If you’ve started team sports and spend a lot of time in front of the portable cricket nets in a bid to lose weight and get fitter, you might find that wearing a fitness tracker actually doesn’t help you with your weight loss goals.

New research from the University of Pittsburgh, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, saw almost 500 overweight volunteers asked to diet and do more exercise, with half given a fitness tracker to help them keep tabs on their progress. Interestingly, this latter group actually lost less weight than the other over the course of the trial.

Those with the fitness trackers lost on average around 3.6kg, while the control group without the devices lost about 5.9kg.

“Among young adults with a BMI between 25 and less than 40, the addition of a wearable technology device to a standard behavioural intervention resulted in less weight loss over 24 months. Devices that monitor and provide feedback on physical activity may not offer an advantage over standard behavioural weight loss approaches,” the study authors concluded.

If you are playing cricket to help you shed a few pounds, make sure you eat protein and veg with every meal, cut back on all the processed food and do high intensity interval training.

The higher the intensity the better so train as hard as you can for short periods with rests in between. This is the fastest way to lose fat but it’s actually also really good for your cricket ability to field, bowl and bat at game intensity while you’re in training.