Read up. Wellness, your way.

Wearable health tracking devices – like the Apple Watch, Oura Ring, continuous glucose monitors and more – are popular and they have revolutionized the ways in which we monitor our health, but do they actually help you get well, prevent disease and make sustainable lifestyle changes?

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I’m an Apple Watch user myself, and I’ll admit – when I first saw this device, I was pretty amazed, and the updates have only gotten more impressive. It allows us to measure daily activity and other health stats in real time PLUS serves other functions, like letting us tell time, track the weather, communicate via text message and more.

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Garmin also does a good job with health tracking. I've compared various devices, and the Garmin brand consistently delivers reliable results – and their team is constantly updating the technology and adding even more features. Garmin is, of course, also a pioneer in GPS navigation, and has historically catered to athletes and super-active people, which means it’s hyper-focused on developing and improving those features.

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Another notable device is the Oura Ring, which I haven't personally tried, but I've noticed its growing popularity.  The Oura device is worn as a ring on your finger, and tracks activity, sleep and your “readiness score,” so that you can make decisions about whether to increase your workout intensity, add in a rest day and more.

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Whether it's on your finger or wrist, the key is to find a device that suits your needs and preferences.

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Navigating the Numbers: Understanding the Meaning of Health Tracking Data

There are so many positive things about tracking our vital statistics of life and I'm very much for that – if that's your personality!  There are some people who want to track everything and who want to know all of the things.

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Other people find all of that data to be a distraction (or worse!).

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For instance, when it comes to the scale – some find it helpful to weigh themselves every day, to monitor fluctuations and progress. But I’ve spoken with many who find that constant feedback defeating or frustrating. For them, checking in via the scale less frequently (or not at all!) is a more effective strategy.

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What I love about these wearable devices is that it allows each person to track and measure what is most helpful for them, and ultimately, to better understand their unique bodies and needs.

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My concern with these devices, though, is that we don’t always know what those numbers mean.  So if we're tracking our steps and we know we're shooting for a target goal of so many steps a day or shooting for 30 minutes of exercise, or we're looking at HIIT training and tracking our VO2 Max, we really need to also understand what these numbers are telling us, so we can make appropriate adjustments.

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I often see this with continuous glucose monitoring as well.  We’ll say “I had this apple and look what this did to my glucose.”  Well, how do we know what normal is and how do we know if the change was okay? We wonder, “Should I have had that apple? Does that mean apples are bad?”

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When I hear those thoughts, I get concerned about the messages sent – which can demonize an apple or a banana very quickly, because it doesn’t necessarily take into account  what our blood sugars do and how our body responds when we eat.  

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We want our blood sugar to go up when we eat. Our goal isn't to starve, and our goal isn't to avoid raising blood sugar. Our goal is to manage it and to have a nice balanced blood sugar after meals (but it will go up!).  It’s how it comes back down that we need to watch and understand.

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The Healthy Diet & Longevity Score: A Lifestyle-Focused Way to Track Health As a Process

Before we look further into the numbers, I just want to emphasize that as I talk about wearable devices, it is so important not to get obsessed with it and to understand what you're tracking.  I think it's great to set goals and I think they are all really good things to track, but what's most important to remember is we want to focus on more than a static point in our health. That's what drove me to create The Healthy Diet & Longevity Score. The Score is about being healthy. That's our goal.

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When we’re looking at our health by tracking heart rate or tracking VO2 Max, we’re looking at a static point in time, but health is a process.  It's a lifestyle. This is why I like tracking the 20 point score.  Every day, I'm shooting for 20.

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20 points of health is what I'm doing.  It's an action.  It's my lifestyle.  It's how I live and what I eat.  That's what I love to see people tracking every day.  Everyone, every day, being aware of, “Did I get my berries today?  Did I get the beans today that help me naturally lower cholesterol?  Did I get those plant proteins that are so powerful for blood pressure reduction and blood vessel healing?  Am I eating the things that stop that heart attack?  Foods that help me heal?  And am I eating them in helpful combinations?” That's what the focus of The Plate (a tool available to members of Dr. Cheryl+) is. To help me feel full for four hours and crush hunger.

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The Score is what you can track every single day. You can look at the 10 foods and the right dose of those foods and each one gives you a point.  And for each health habit you can track, “Did I get 10 minutes of early morning sunshine? One point. Did I get my sleep? Am I going to bed at a consistent time and getting at least 7 1/2 to 8 hours sleep a night? One point.”

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Tracking Your Way to Optimal Health

You can track your health on your own, but what we know is that people who have a score of 16 or more out of 20 have the lowest risk factors for the chronic diseases that shorten our life. The Healthy Diet & Longevity Score is a way to statistically measure the power of lifestyle on our health.  So if we say one of our goals is to exercise 30 minutes a day, which would also give us one point for The Score, your tracking device can help you measure that.

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But the device won't make you well, so it's really important to use them for what they're for and to also not beat yourself up when you don’t meet their measures of health. Don't use them as a tool to think about “I didn't do this” or “I didn't do that.”  Work to understand what continuous glucose monitoring actually means, how you can apply that, and how that works in your everyday life.

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When I think about trackable devices, I come back to knowing that my dream was to create a simple, easy tool to show you how to be as healthy as you can be today and to fight future disease tomorrow. So what's Your Score? I'd love for you to see how you score by taking The Healthy Diet & Longevity Score today.  Drop your score in the comments!

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