Tracking it all the way!

Allison Tsai discusses what to look out for while purchasing an activity tracker.

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Not long ago, if you wanted to track your activity at a fancy affair, you'd have to clip a pedometer to your waistband. Thankfully, today's activity trackers blur the line between fashion accessory and health monitoring device. While trackers vary in appearance and features, their goals are the same: to help you boost activity and lose or maintain weight. But whether you'll respond to these techniques isn't so clear-cut.

Success factors

While activity-tracking devices don't work as well for weight loss as weekly weigh-ins with a trained professional, they can help you establish a baseline for activity, says Sheri Colberg-Ochs, a professor of exercise science at Old Dominion University in Virginia, particularly if you have no idea how much you're moving on a daily basis. Trackers provide self-monitoring and feedback, two important factors in weight loss success, at least in the short-term. And many trackers offer apps to help you succeed. Extra features include social support, goal-setting, and the ability to plan workouts.

Tracking activity is useful for Diabetes management, too. Users can compare their activity levels on days when their blood glucose is in range with levels on out-of-range days to see how activity affects their blood glucose, says John Jakicic, professor and chair of the Department of Health and Physical Activity and director of the Physical Activity and Weight Management Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh.

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