“The battle between listening to your own body’s needs versus letting technology tell you what your body needs has begun. Call me a Luddite, but I side with your inner voice. When was the last time you wrote in a journal—dear diary—how you felt physically (energy levels), what you ate and your mood two-three hours later; or what you did for exercise (walking included) and used complete sentences? It sounds cheesy, but I’m serious. You owe it to yourself. Tracking calories from your Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup addiction in a food app is not going to solve your problems. Reflecting on how groggy you felt after eating the sugar bomb will.”

— The Dark Side of Your Fitbit And Fitness App – The Daily Beast

An interesting counterpoint to Federico Viticci’s experience with using his iPhone to get back in shape after cancer. I’m trying to drop another 30 pounds, and it’s hard. Calorie tracking got me from 230 to 200, so there’s something to it, but these new tools are still blunt. It would be great to get a better sense of how what I eat and how I move affects me, and I’m terrible at reading myself. My inner voice is the one that says “eat the pudding.”

I do think we’ll get there, eventually, but we shouldn’t lose sight that people managed to get into shape, drop pounds, and be healthy long before we had iPhones and fitness trackers.