Let Werables Guide You, Not Control You

Fitness tech is smarter than ever. With a quick glance, you can see your recovery score, resting heart rate, glucose variability, or how many deep sleep cycles you had. Devices like Oura, Whoop, Apple Watch, and even continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) — you name it — promise real-time optimisation for your body and performance. But here’s the thing:

Most of these tools were built for two extremes: elite athletes or people with diagnosed medical conditions.

If you’re neither, and just trying to feel good, get stronger, and live long, there’s a real risk of outsourcing your decision-making to data that wasn’t made for your context.

Wearable data is a guide, not a directive

Your body’s feedback still matters most. Use tools like Oura or CGMs for insight, but let discipline and self-awareness drive decisions.

1. Great Tools — for the Right Job

Let’s be clear: wearable tech can be useful. Athletes need performance data. Diabetics rely on CGMs. But for most healthy individuals, the flood of numbers often creates confusion instead of clarity. Devices don’t feel. You do. Take recovery scores, for example. WHOOP or Oura might tell you your HRV dropped, or your sleep wasn’t optimal. That’s helpful insight, but should it dictate whether you train?

For the average person, training while slightly under-recovered is still safe, and can even be adaptive, as long as you autoregulate your intensity. Studies showed that flexible training based on how you feel can improve outcomes over rigid plans based only on biometric data.

Wearables are booming: between 33% and 50% of UK adults now use a smartwatch or fitness tracker, making the UK one of the most connected markets globally. And they do work — at first. One large Lancet Digital Health study showed smartwatches increased activity by about 50 minutes per week, or roughly 1,200 daily steps. But the gains don’t always last. A Singapore study found that while tracker users started strong, only 10% remained consistently active at 12 months, and no lasting health benefits were observed.

Bottom line: Use wearables to inform, not control. They can kickstart awareness, but they can’t replace structure, consistency, or intuition. Use the data. But lead with your own judgment.

2. The CGM Trap — Great Data, But Often the Wrong Context

Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) are trending hard in the wellness world and are worn by everyone from biohackers to casual lifters. But unless you’re managing diabetes, there’s a real risk of misinterpreting what these devices are actually telling you. Most CGMs measure interstitial fluid, not blood glucose directly, which means there’s typically a 10–15 minute lag between what’s happening in your bloodstream and what the sensor reports.

That delay matters. You might see a post-meal spike or pre-workout dip and think you’re under-fueled, when in reality, your body is just fine. This leads many people (especially women) to unintentionally train fasted, particularly during the luteal phase, when the body actually needs more carbohydrates to perform and recover well. As Dr. Stacy Sims claims, training fasted during certain hormonal phases may increase stress load and impair adaptation, especially if it becomes habitual. In men, too, fasted workouts can significantly elevate cortisol and temporarily suppress testosterone levels, reducing the testosterone-to-cortisol ratio and potentially hindering recovery and performance gains

Bottom line: Data without context can lead you off track. Know what your CGM is measuring — and remember, your subjective energy and hunger cues matter too.

3. Don’t Let Sleep Scores Dictate Movement

It’s tempting to skip training because your device flagged a “poor sleep” night. But here’s what the research actually says:

• People often misjudge how well they slept. It was found that subjective sleep quality frequently doesn’t match objective measures.

• Even light exercise can improve your sleep the next night. A meta-analysis showed that physical activity enhances total sleep time, efficiency, and sleep onset.

So unless you’re actually sick or severely fatigued, a session, even after a rough night, could help your sleep, not hinder it. Trust your body more than a recovery score.

Bottom line: Don’t let a low sleep score cancel your workout. Unless you’re genuinely unwell, light to moderate movement can actually improve how you sleep the next night. Your perception and physical cues matter more than an algorithm’s red warning.

4. Gamify with Purpose — Don’t Let Devices Take Over

Wearables aren’t just for tracking, they’re for guiding. But the chance to know more doesn’t mean you must do more. Your device should be your assistant, not your authority.

Here’s how to stay in charge:

• Track progress, don’t moralise it. Your wearable should highlight trends, not shame you over single-day misses.

• See patterns, not panic points. Glucose spikes or low readiness scores → insights.

• Discipline isn’t obedience—it’s discernment. Sometimes the right call is: Yes, I feel like training today even if the app suggests rest.

You’re more than a metric. You’re the one steering. Use tech as a helping hand, but never hand over control.

Bottom line: Technology is a tool, not your coach, conscience, or limit. Use data to guide, not govern. Discipline means showing up with awareness, even when the metrics aren’t perfect. You’re not a passenger in your training: you’re the driver.

In the end, your body is the real expert. Wearables can sharpen your awareness and support better habits. They’re tools, not rules. Instead of outsourcing every decision to a score or spike, build your own foundation: consistent training, smart fueling, and intentional rest. Let the data inform your choices, not override your intuition. Master the tech, don’t be mastered by it.