Duke Health explains how to use fitness tracker to reach New Year goals
DURHAM, North Carolina (WTVD) -- A new year means a new attempt at hitting the gym and eating healthier for a lot of folks, but Duke's Diet and Fitness Center says it's all about using the tech resources you have to work smarter not harder.
Your tech gear can be a big help to make sure you're burning more calories than you're eating, according to Brian Housle, fitness director at Duke's Diet and Fitness Center.
"If you find a device that is also compatible with the app that you use for food tracking, that's a good way to keep track of calories in and then calories out," Housle said.
When it comes to getting the most out of your workout, Housle recommends high-intensity interval training.
"There's greater fat loss; there's greater increase in your cardiovascular fitness, greater recovery rate, greater muscle retention -- all these things are coming out of interval training," he said.
So the idea is to push yourself as much as you can in under a minute, while using your fitness tracker, and when you've reached your maximum target heart rate, you stop.
"And then [you] recover and then repeat that process over and over again for a workout," Housle said. "So it might not be an hour workout because you might reach fatigue pretty quickly when you're trying to elevate your intensity."
"The heart-rate tracking device is probably a good way to know that I'm actually doing this really high intensity, more accurately than just going 'oh I feel like I'm tired,' " he added.
If you're just getting started, they recommend working at a moderate intensity, and resting for longer.
Above all, the number one thing the Duke Diet and Fitness Center recommends is finding a time in your schedule to work out and committing that time to a routine.
