How I went from chubby to fit

July 4, 2014

If you give yourself a few years to modify your lifestyle, lose bad habits and adopt good ones, you can become a lot healthier without having to go through any painful questioning or frustration phase. Read Gabriele’s testimonial to understand how someone who has always been chubby learned to listen to his body, to take control and to reach a healthy weight.

Hello, my name is Gabriel and I’m 35 years old. I’ve always been a chubby boy. I used to eat very badly. When I was 25 years old I followed a drastic diet and finally I was able to lose 40 kg in 2 years. I moved from 113 to 76 kg and it was amazing to feel my body again. During the years my weight started to rise a little bit (some 10 kg I wanted to get rid of), so 2 years ago I decided to go on a diet again and then I also decided to buy my first Withings Wi-Fi Body Scale to track my weight. It was amazing, being a hi-tech fan, it was great to be able to follow my results on all my devices – my iPhone and my computer, via the Web – having all the data in sync.

“When making a diet it’s easy to lose weight,
but often it’s muscle and not fat that you’re losing.”

foto 4The fat/lean mass percentage was crucial. When dieting it’s easy to lose weight, but often it’s muscle and not fat that you’re losing. Using my Withings scale I was able to check if I was actually losing fat, and it was really really important. I like Withings because they keep on improving their products not only via hardware upgrades, but also via firmware updates (added features). That’s what they did with their scale, and also with the Withings Pulse 02. In October 2013 I got my Withings Pulse. I was thrilled by the fact that all the activity data is synced to the same app as the weight data measured by the scale, and that all the information is aggregated in the Health Mate app.

“Pulse helped me understand that I’m really a lazy guy.”

What I like of Pulse Ox is that it’s very lightweight and you almost forget that you have it with you. Pulse helped me understand that I’m really a lazy guy. I confess that since I have it I only reached the “10.000 steps a day” goal once or twice. But it was important for me to understand that I need to walk more. Maybe I will hardly reach the goal, but at least I’m trying to move more. Pulse is great for that. The only weak spots I see are the following: • I go to the swimming pool twice a week, to use a hydrobike and for the aquagym class, and all these water activities cannot be tracked. But who knows… maybe in the future Withings might think about a water resistant device (editor’s note: check out Activité Gabriele!). • I gave up tracking my sleep because of the sleep wristband – it didn’t make me feel at my ease. But I’m sure that with the new wristbands that were recently introduced this problem will be overcome.

“The Pulse Ox is incredible also because of the ever-improving features.”

The Pulse Ox is incredible also because of the ever-improving features. The new pulse oximetry function is really interesting and unique together with the heart rate sensor, even though I sometimes find it hard to make it work (editor’s note: these tips might be helpful).

“It’s not just a mere problem of losing weight to live better.”

foto 2 Around Christmas I got the new Smart Body Analyzer WS-50. Coming from the first version of the Wi-Fi scale, I found the same good information as before, plus other data regarding CO2 and the temperature of my room. The CO2 function was very useful because it made me understand that spending most of my day in my room, the concentration of CO2 actually gets very high so I need to open the window more often to clear the air and improve indoor air quality. New features were recently added, such as the Rain Alert function. It’s a plus. So in general I can say that I love Withings’ products. The quality is great and they are always improving their functions via firmware updates when possible. I can definitely say that Withings’ devices helped me understand that I can do things to improve my quality of living: move more, breathe fresh air… It’s not just a mere problem of losing weight to live better. Thank you Withings.

foto 3-1

Gabriele Cancelli
Castelli Calepio, Italy

Feel like reading more Withings user testimonials?
– About weight loss. – About getting more active and becoming healthy. – About blood pressure monitoring. – About tracking several body data in order to get the big picture of your health – Or simply about  being healthy

Withings

At Withings, we make a range of products that empower people to make the right decisions for their health. Our award-winning connected devices are known for personalization, cutting-edge design, and ease of use, allowing anyone to measure, monitor, and track what matters via seamless connection to the free Health Mate app available for iOS & Android.
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