Not to bash pedometers in any way—research shows that clipping one on motivates people to become more active—but how many steps you take each day only reveals part of the picture when it comes to your health.Enter UP by Jawbone ($99.95), a clever new wristband and app that help you track your walking, sleeping and eating habits—aka, the weight-loss trifecta.Here’s how: The sweat-proof, water-resistant, hypoallergenic wristband has a built-in precision motion sensor that automatically tracks your movement (steps, distance, calories burned, pace, intensity level and active versus inactive time) and sleep (hours slept, time to fall asleep, light versus deep sleep and sleep quality).You then set daily goals in those three key areas: movement (anywhere from a barely active 2,500 steps per day to a very active 10,000+ steps daily), sleep (from a mere five hours of shut-eye to a Sleeping Beauty-like slumber of 10 hours) and food (from one energizing meal per day to a put-us-all-to-shame four energizing meals each day).After slapping on the black wristband—which comes in three sizes and will soon be available in seven colors—and downloading the free UP app on my iPhone (for now, it’s only compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch), I set a goal of 5,000 steps per day to start. (There’s a hidden jack on the wristband that plugs into the headphone port of your iPhone to sync your data and show your progress.)I was surprised to find that by 10am, I’d already walked more than 3,700 steps—and according to UP, burned 261 calories! Getting that positive feedback and wanting to meet the challenge I’d set for myself motivated me to take more steps, even if it was just to and from the water cooler.QUIZ: How Fit Are You?Walking 10,000 steps a day (about five miles) or more can help you shed unwanted pounds, but as I found out, it’s not so easy to reach that number. On my best day, which included walking to and from work, walking my dog three times a day and hitting Equinox to workout with my trainer, I only reached 8,000 steps. The good news? Research shows that taking just 3,000 steps five days a week can help you lose weight and improve insulin sensitivity, reducing your risk of diabetes, according to a 2011 study published in the British Medical Journal.For sleep, I set a doable goal of seven hours, even though I’m practically a zombie if I get less than eight. So it’s no surprise that I was able to surpass that goal most nights, but tracking my sleep length also made me more aware of the profound difference in my energy levels when I’d get just 30 minutes less sleep than usual on some nights.So how does UP know when you’re out like a light? Before hitting the sack, you click a button at the tip of the wristband to send it into sleep mode (a tiny blue moon lights up near the button). The wristband has a built-in motion sensor that detects micro-movements while you snooze and uses sophisticated algorithms to generate personal graphs of your sleep phases, such as when you’re in deep sleep or a light sleep.QUIZ: How Is Your Sleep Quality? Because it’s able to detect whether you’re in a deep or light sleep, the device can serve as an ideal alarm clock, detecting the best time to gently wake you with a vibration, according to your sleep stage (i.e. not when you’re in a deep sleep and will wake up groggy). So if you set the alarm for 7:30am, UP will chose the best time to stir you from sleep between 7am and 7:30am. When you’re awake, you press the same button to let UP know that you’re in active mode (a small green flower will light up).When it comes to tracking your food, unlike with walking and sleeping, you need to play a more active role by taking pictures of everything you eat and drink—think of it as a visual food journal—and then rating how it made you feel: happy, ok, stuffed, sleepy or hungry. The downside is if you forget to photograph your food, which I did at least once every day, you can’t go back and insert it later. I started wishing for a photo gallery of food basics to choose from—yogurt, cereal, soup, a salad, a sandwich—so you could upload those images to fill in your food journal if you forgot to log in a meal.What’s more, the device assumes what meal you’re eating—breakfast, lunch or dinner—based on the time of day you take a photo of your food. But not everyone eats three square meals a day. And it doesn’t account for snacks.It’s also criminally easy to not take photos of foods you shouldn’t be munching on (I’m talking to you, jellybeans and mint chocolate chip ice cream), which shows how easy it is to leave out the bad eats and cheat.To up the accountability quotient, UP lets you share your food journal (as well as your data on sleep and exercise) with other UP users so you can get feedback on your meals or some motivating encouragement if you’ve been slipping up lately.As with any diet and exercise plan, it’s easy to hit a plateau. To combat that, the UP app has a section on challenges, offering ways you can up the ante, such as aiming to get an extra hour of sleep for the next seven days or committing to having at least one vegetable or fruit with each meal for a week.In addition, meeting certain challenges, such as running for 15 minutes or tracking one healthy meal that really energized you, can also earn you DailyFeats points. You can cash them in for a real-life reward (such as an iTunes or Starbucks gift card), or put them towards a donation to a non-profit. In other words, meeting these challenges can help you look good and feel good.Bottom line: If you’re already a fairly healthy eater (or are willing to religiously and honestly log and share your meals), and you’re looking for a cool gadget that will motivate you to walk more often and pay more attention to how many hours of shut-eye you’re actually getting, there’s nowhere to go but UP.[Editor’s note: Since we wrote this review, some UP users have experienced technical issues with their device. We did not experience any technical issues, but if you do, Jawbone is offering a return program.] 

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