Why we built My Fitness Tracker
Most people who walk into our Coventry clinic have already tried.
They have downloaded apps, bought a wearable, followed a plan they found online.
What almost none of them have is a clear picture of their own numbers.
They know their weight.
Occasionally their BMI.
Almost never their waist-to-height ratio, which NICE now recommends as the primary screening measure for every adult with a BMI under 35.
That gap is the reason this tool exists.
My Fitness Tracker was built by our team at J Artistry Clinic to give anyone, anywhere, the same evidence-based baseline assessment we would work through in a first consultation.
It is free, it requires no account, and it does not sell anything to use it.
We do not just treat you.
We are committed to your lifelong health and wellness, and that begins with information you can actually act on.
How to use My Fitness Tracker effectively
Most people open a fitness tracker, get their numbers, feel briefly motivated, and never return.
The numbers were never the problem.
What they do next is.
Here is the approach that actually produces change, based on what we see work in clinic.
Week 1 — Get an honest baseline
Enter your details and take the measurements properly.
Waist first thing in the morning, before eating, tape against skin rather than over clothing, breathing out normally without holding your stomach in.
A waist measured over a jumper after lunch is not a baseline, it is a guess.
Write down the numbers or download your data.
This is the reference point you will compare everything against in three months.
Weeks 2 to 4 — Change one thing, not everything
The single most common reason people fail is attempting a complete life overhaul on a Monday.
Pick the one change your results suggest matters most.
If your protein target is far above what you currently eat, start there.
If your waist-to-height ratio is the flag, start walking daily.
Use the Progress tab to log your weight and waist weekly, not daily.
Daily weight fluctuates by one to two kilograms from water, salt and digestion alone, which tells you nothing and often demoralises people for no reason.
Weeks 5 to 12 — Let the trend line do the talking
By week five or six the chart will show a direction.
That direction is the only feedback worth acting on.
If the line is moving the right way, change nothing and keep going.
If it has been flat for three consecutive weeks while you have genuinely stuck to the plan, that is the signal to investigate rather than simply try harder.
Every three months — Re-measure everything
Come back, re-enter your measurements, and compare against that first baseline.
Body composition changes slowly and honestly.
A three-month gap shows real change in a way a three-week gap never will.
Of everything in this tracker, the single behaviour most strongly associated with people who succeed is weekly measurement logging.
Not the diet, not the workout split, not the supplement.
The act of measuring keeps you honest and catches drift early, while it is still a small correction rather than a restart.
Why this matters, in UK numbers
Context helps.
These are the current figures for England and the wider UK.
| Measure | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Adults in England living with overweight or obesity | Around 64% | Health Survey for England |
| Adults classed as living with obesity | Around 29% | Health Survey for England |
| Adults not meeting the 150-minute weekly activity target | Roughly 1 in 3 | Sport England Active Lives |
| Average UK fibre intake against the 30g target | About 18g | National Diet and Nutrition Survey |
| People living with diagnosed diabetes in the UK | Over 4.6 million | Diabetes UK |
| Estimated annual NHS cost of obesity-related ill health | Over £6 billion | UK Government / OHID |
The reason we lead with waist-to-height ratio rather than BMI is buried in those numbers.
A substantial proportion of people carrying dangerous levels of visceral fat have a BMI that looks perfectly acceptable on a chart.
They are told they are fine.
Their waist says otherwise.
That is the gap this tracker was built to close.
What makes this fitness tracker different
There is no shortage of free calculators online.
Most share the same three problems.
They give you one number in isolation. A BMI calculator tells you your BMI.
It does not tell you that BMI is a poor measure for muscular people, for adults over 65, or that your waist measurement matters considerably more for predicting diabetes and heart disease risk.
This tracker calculates over 20 metrics together and explains how they interact.
They ignore ethnicity. This is a genuine clinical failing rather than a minor omission.
NICE guideline CG189 sets lower BMI action thresholds of 23 and 27.5 for people of South Asian, Chinese, other Asian, Middle Eastern, Black African and African-Caribbean family background, because cardiometabolic risk in these groups begins at a lower BMI.
A person of South Asian heritage with a BMI of 24 would be told they are in the healthy range by almost every calculator online.
Under UK clinical guidance, they should already be receiving lifestyle support.
Our tracker applies the correct thresholds.
They give you numbers with no plan. Knowing your TDEE is useful.
Knowing what to actually do on Monday morning is what changes outcomes.
This tracker generates a weekly workout schedule built around the days you can genuinely train, the equipment you can genuinely access, and the injuries or life stages you are genuinely working around.
A fitness planner that accounts for your real life
Most workout planner tools ask three questions: your goal, your level, and your available days.
That is not enough to produce a plan someone follows for six months.
A perimenopausal woman managing a desk job and school pickups needs a fundamentally different structure to a 24-year-old with gym access and free evenings.
Not an easier plan.
A different one.
Elevated cortisol from chronic stress means daily high-intensity training will often make her body composition worse rather than better, which is exactly the opposite of what most generic plans prescribe.
So this fitness planner also asks about your work pattern, your life stage, and any physical limitations.
Then it adapts:
- Knee or hip pain removes plyometric and high-impact movements and substitutes hip-hinge patterns, cycling and swimming that produce comparable results without the joint load.
- Lower back issues replace loaded spinal flexion and heavy deadlifts with bird dogs, dead bugs and banded rows that build the same posterior chain strength.
- Newly postpartum removes planks, crunches and heavy lifting entirely until you have been assessed for diastasis recti, and builds the plan around walking and pelvic floor recovery instead.
- Shift work shifts the intensity distribution, because training hard on chronic sleep debt raises cortisol without producing adaptation.
- Perimenopause and menopause weight the plan toward resistance training, which becomes the single most important intervention as oestrogen declines and muscle mass falls faster.
- Very low fitness base holds back HIIT for four to six weeks and builds a walking habit first, because the most common reason people quit is starting at an intensity they cannot sustain.
How this compares to a smartwatch or fitness band
People often ask whether they still need a wearable.
The honest answer is that these do different jobs.
| Capability | Wearable device | My Fitness Tracker |
|---|---|---|
| Live heart rate | Yes, continuous | No, uses your resting rate as input |
| Step counting | Yes, automatic | Manual logging |
| Sleep staging | Yes, estimated | Manual logging of duration |
| Calorie burn accuracy | Often 27 to 93% error in studies | Equation-based, typically within 10% for BMR |
| Ethnicity-adjusted risk thresholds | Almost never | Yes, per NICE CG189 |
| Waist-to-height ratio | No | Yes, NICE primary screening measure |
| ABSI mortality risk index | No | Yes |
| Macronutrient targets by goal | Some, via subscription | Yes, free |
| Adaptive plan for injuries | Rarely | Yes |
| Cost | £40 to £400 plus subscription | Free |
Wearable calorie estimates deserve particular caution.
A widely cited Stanford study tested seven popular devices and found heart rate measurement was reasonably accurate, but energy expenditure estimates were wrong by between 27% and 93% depending on the device and activity.
If you set your food intake based on the calorie burn your watch reports, you may be eating several hundred calories more or less than you think.
Use your wearable for what it measures well: heart rate, movement patterns, and daily consistency.
Use this tracker to set the targets.
The five numbers that matter most
If you only remember five things from your results, make them these.
1. Waist-to-height ratio, target below 0.5
Your waist should be less than half your height.
This single ratio predicts cardiometabolic risk better than BMI because it reflects central and visceral fat rather than total mass.
NICE recommends every adult with a BMI under 35 measure it themselves.
2. Waist circumference against the risk thresholds
For women, under 80cm is lower risk, 80 to 88cm is increased, and above 88cm is high risk.
For men the thresholds are 94cm and 102cm.
For South Asian men specifically, the higher-risk threshold drops to 90cm.
These hold regardless of BMI, which is why a person with a completely normal BMI can still be at genuine metabolic risk.
3. Your TDEE, not your BMR
BMR is what you burn lying completely still.
TDEE includes everything else.
Setting your food intake against BMR rather than TDEE is one of the most common reasons people end up under-eating, losing muscle, and stalling.
4. Protein in grams, not percent
Percentage targets fall apart when calories change.
Grams per kilogram of body weight does not.
For fat loss, 1.6 to 2.2 g/kg protects muscle while you are in a deficit.
This is the single most impactful dietary change for most people, and the most commonly under-hit.
5. Fitness age
Cardiorespiratory fitness, expressed as VO2 max, is among the strongest single predictors of long-term health outcomes in the research, ahead of smoking status, cholesterol and blood pressure in several large cohort studies.
Fitness age translates that into a number that means something immediately.
Who this tracker is for
We built it for individuals, but professionals use it too.
Individuals get a complete baseline in about a minute, with a plan they can start the same day and a way to check whether it is actually working over the following months.
Personal trainers and coaches can use it during onboarding to establish client baselines without paying for calculator software.
Every formula is cited so the numbers are defensible.
Clinics and practitioners can use it in consultations for immediate evidence-based context.
It is not a diagnostic tool and does not replace clinical assessment, but it gives a patient something concrete to take away.
Workplace wellness programmes can share it freely with staff.
There is no licence, no cost, no data collection and no signup barrier, which removes the usual reasons participation stays low.
Your data and your privacy
Everything you enter is stored in your own browser using local storage.
It is not transmitted to any server by default, no account is created, and no email address is ever requested.
If you want to reach your tracker from a different device, cloud backup is optional.
It generates a random code and asks you to choose a 4-digit PIN.
Only that combination retrieves your data.
We never ask for your name, email or contact details, and there is no marketing list attached to it.
You can also download your complete history as a JSON file at any time and keep it entirely offline.
Using My Fitness Tracker with staff, clients or patients
Organisations are welcome to use this freely.
There is no licence to buy, no per-seat cost, no sign-up wall and no data collection, which removes the usual reasons workplace health initiatives see low take-up.
Employers and HR teams can share the link in a wellbeing newsletter or intranet page.
Because nothing is stored centrally, staff can check their own numbers privately without any concern that an employer might see individual results.
That privacy is often the deciding factor in whether people actually engage with a workplace health scheme.
Personal trainers and coaches can use it during onboarding to establish a client baseline in a couple of minutes.
Every formula is named and cited, so the numbers are defensible if a client asks where they came from.
Clinics, GP practices and physiotherapists can use it in consultations to give a patient something concrete to take away.
It is not a diagnostic tool and does not replace clinical assessment, but a patient who leaves understanding their own waist-to-height ratio is considerably more likely to act on it.
Community groups, charities and schools working on health education can use it without any commercial arrangement.
We built it as a public resource.
You might also find useful
Your results point in a direction.
These guides explain what to do about it, and every one is written by our clinical team rather than assembled from other websites.
How to Lose Belly Fat in Women
Why female belly fat behaves differently at every hormonal life stage, and what actually works at each one.
Read the complete guide → Guide · Exercise12 Best Exercises to Lose Belly Fat
Ranked by clinical evidence, with a 7-day plan and honest notes on what each one can and cannot do.
See the 12 exercises → Guide · Hormonal HealthWhy Fibroids Make Belly Fat Impossible to Shift
If your waist will not move despite genuine consistent effort, this may be the reason nobody has mentioned.
Read the clinical guide → Guide · Complete MethodThe Best Way to Lose Belly Fat
The full evidence-based approach covering diet, training, sleep and stress, without the marketing noise.
Read the full method →When your numbers suggest you need more than a tracker
This tool gives you an honest baseline.
It cannot test your thyroid, measure your oestrogen, or examine your abdomen.
When the numbers point somewhere a calculator cannot follow, these are the services our Coventry clinic provides.
Not sure what your results actually mean for you?
Send Joanna your numbers and get a straight answer, at no cost and with no obligation. If a tracker is all you need, we will tell you that too. We do not just treat you. We are committed to your lifelong health and wellness.
References and further reading
Every calculation in this tracker comes from published, peer-reviewed work or official UK clinical guidance.
The sources are listed here so you, or your GP, can check them directly.
Clinical sources
Last verified 6 August 2026. Where guidance is updated, this tool is reviewed and revised accordingly.
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Obesity: identification, assessment and management (CG189). Includes the ethnicity-adjusted BMI thresholds of 23 and 27.5 used in this tracker. nice.org.uk/guidance/cg189
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. BMI: preventing ill health and premature death in black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups (PH46). nice.org.uk/guidance/ph46
- NHS. Waist size and your health. Source of the waist-to-height ratio guidance and the 80cm and 88cm thresholds for women. nhs.uk
- NHS. Physical activity guidelines for adults aged 19 to 64. Source of the 150-minute weekly activity target. nhs.uk
- Mifflin MD, St Jeor ST, Hill LA, et al. (1990). A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2305711
- Tanaka H, Monahan KD, Seals DR. (2001). Age-predicted maximal heart rate revisited. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11189454
- Uth N, Sørensen H, Overgaard K, Pedersen PK. (2004). Estimation of VO2max from the ratio between HRmax and HRrest. European Journal of Applied Physiology. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14624296
- Krakauer NY, Krakauer JC. (2012). A new body shape index predicts mortality hazard independently of body mass index. PLoS ONE. journals.plos.org
- World Health Organization. Waist-to-hip ratio, indicator metadata registry. Source of the 0.85 and 0.90 thresholds. who.int
- Carrasquilla GD, García-Ureña M, Romero-Lado MJ, Kilpeläinen TO. (2024). Estimating causality between smoking and abdominal obesity by Mendelian randomization. Addiction, 119(6), 1024–1034. onlinelibrary.wiley.com
- Diabetes UK. How many people in the UK have diabetes? diabetes.org.uk
- British Heart Foundation. UK cardiovascular disease factsheet. bhf.org.uk
- NHS England. Health Survey for England. Source of the UK overweight and obesity prevalence figures. digital.nhs.uk
- Sport England. Active Lives Adult Survey. Source of the UK physical activity participation figures. sportengland.org
Legal notice, trademarks and terms of use
Name and branding. This tool is published as My Fitness Tracker by J Artistry Clinic.
The words "my fitness tracker" are used descriptively, in their ordinary English sense, to describe what the tool does.
We make no claim to exclusive rights in that descriptive phrase, and we are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any other product, application or company using a similar descriptive name.
Any third-party names or trademarks mentioned anywhere on this page remain the property of their respective owners and are referred to only for identification and comparison.
Not a medical device. My Fitness Tracker by J Artistry Clinic is an informational calculator.
It is not a medical device under the UK Medical Devices Regulations 2002 (as amended), it is not CE or UKCA marked as a medical device, and it is not intended for the diagnosis, prevention, monitoring, treatment or alleviation of any disease.
It performs general wellness calculations only.
Estimates, not measurements. Every figure produced is an estimate derived from population-level equations.
Individual metabolism, body composition and cardiovascular fitness vary considerably, including between people with identical measurements.
Risk indicators describe statistical associations observed across large populations.
They are not predictions about you as an individual, and they cannot diagnose or rule out any condition.
No professional relationship. Using this tool does not create a clinical, medical or professional relationship between you and J Artistry Body & Wellness Clinic or any of its practitioners.
Nothing here should be relied upon as a substitute for personalised advice from a qualified healthcare professional who has assessed you directly.
Limitation of liability. This tool is provided free of charge and on an "as is" basis, without warranties of any kind, express or implied.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, J Artistry Body & Wellness Clinic accepts no liability for any loss or damage arising from reliance on the information it produces.
Nothing in this notice excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.
Reviews. Ratings and written reviews are submitted by members of the public.
Written reviews are moderated before publication.
We do not edit the substance of a review, and we do not offer any incentive, payment or benefit in exchange for a review.
Please do not include personal health information in a review, as reviews are publicly visible.
Governing law. This notice is governed by the laws of England and Wales, and any dispute is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.
Full details of how we handle information are set out in our Privacy Policy.
Questions about this notice can be sent to info@jartistryclinic.com.
My Fitness Tracker provides general health and fitness estimates for informational purposes.
It is not a medical device, it does not diagnose any condition, and it does not replace assessment by a qualified healthcare professional.
Speak with your GP before beginning a new exercise programme if you have a heart condition, uncontrolled high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, a history of injury, are pregnant or recently postpartum, or are experiencing unexplained symptoms such as chest pain, severe breathlessness or significant fatigue.
If your results flag a high-risk category, that is a prompt to have a conversation with a clinician.
It is not a diagnosis.
Built and clinically reviewed by Joanna Karto, NHS-trained healthcare practitioner and founder of J Artistry Body & Wellness Clinic, Coventry. Published 25 July 2026. Next review January 2027.
Primary sources:
NICE CG189 ·
NICE PH46 ·
NHS waist guidance ·
NHS activity guidelines ·
WHO waist-hip ratio ·
Mifflin-St Jeor 1990 ·
Tanaka HRmax 2001 ·
Uth VO2max 2004 ·
Krakauer ABSI 2012