I got home from Orlando to a nice surprise today—a Fitbit Aria 2!
I’ve been wearing a Fitbit Ionic smart watch for over a year now. I love that the data provides a fuller picture of what health looks like. Not just a number on a scale, but also my cardio fitness and the number of hours of sleep I get each night. There’s no focus on weight, which isn’t a great indicator of health. For me in particular, my weight is usually higher when I’m making healthy choices—when I work out I gain muscle mass that isn’t there when I’m more sedentary.
The Aria 2 adds one more data point to the mix—my percent body fat. I’m excited about being able to include this in my more nuanced picture of health that’s already tracked in my Fitbit app today.
The scale was easy to connect to my wifi network and my Fitbit app (and batteries were included!) so startup only took a few minutes. I love that I can customize my goals in the app, including a target body fat percentage—one wish however is that it would let me focus on that percent instead of my weight. Not a deal breaker, but a simple advanced setting would be nice.
Weight loss alone won’t necessarily lead to huge decreases in body fat since weight loss without exercise will lead to decreases in lean mass as well. If you really want to decrease your body fat percentage you’ve got to eat better, do cardiovascular exercise AND remember to do resistance training to build up your lean mass, otherwise about 25% of every pound you lose will come from lean, calorie-burning muscle.
American Council on Exercise
Photos from Fitbit
A little less perfect 