Why are some of us so obsessed with our Garmin fitness age? A professor of psychology explains

At almost 66, my mother is one of the fittest people I know.

She is still completing triathlons, going on cycle treks and living a more active life than many people half her age.

What keeps her on track? Mostly, her trusty Garmin Forerunner 255, which she uses to measure all her fitness and health metrics.

Nothing seems to give her more joy than hitting her daily step goal and boasting about her unbelievably low Garmin fitness age (she would like you all to know that it’s regularly in the low 30s).

I was curious about why she—and so many others—love sharing our wearable scores.

According to Philip Gable, a professor of psychology and brain sciences, bragging about our workouts taps into a primal evolutionary drive.

“We're neurologically wired to love sharing information with other people and getting their approval,” says Gable, noting that most of our success as a species is due to our ability to share information and cooperate.

“If I'm proud of something and I think other people will like it, it enhances the reward value to share it.”

Gable says people also love sharing metrics to see how they measure up.

Seeing a score that proves you’re performing better than 50% of your peers feels instantly gratifying.

“There are mechanisms at work that increase the value behind fitness when we share it socially,” he adds.

But you don't actually need to broadcast your fitness age to reap the neurological benefits.

Even the private act of tracking your metrics and logging a workout can keep you motivated.

Gable says ticking those virtual boxes—or seeing your fitness age drop—lights up your brain in the same way as sharing your success with a friend.

“If we're getting feedback from our Garmin, even though it's not a person, it's as though somebody is telling us the same thing,” says Gable.

You don’t even have to fork out for a tracker. Recording your workout in a diary will provide a similar sense of reward,

“You still get the sensation of sharing with others when you log a workout,” says Gable.

So if you’re struggling to stick with an exercise routine, try logging every session on something physical to keep yourself motivated.

Professor Philip Gable

Philip Gable is the director of the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Graduate (ING) program and a professor of Psychology and Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware.

His research explores the influence of positive and negative affects, varying in motivational direction and motivational intensity, on attention, time perception, emotion regulation and substance use.