together in that I never considered I use apps to “track” myself. I always just said that I monitor certain aspects of my life, never truly acknowledging that I was quanitifying myself.<\/p>\n
I use the app “My Fitness Pal” to track my daily caloric intake to help me lose weight and stay healthy. When registering for the app, you have to enter your name, birthday, weight, height, and, of course, contact information so they can send me a million emails. My Fitness Pal also has the user choose their average activity level (for metabolic purposes) and whether they want to lose, maintain, or gain weight. Based on all these things, it calculates a goal for calories that one should consume daily. After each meal, I open the app and start adding foods. The easy part is when you can just scan the barcode of a granola bar but it is more tedious when I have to enter every ingredient of my smoothie.<\/p>\n
I can also enter exercise to counteract the food I’m eating. This isn’t mandatory but it is recommended to ensure that I am not consuming too few calories. However, the app collects data on how many steps I’m taking without any input on me. It has a location service that allows it to calculate how far I’ve been walking and it differentiates (I’m assuming by speed) whether I’m walking, on the bus, or driving.<\/p>\n
The app is widely used and has helped change the way people are dieting and getting healthier. The future of this app is uncertain but they are currently in the works of producing new feature; they are developing a scanner so that, instead of having to input your food manually, you scan the food and it automatically enters it. With this feature, it would save time and perhaps, with time and fixes, be more accurate than when an individual has to guess how much cheese they put on top of something.<\/p>\n
My Fitness Pal asks me frequently if I would like to post to social media, though I always say no. I don’t have it linked to any accounts for that reason, out of fear that it will post for me, without my permission. It has developed it’s own sort of social media platform in that you can connect with your friends who are also on the app and it has its own newsfeed of updates that are posted automatically when you record a meal or a workout.<\/p>\n
I have mixed feelings about self tracking. My Fitness Pal has helped me lose weight because I was more aware of the decisions I was making but at the same time, I didn’t like having to constantly track everything about my day. Tracking my workouts makes me happier than tracking food though, because that at least seems like progress towards my health goal, whereas food seems like I’m taking steps backwards. I think other people who post to social media about this app are bragging, intending to show others how good they are or how fit, which is a little annoying. It’s also discouraging because, based on those original, aforementioned questions, my boyfriend gets over twice as many calories a day so I have to watch him post about Bojangles while I crunch on celery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve never really put two and two together in that I never considered I use apps to “track” myself. I always just said that I monitor certain aspects of my life, never truly acknowledging that I was quanitifying myself. I use the app “My Fitness Pal” to track my daily caloric intake to help me
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