Why digital + health go hand in hand.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing, around 3 in 5 adults are obese. The times they aren’t-a-changing. Yet.

To me, the obesity crisis of the past five years is of great concern. In a country where healthy food is abundant and we have beautiful open spaces to roam around in, how did we evolve into a culture that is reluctant to move? I for one like to move it.

It’s an exciting time for technology and health. Never before has there been such rapid development in apps, wearable devices and smart clothing. All of which work towards helping us achieve our health and fitness goals.

If you’re already keeping your mind and body active then why not take it a step further and get into the habit of using some apps that may help you to achieve more?

We want to live longer and healthier lives

I want to live as long possible and make the most out of my life. And I want to be healthy as I can. Not just physically, but mentally, too.

Apparently, we rely too much on technology. Why can’t technology be the enabler?

One issue often raised in the debate on societal obesity is our tendency to park our bodies on the couch surrounding ourselves with so much technology that we don’t move.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the ability to get up-to-the moment stats on how many possessions my favourite player has at half time, but where does it end?

We spend a couple of hours on the Xbox, catch an on-demand movie from our pay TV subscription, all the while flicking through pages on our iPad or texting on our phone. Add up this time and you’ve spent six hours of an evening in front of a large screen TV, tablet and phone in hand, and you haven’t moved an inch. But you’re exhausted right?

As a society we aren’t as inclined to use technology to keep us off the couch as we are to use it to keep us on the couch. But what if we changed our attitude to technology and its presence in our lives? There’s no reason why technology can’t be used to get us off the couch and moving more. You can easily make it from the Couch to 5 kilometres.

How I use technology as part of a healthy life

As someone who frequently trains alone (sad face), I rely on good apps to keep me motivated and progressing forward.

Runkeeper

I generally don’t enjoy running because my body isn’t really built for it . But the Runkeeper app makes it bearable. It gives me real-time feedback on how far I’ve travelled, how long I’ve been running and how my pace is tracking over the (little) distance I cover.

A handy feature is that it gives you some basic graphs of your pace over the journey of the run, the elevation and the route you took. There’s also a useful reminder tool. It sends you a note a few days later reminding you that on your last run you decided that a certain date and time was a good chance to go for another one.

Runkeeper is easy to use and comes with functionality for walking and cycling.  It’s recently been updated to enable tracking runs, rides and other exercises in GPS mode vs standalone mode. This is perfect for those early morning treadmill runs when it’s -100 degrees outside! So, if you’re just starting out, you could monitor your walks and then shift into running.

5×5 Strong Lifts

An important part of any training regime is resistance training. Building muscle is pivotal if you’re striving for fat loss and a general improvement in your physique. I don’t have a gym membership, and rely on the small amount of at-home weights equipment that fits in my garage.

I first saw this app featured on a recent Apple iPhone5 advertisement.

It’s great!

The app guides you using five of the best compound exercises: bench press, shoulder press, upright row, deadlifts and squats. It gives you the ability to easily track your progress as you attempt to get through 5 x 5 (five sets of five repetitions). If you get through those five reps successfully, the app automatically increases your load by 2.5 kilograms the next time you train. If you don’t, it recognises this and keeps you at the same weight until you master it.

It can be difficult to stay motivated with resistance training (maybe, I’ll just skip a rep or not do as many sets today…) but this app keeps you motivated.

MyFitnessPal

Some say abs are made in the kitchen. Others say it’s (keb)abs. One thing is for certain: how vigilant you become when you are forced to write down everything that goes into your mouth.

MyFitnessPal has some great features:

• It saves your favourite meals.
• It shows you the breakdown of carbs, protein, fats and sugars in each serving and tracks your total calorie intake against your goals.
• It has the ability to scan the barcode of the chicken you’re about to have for dinner, or maybe even the Maccas you’re about to chow down (not that I eat the stuff – I’m an athlete).
• It syncs with a range of other fitness apps, such as RunKeeper, Strava and many more so that you can monitor what you’re putting in your body and what your burning.

Rdio

Most people who train frequently will tell you they rely on music to keep them going. Whether it be some heavy metal, pop or RnB, everybody’s tastes are different. I’m always fascinated to hear the music people like to train to. Some tracks high on my exercise playlist at the moment are:

• Deadmau5 – Professional Griefers
• Kanye West – Black Skinhead
• Biffy Clyro – Mountains

How will our attitude to fitness change with the intro of wearable tech?

The introduction of wearable tech, such as the Fitbit and Apple watch, makes it easier to track your health and fitness data. Granted, it may feel a little more intrusive for some.

Let’s ponder the future for a moment. Let’s think about the possibilities for wearable tech and the impact it can have on our health.

One of my biggest hurdles when using an app such as MyFitnessPal is the sheer task of remembering to take the phone out of my pocket and plug in the details. Sounds easy, but when you’re mid-meal or post-meal you just want to enjoy the moment. Sometimes it can be annoying.

Imagine if your wearable tech device senses you are lifting your hand up to your mouth when you might normally be having breakfast and prompts you to confirm whether you’re having your cereal or a coffee.

What if it could recognise that you had just started a run and then, once you’re done, record a new personal best for you? Or, if you smashed out an extra rep at your max weight on the bench press?

What if your wearable device could detect that the weather was going to turn sour before 6pm and reminded you to make sure you got your run in before then?

Or if it found a quick break in your daily schedule and knew that your local gym was quieter than usual? Would you take that opportunity to squeeze the gym session in?

No longer would you need to have your head in your phone manually interacting with RunKeeper. Nor would you need to carry your phone in one of those practical but silly arm bands. Imagine not counting sets and reps in your head.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if your wearable device could give you a friendly reminder that even though you need to stop for food on the way home late after work that there’s a healthier option still open nearby?

No longer would we need to be the ones motivating ourselves, or relying on a friend or family member to keep our spirits up. If we allowed the technology in to our lives, and it was up for the challenge, it could give us those friendly nudges. Instead of getting to 6pm after having been on the couch for 4 hours, we could have squeezed in a 20 minute run during the tea break of the cricket.

A little bit extra

If you’d like to know the sort of health and fitness activities we get up to at August, keep reading.

We like to embrace a healthy culture. Not just in terms of physical fitness, but also in mental health.

It starts with our food choices. Whether that be the healthy lunches we get delivered three days a week, the devout users of Strava, or the dedicated approach we have to eating healthy foods over junk.

Then there’s the fact that our company culture values positivity and being present. As a team, we like to see our fellow team members motivated and pumped to tackle anything that comes their way. I’m proud that August doesn’t tolerate gossip. We prefer to talk about things we enjoy in life. After all, like begets like.

Our social club events have a health and well-being theme, too. We recently did Box Hill Indoor Bubble Soccer and, as a reasonably fit person, I can tell you that it was one of the most intense workouts I’ve had in a while. We were definitely feeling it the next morning! If you’ve not seen Bubble Soccer, check out some of our pics.

Outside of social club events, people regularly cycle, run and participate in crossfit (not all at the one time, otherwise we’d have an Olympic team). Those who regularly do these activities tend to use an app to help keep track of progress, nutrition or gear.