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Comment by mbillie1 | Hacker News Reader

This is, sadly, advice which gets ignored by an overwhelming number of people in our industry. I know so many otherwise smart folks who buy a FitBit and track their caloric intake only to then drive (not go outside and walk) 2 blocks to get lunch at McDonalds or someplace similar. You don't need a product/app to live a healthy lifestyle... most likely if you are trying to solve a health/lifestyle problem by purchasing something, that is just symptomatic of yet another unhealthy aspect of your lifestyle.

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> You don't need a product/app to live a healthy lifestyle

You don't if you live within constraints which are healthy. Many people do not, because of their job, or because of the way their physical environment is set up - for instance, you may stand in a shop for 8 hours a day, and develop problems with your legs. The sensible thing to do is not to stand for 8 hours a day, but the reason why you may have done that before is because that is the expected, default behaviour. To change that so you are moving around enough not to cause damage requires deliberate and ongoing intervention, and something that tracks movement can certainly help with that. Likewise if you develop health problems from sitting for 8 hours a day.

I am reminded of a few simple words of wisdom from Michael Pollan - "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

> most likely if you are trying to solve a health/lifestyle problem by purchasing something, that is just symptomatic of yet another unhealthy aspect of your lifestyle

Tell that to the thirty pounds I've lost, over the last couple months, by dint of using a Basis band to track calories out, and logging what I eat to do the same for calories in.

Could you have done it without the band though?

Not and have any idea how close I am to my target deficit; I'd either err low and fail to lose the weight, or err high and badly endanger my health via malnutrition. With the band, I know exactly where I'm coming in on a daily basis, and I can, for example, plot calorie deficit over delta-weight and see where I should be aiming for best effect.

In general, I'm surprised to see such a Luddite attitude espoused on HN. What kind of engineer doesn't see the value in collecting the necessary data to characterize a problem or a process accurately? That's Step One.

Yeah, I love to collect data on my running, for example. But my point is I'd (and probably you would also) be doing it anyway, with or without the data.

The basis band you mention looks pretty cool though, going to check that out further.

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