Track Something!
So, as you ponder your man’s holiday gift, think of ways to both fulfill this obsession with numbers and help him get fit. Consider a wearable fitness tracker. There are at least a dozen of them on the market and believe me they are a far cry from the pedometer that your parents ordered from Reader’s Digest or Marvel comic books. They also have cooler names like MisFit Shine, JawBone Up and FitBit.
Not only do these trackers tell time, they also measure heart rate, physical activity, sleep patterns and calories burned. Apple actually has a device due out in 2015 that links to you and your phone to measures how you move, movement intensity and even distance travelled. Every movement is now a number.
Track Change
But the big question is, how does providing these numbers really change his life? Here are some ways in which fitness trackers can help:
- He’ll close the deal. Say he walks 9000 steps of a 10K step daily goal. He might just take the dog for an extra couple of blocks to rack up the win. Not only that, there will be a little more incentive to refeed the parking meter.
- He’ll hit the hay. We’re getting far too little sleep nowadays. Like his mother did years ago, trackers can remind him what he needs and get him to bed earlier.
- He’ll compete with friends. Trackers can be shared socially. Do you really think he’ll be able to stand his friends doing much more than he does for very long?
Essentially, the secret sauce here is that knowing the numbers leads to increased awareness. And, as we all know,awareness is the first step in changing behavior. Think about the possibilities here. By feeding a primal and utterly hypnotic obsession with numbers, we can get men fit again.
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