If you’re serious about losing weight, building muscle, or completing your own transformation, there’s one piece of equipment you need to be using.
And it might not be what you think.
A set of free weights and a bench?
If you’re thinking that’s the best equipment to get results, that at least deserves a virtual fist bump. You could work though a lot of reps, sets, and compound movements if that’s all you had to work with.
But a bench and some free weights aren’t enough to help you change your behaviors, track your progress, level up every workout, and hit your calorie and macro goals.
There’s a piece of equipment that can help you do all of that. And if you’re not using it to dial in your diet and set PRs in the gym, you’re missing out.
What’s the one piece of equipment you should be using to get results?
Your smartphone.
If you’re not currently using your smartphone to train right and eat healthy, consider this:
- About 77 percent of all adults in the U.S. own a smartphone. If you’re 18 to 29 years old, that jumps to 92 percent. Smartphone ownership isn’t quite as high in other countries, but it’s growing rapidly.[1]
- About 58 percent of all smartphone users have downloaded a fitness app for help on how to be more active, lose weight, or eat healthier. [2]
- Research shows using apps on your phone can help you make behavior changes to improve your health and fitness.[3]
Behavior change isn’t easy
If you’re trying to go from fat to fit, couch potato to beast mode, or slob to superhero, you’re going to need to change your ways. Your diet will need likely need a makeover, and so will your exercise habits.
Or if you’re just trying to lose that last 10 pounds to get totally shredded, doing a better job at sticking to the plan is going to make a big difference.
But it’s not easy to change old habits.
If you’ve ever found yourself slipping back into old habits, skipping workouts, eating too much junk food, getting by on just a wink of sleep, even though you need to change, you’re not alone.
Behavior change doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process, says Dr. James Prochaska, that looks like this:
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- Pre-contemplation. You’re not really even thinking about losing weight, building muscle, or transforming your body.
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- Contemplation. Something happens that makes you start thinking about your health, fitness level, and the way that you look.
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- Preparation. You get a gym membership. You buy a fitness program. You hire a personal trainer. You’re putting all the pieces into place to be successful.
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- Action. You’re following a training plan, eating healthy, and tracking your progress.
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- Maintenance. You’ve replaced your old habits with healthy and sustainable habits.
So what does behavior change have to do with your smartphone?
Everything. Especially if you’re the kind of person who spends a lot of time on your phone.
In the ever-evolving world of smartphone apps, there’s a health and fitness app for nearly every goal you can think of.
Some combine fitness and nutrition like MyFitnessPal that helps you set weight loss and training goals, and makes it easy to keep track of calories and macros. And others are more specific, like apps designed to help you drink more water.
When you’re trying to establish new habits (like lifting 4-5 days a week, eating the right amount of calories and macros daily, getting enough sleep, etc.), anything you can do to help you be consistent, measure your progress, and get results is going to help.
I’m sure there are some old-school thinkers out there who believe you should just “know” how many calories you’re eating and what the macro profile of every meal is, but that’s just not going to happen for most people.
How about your workouts? Can you remember how much you lifted last week or last month, and what your rep/set scheme looked like from memory?
Probably not. And it’s one more reason to put your smartphone to work for you.
Benefits of Smartphone Use for Training and Nutrition
Wondering how a smartphone can help you tip the scale in the right direction and achieve better results in less time? Here are some things your smartphone can help you with:
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- Track your weight. Weigh in daily, and you’ll have a key piece of information that can help shape your food choices and training.
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- Count calories and macros. If you know how many calories you need to eat to lose weight or build muscle, and what your macros (protein, fat, carbs), should look like, use a smartphone. It’s the fastest and easiest way to rethink your diet. Do this long enough, and you’ll get good at estimating portion sizes, calories, and macros for food.
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- Progress your workouts. It’s easy to get in a routine at the gym, do the same exercises, lift the same amount of weight, etc. But when you have all your workout data at your fingertips, it’s a lot easier to progress your workouts, lift heavier, add reps or sets, change things up, and prevent a plateau.
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- Improve lifestyle habits. Maybe you’ve got your diet and workouts nailed down, but it’s other areas of your life that are hindering your progress like lack of sleep, poor hydration, or something else. You can use your phone to set reminders to help you replace bad habits with healthier ones that are going to help you make progress.
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- Increase accountability. Here’s another benefit of using your phone for training and nutrition. If you take advantage of social media, typically a built-in feature of most apps, you’ll be able to share your progress with your network and increase accountability. In other words, you’ll be more likely to make better food choices and carve out time for your workouts, when you know other people are watching.
Ready to put your smartphone to work? My customized training and nutrition programs are compatible with many different health and fitness apps.
References
1. Rainie, L, et al. (2017). 10 facts about smartphones as the iPhone turns 10. Pew Research Center. From: www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/28/10-facts-about-smartphones/
- Pai, A. (2015). Survey: 58 percent of smartphone users have downloaded a fitness or health app. Mobi Health News. From: www.mobihealthnews.com/48273/survey-58-percent-of-smartphone-users-have-downloaded-a-fitness-or-health-app
- Payne, H., et al. (2015). Behavioral functionality of mobile apps in health interventions: A systematic review of the literature. JMIR mHealth and uHealth. From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4376122/
- Prochaska, J.O. (1997). The transtheoretical model of health behavior change. American Journal of Health Promotion. From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10170434