Be Fit With Biray

Text messaging is a wonderful thing!  Much like instant messaging on your computer, text messaging is an immediate way to get a message directly to someone from your phone.  And in the health & fitness industry, it can be a great way to send exercise & diet tips, meeting reminders, motivational quotes to your clients (asumng u & ur clnt undrstnd txt lingo, lol.)

I came across a company called FITtoPHONE.com, a website using text messaging to send members health and fitness information and programming in both nutrition and exericse.

Textually.org keep tabs on the current ways text messaging is being utilized around the world, from education, entertainment, to technology.  Health is also one of the categories followed - using text messaging for health promotion, disease prevention, and ways to enhance quality of life.

If you’re a trainer who relies heavily on connecting with your clients via phone, but are not very savvy with text messaging, no worries.  There is now Jott, a website that will translate your voice messages into text messages (and even emails).  I find this feature particularly useful when I’m in the car and need to get a quick message to a client (or a group of clients at the same time).  Instead of trying to text-while-driving (which we all know isn’t safe, but sometimes do anyway), I simply call “Jott,” leave a quick voice message to my client and let Jott translate it into a text/email from there.  Definitely a feature worth trying!

As health and fitness professionals we know text-messaging features could complement our efforts significantly when helping our clients adopt and adhere to health behaviors.  It’s important to understand what mobile technology is capable of - the book Mobile Persuasion discusses the ”20 perspectives on how mobile devices can be designed to motivate and influence people.”