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January 2, 2014 01:00 am GMT
New Year’s wellness resolutions are like prom night: a lot of hype, even more promises, and a disappointing follow-through. A paltry 19 percent of wannabe health nuts follow through with their annual resolutions, according to University of Scranton Professor John Norcross. The quickest way to dissolve your hardened commitments into a bowl of disappointed Jell-O is to set a course without clear goals and constant improvement. This is where technology and a dash of the scientific method can help. Instead of relying on fragmented web advice and our own fragile intuition, “quantified self” is all about treating self-improvement with the rigor of an academic laboratory: make singular adjustments, chart progress, and cumulate learnings. Quantified self can get sort of extreme; I’ve done things with my body that should neither see sunlight nor be talked about in public. Fortunately, cheaper gadgets, diagnosis startups, and web tools have opened up the “quantified self” movement to everyday consumers who just want to save time and feel a little sexier in front of the mirror. So, here’s how to super-charge your New Year’s resolutions with science. Set The Right Metrics First thing first: you need the right numbers. For instance, “weight loss” is a silly path to sexy, sexy abs, since you’ll probably want to pack on heavy muscle while shedding those love handles. What you actually want is lean body mass. Instead of a standard scale, splurge on one that measures fat percentage, such as the Withings Smart Body Analyzer. I’ve found that the Withings scale isn’t very accurate for measuring my total body fat percentages, but it’s generally good at measuring changes, which is really what counts in a resolution. Or, if money’s tight and you can dedicate more time, just pick up some skinfold calipers (a handheld clip). In other words, you want a measure that is as close to your goal as possible. Instead of “going to the gym more,” try “increasing my max squat.” Instead of “walking more,” try “total number of hours active per day” (the Nike Fuelband SE has a nice metric for this one, since sitting all day can counteract scheduled exercise). This makes nutritional goals difficult, because there’s no good way to measure whether your body is, in fact, absorbing them. Best to stick to performance-minded goals and see if eating healthier helps you meet them. Set The Baseline And Control Variables Slow your roll,
Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/iluTqVzuFBQ/
How The Quantified Life Can Help You Achieve Your New Years Resolutions
New Year’s wellness resolutions are like prom night: a lot of hype, even more promises, and a disappointing follow-through. A paltry 19 percent of wannabe health nuts follow through with their annual resolutions, according to University of Scranton Professor John Norcross. The quickest way to dissolve your hardened commitments into a bowl of disappointed Jell-O is to set a course without clear goals and constant improvement. This is where technology and a dash of the scientific method can help. Instead of relying on fragmented web advice and our own fragile intuition, “quantified self” is all about treating self-improvement with the rigor of an academic laboratory: make singular adjustments, chart progress, and cumulate learnings. Quantified self can get sort of extreme; I’ve done things with my body that should neither see sunlight nor be talked about in public. Fortunately, cheaper gadgets, diagnosis startups, and web tools have opened up the “quantified self” movement to everyday consumers who just want to save time and feel a little sexier in front of the mirror. So, here’s how to super-charge your New Year’s resolutions with science. Set The Right Metrics First thing first: you need the right numbers. For instance, “weight loss” is a silly path to sexy, sexy abs, since you’ll probably want to pack on heavy muscle while shedding those love handles. What you actually want is lean body mass. Instead of a standard scale, splurge on one that measures fat percentage, such as the Withings Smart Body Analyzer. I’ve found that the Withings scale isn’t very accurate for measuring my total body fat percentages, but it’s generally good at measuring changes, which is really what counts in a resolution. Or, if money’s tight and you can dedicate more time, just pick up some skinfold calipers (a handheld clip). In other words, you want a measure that is as close to your goal as possible. Instead of “going to the gym more,” try “increasing my max squat.” Instead of “walking more,” try “total number of hours active per day” (the Nike Fuelband SE has a nice metric for this one, since sitting all day can counteract scheduled exercise). This makes nutritional goals difficult, because there’s no good way to measure whether your body is, in fact, absorbing them. Best to stick to performance-minded goals and see if eating healthier helps you meet them. Set The Baseline And Control Variables Slow your roll,Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/iluTqVzuFBQ/
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