Post by rebecca83 on Sept 7, 2013 17:41:20 GMT
According to Ronald Reagan, the most dreadful sentence in the English language is, “Hi, I am from the government. I am here to solve your problems.”
The 40th US President was onto something. Government simply can’t solve some problems.
Technology is great but there are some problems which technology simply can’t solve. The scariest belief in fitness is, “Hi, this is an advanced high-tech gadget. It will solve your fitness problems.”
Why shouldn’t you believe that?
After all, technology has solved just about every other problem.
We couldn’t travel fast enough on land. Technology solved the problem by building bicycles, cars and trains. We couldn’t swim from one continent to the other. Technology solved that too, by building boats, yachts and ships. We envied the birds. Technology solved even that too, by building airships and planes.
We have all forgotten about poliomyelitis. How could we afford to forget, about a plague that crippled a significant portion of the earth’s population? Because Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine.
Technology came to the rescue.
Stop reading and take a look around you.
Appreciate the technology in your surrounding!
That’s how much we have come to heavily rely on technology to solve every problem around us.
On June 2013, the AMA (American Medical Association) declared obesity a disease. Entertain no illusions, obesity is an epidemic. A whopping 1 in every 3 American adults is obese according to a 2010 CDC (Center for Disease Control) statistic.
Faced with this plague, we are turning to gadgets like Jawbone Up, Fitbit Tracker, Nike+ Fuelband, Technogym, BodyMedia Fit etc. And the list goes on and on. The TV commercials are erupting with tech gimmicks. These days, you can’t flip through a fitness magazine without some overhyped gadget pouncing off the pages.
The game is on. Technology is looking for you. It wants to solve your overweight problems.
We have gotten so swamped with technology that no one has stopped to ask the quintessential question.
Can technology solve your fitness problems?
The answer is an emphatic no.
Tech tools are just that. TOOLS!
Tools are a means to an end. They can assist you in reaching your goals. But they cannot achieve the goals on their own will. Your microwave can’t prepare that pizza and satisfy your hunger by its own will. Your blender can’t blend that banana and quench your thirst by its own will.
You must set the goal. Supply the will. Dispense the effort at each step until the goal is attained.
Using Fitbit or Jawbone Up requires the same steps.
High tech tools cannot set your goal, supply the will nor dispense effort. You and only you can do this.
Suppose your goal is to develop a lean, flat stomach. In order to achieve this end, you purchase a futuristic, ultra-advanced Fitbit. The sophisticated Fitbit can tell you the amount of calories consumed and the calories spent.
You wake up and strap the ingenious Fitbit on your arm. It automatically computes how much calories you must consume today in order to remain fit.
Your state-of-the-art Fitbit can perform this computation because it monitored and stored all data from the previous days, weeks and months. It has your weight, heart rate, blood pressure, calories consumed, cholesterol level, etc.
The whole SHEBANG thanks to the NANOCHIP. (The microchip is history. Sorry prehistory _ like dinosaur era history)
You’re returning from work and the girls invite you over at Starbucks. The devilish aroma of Vanilla-chocolate muffins pierces through the rich haze of Arabica coffee and caresses your nostrils.
The muffins are at least 1000 on the calorific scale. But you are not thinking about that. The suave aroma has overpowered and subdued what was left of your rational ability.
The only meal which you’ve had today is a bowl of salad. According to your Fitbit wristband, you are not supposed to exceed 1500calories today.
You are still human; even after years of inflicting Spartanic stoicism on those hunger pangs which routinely corrode the walls of your stomach.
Your mouth waters. The sweetness in the air holds you captive in the way only a French bakery can.
Ask yourself! Of how much help would your Fitbit be at this moment?
Your Fitbit would be scandalously useless. Only you can decide to eat or not to eat. Only you can decide how much calories to consume. The decision has always been yours. And it will always remain yours.
You can’t outsource decision-making to technology.
That future date in which we would be able to outsource decision-making to gadgets is not yet here. When it arrives, we shall no longer be humans.
It doesn’t take gadgets or gym equipment to develop a flat stomach. It takes willpower, time, and knowledge.
Willpower, time and the right information are the resources needed to develop a lean tummy or achieve any other fitness goal. Off course, you’ll need money to pay for that gym membership or purchase that protein shake.
Each resource is quantity constrained.
The time spent fidgeting with your Fitbit leaves you less time to drudge on the treadmill.
Your willpower is not infinite. It is powered by the glucose in your body. You will suffer from ego depletion, if you spend your will resisting strawberry muffins and coffee snacks.
Your brain might have an infinite information storage capacity but there is only a fixed amount of the right information out there. The fitness industry is literally flooded with myths and dead wrong information.
You’ll have to make the effort to filter-out the feel good, pop-culture fads and acquire data-backed information which has consistently supplied scientifically proven results.
Each resource (willpower, time, brain power) spent on high tech gadgets leave less of the resource available for actual fitness work.
Quantified self gadgets can’t give you a flat stomach anymore than abs belts can. Quantified self gadgets are fads that will suffer the same fate as their predecessors.
How to get a flat stomach
The 40th US President was onto something. Government simply can’t solve some problems.
Technology is great but there are some problems which technology simply can’t solve. The scariest belief in fitness is, “Hi, this is an advanced high-tech gadget. It will solve your fitness problems.”
Why shouldn’t you believe that?
After all, technology has solved just about every other problem.
How to get a flat stomachWe couldn’t travel fast enough on land. Technology solved the problem by building bicycles, cars and trains. We couldn’t swim from one continent to the other. Technology solved that too, by building boats, yachts and ships. We envied the birds. Technology solved even that too, by building airships and planes.
We have all forgotten about poliomyelitis. How could we afford to forget, about a plague that crippled a significant portion of the earth’s population? Because Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine.
Technology came to the rescue.
Stop reading and take a look around you.
Appreciate the technology in your surrounding!
That’s how much we have come to heavily rely on technology to solve every problem around us.
On June 2013, the AMA (American Medical Association) declared obesity a disease. Entertain no illusions, obesity is an epidemic. A whopping 1 in every 3 American adults is obese according to a 2010 CDC (Center for Disease Control) statistic.
Faced with this plague, we are turning to gadgets like Jawbone Up, Fitbit Tracker, Nike+ Fuelband, Technogym, BodyMedia Fit etc. And the list goes on and on. The TV commercials are erupting with tech gimmicks. These days, you can’t flip through a fitness magazine without some overhyped gadget pouncing off the pages.
The game is on. Technology is looking for you. It wants to solve your overweight problems.
We have gotten so swamped with technology that no one has stopped to ask the quintessential question.
Can technology solve your fitness problems?
The answer is an emphatic no.
Tech tools are just that. TOOLS!
Tools are a means to an end. They can assist you in reaching your goals. But they cannot achieve the goals on their own will. Your microwave can’t prepare that pizza and satisfy your hunger by its own will. Your blender can’t blend that banana and quench your thirst by its own will.
You must set the goal. Supply the will. Dispense the effort at each step until the goal is attained.
Using Fitbit or Jawbone Up requires the same steps.
High tech tools cannot set your goal, supply the will nor dispense effort. You and only you can do this.
Suppose your goal is to develop a lean, flat stomach. In order to achieve this end, you purchase a futuristic, ultra-advanced Fitbit. The sophisticated Fitbit can tell you the amount of calories consumed and the calories spent.
You wake up and strap the ingenious Fitbit on your arm. It automatically computes how much calories you must consume today in order to remain fit.
Your state-of-the-art Fitbit can perform this computation because it monitored and stored all data from the previous days, weeks and months. It has your weight, heart rate, blood pressure, calories consumed, cholesterol level, etc.
The whole SHEBANG thanks to the NANOCHIP. (The microchip is history. Sorry prehistory _ like dinosaur era history)
You’re returning from work and the girls invite you over at Starbucks. The devilish aroma of Vanilla-chocolate muffins pierces through the rich haze of Arabica coffee and caresses your nostrils.
The muffins are at least 1000 on the calorific scale. But you are not thinking about that. The suave aroma has overpowered and subdued what was left of your rational ability.
The only meal which you’ve had today is a bowl of salad. According to your Fitbit wristband, you are not supposed to exceed 1500calories today.
You are still human; even after years of inflicting Spartanic stoicism on those hunger pangs which routinely corrode the walls of your stomach.
Ask yourself! Of how much help would your Fitbit be at this moment?
Your Fitbit would be scandalously useless. Only you can decide to eat or not to eat. Only you can decide how much calories to consume. The decision has always been yours. And it will always remain yours.
You can’t outsource decision-making to technology.
That future date in which we would be able to outsource decision-making to gadgets is not yet here. When it arrives, we shall no longer be humans.
It doesn’t take gadgets or gym equipment to develop a flat stomach. It takes willpower, time, and knowledge.
Willpower, time and the right information are the resources needed to develop a lean tummy or achieve any other fitness goal. Off course, you’ll need money to pay for that gym membership or purchase that protein shake.
Each resource is quantity constrained.
The time spent fidgeting with your Fitbit leaves you less time to drudge on the treadmill.
Your willpower is not infinite. It is powered by the glucose in your body. You will suffer from ego depletion, if you spend your will resisting strawberry muffins and coffee snacks.
Your brain might have an infinite information storage capacity but there is only a fixed amount of the right information out there. The fitness industry is literally flooded with myths and dead wrong information.
You’ll have to make the effort to filter-out the feel good, pop-culture fads and acquire data-backed information which has consistently supplied scientifically proven results.
Each resource (willpower, time, brain power) spent on high tech gadgets leave less of the resource available for actual fitness work.
Quantified self gadgets can’t give you a flat stomach anymore than abs belts can. Quantified self gadgets are fads that will suffer the same fate as their predecessors.
How to get a flat stomach