Let’s face it, we’ve all been cheated at some point in our life… sports, finances, work promotion or even a marriage. Now, this is not the kind of “cheated” I want to talk to you about. What I’m talking about is more of a dirty little secret that is playing tricks on you. The funny thing is, you don’t even know it and yet you are led to believe it’s truth and accuracy. It’s like a thief in the night and you are victim. I’m going to give you the cold hard facts so you don’t have to be sabotaged ever again. Fair enough? If you wear a smart watch (Apple, Fit Bit, Samsung, Garmin) you are being fed a lie. A lie that is bigger than the Grand Canyon. The crazy thing is that once you tell a lie over and over again, you start thinking its truth. This is essentially what smart watch manufacturers and one giant fitness franchise based out of Boca Raton, FL is guilty of. Side note… I actually love this fitness franchise and what they’ve done for the fitness industry. If you’ve ever worn a smart watch that records your heart rate via your wrist then you are being duped just like Penn and Teller’s guests at a Las Vegas night show. The mechanism behind optical heart rate monitoring via the wrist is called "photoplethysmography" or (PPG). It’s the process of using light to measure blood flow. Wearables with optical heart-rate monitors have small LEDs on their undersides that shine green light onto the skin on your wrist. When you move (as with exercise) or if the watch is not fit tightly around the wrist, the data gets obscured and wildly inaccurate. This is where the device will simply “estimate” your heart rate and for many can’t read heart rates above 130 with any accuracy. So essentially what this does is it creates faulty information which is then used to calculate calorie expenditure and zones for exercise. So bad information in… Bad information out. So that chocolate cake you think you earned after your last bout of exercise…. Think again. So here’s my advise to you… Only use the wrist heart rate monitoring for at rest and you must be stationary. 2. Only use a chest strap with 99% EKG accuracy for heart rate tracking (think Myzone) during your workouts or physical activities. Now you know the dirty little secret, use it to your advantage and never get duped again.