Exercise is one of the most important factors in a long, healthy life. Regular daily activity helps promote all kinds of health benefits for seniors, including stress relief, lower blood pressure, blood sugar control, and even improvements to bone density. Between built-in phone apps and smart watches, it’s never been easier to track and achieve your daily physical activity goals. But if you’re a self-described technophobe – someone who doesn’t consider themselves tech-savvy – it can be hard to know where to start. Devices like FitBit might offer great benefits, but they can be tricky for users who are less comfortable with technology. Let’s explore a few fitness trackers for technophobes.
Fitness Trackers for Technophobes
Wear a Pedometer
Pedometers are handy step-tracking devices you can wear around your wrist or ankle. Not only do pedometers track your steps, but also they’ve been proven to increase your daily step count. A 2007 summary of 26 studies by Stanford researchers found that walkers using pedometers completed about 2,000 more steps daily than individuals who did not use pedometers. That resulted in a 27-percent total increase in overall physical activity level. Pedometers are also small, easy to use, and inexpensive. Overall, pedometers can serve as a great motivational tool to get you moving, and they don’t require a lot of technological know-how.
Try a Lively Tracker
Lively is a fairly new fitness tracker on the market that is specifically designed for active individuals exercising through their golden years. Lively is an easy-to-use watch that counts your steps throughout the day. Unlike other fitness trackers, Lively doesn’t complicate things by tracking calories burned, sleep quality, or other extraneous statistics. Lively also doubles as an emergency alert watch, helping older adults stay safe and independent while living on their own.
When in Doubt, Take the Old-Fashioned Way
When it comes to get getting active, the most important thing is setting a goal and sticking with it. Fortunately, you can accomplish that goal without technology. If you’d rather avoid fitness trackers and pedometers, you can always track your personal fitness with a pencil and paper. Try tallying up the number of days you walk around your block or the number of minutes you spend exercising each week. You might also consider making things a little interesting with a weekly or monthly activity challenge within your friend group. Just call up a few friends and compare the number of walks you each take, awarding the winner a prize. Whatever it takes to get you moving! You’ll be logging more steps in no time.
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You already know that daily exercise is an important way to maintain your health as you get older. Countless studies show that exercise helps fend off ailments like heart disease, high blood sugar, and high cholesterol. Whether you decide to leap into 2020 with a fitness tracker like Lively – or stick to old-fashioned activity tracking measures like a pedometer or a handwritten activity journal – the most important thing is finding a strategy that works for you.
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