How to choose the right fitness tracker for your goals || Dunnebells

Fitness trackers have become a really popular way to keep track of your fitness progress and for good reason! In this article we will be sharing the best and worst trackers and why you should even consider wearing a fitness tracker.

The majority of fitness trackers can track steps, calories, distance travelled, calorie intake and some can even track your heart rate and sleep patterns!

Fitness trackers provide you with information to help make decisions and stay on track. They can also be an incredible reminder to get up and move when you have been inactive for long periods of time (hello to all my desk sitting people)

There is an all-in-one option, the Apple Watch which takes care of pretty much everything for you. It has GPS, activity trackers, sleep tracker, plays your music, syncs with the majority of fitness apps out there, it monitors your heart rate etc. etc. However, it is not the cheapest option ($300-$500) so we are going to explore lots of options in this article.

The most important thing to consider when purchasing a fitness tracker is what your personal needs are. You may just want to count your steps or focus on your overall activity level. Personally, an accurate heart rate monitor is what I am looking for in a fitness tracker. Fitbit, Garmin, Apple, and Polar lead the way in the fitness tracker industry and these brands have options to suit every budget.

THE BEST FITNESS TRACKER IN 2019?

The FITBIT IONIC, in my opinion, takes the trophy for the best fitness tracker in 2019. The ionic is the best of both worlds, being a fitness tracker and a smartwatch without the price tag of other smartwatches.

The Fitbit Ionic has personal coaching, GPS tracking, heart rate monitor, music, payments, and is water resistant (with a built-in swim tracker).

In addition to these great features, if you like a big screen like me, this watch is for you.

THE TOP 6 REASONS YOU SHOULD CHOOSE THE RIGHT FITNESS TRACKER FOR YOUR GOALS:

GOAL SETTING

By setting realistic goals using your fitness tracker, you are more likely to ensure success!

1. FORM HABITS

   Your fitness tracker will star to recommend easy changes to you so you can form healthier habits after it tracks your activity and sleep for a while.

2. SHARE THE FITNESS LOVE

   It isn’t always easy, but it is always worth it. Your fitness tracker allows you to share your goals and progress with your friends on social media or you can even create a private workout group with competitive goals to keep you all motivated.

3. TRACK YOUR SLEEP

   Your metabolism, food cravings, mood, and energy levels are all impacted by sleep. Your fitness tracker will record things like the length and quality of your sleep, and how many times you woke up.

4. FREE WORKOUTS

   Most fitness trackers these days will give you a routine to follow so you don’t feel so lost. Some fitness trackers will let you choose the intensity of your workout as well as dictate the amount of time you have for a workout (even 10 minutes is better than nothing).

5. WEIGHT LOSS GOALS

   Fitness trackers can definitely help you with your weight loss goals. Inside my 8-week program, we focus a lot on strength training and flexible dieting (macronutrients) which is a completely different way to most typical cardio based programs out there on the market. By having a fitness tracker you can easily track your food and drink intake and this can certainly help you when it comes to weight loss. Calories in vs. calories out.

COMPARING POPULAR FITNESS TRACKERS

Here is what you need to know so that you can compare a few popular fitness trackers and choose the right one for you.

Fitbit Charge 3 - $140

The Fitbit Charge 3 is the perfect balance of features and price. This fitness tracker will take care of recognizing your workouts, tracking your heart rate and for women can even track your period.

For the price, the Fitbit charge 3 is a great choice!

Fitbit versa - $299

Everyday style and fitness functionality come together in the Fitbit Versa smartwatch. Get personalized on-screen workouts and get a summary of your active minutes each day.

The Fitbit versa has a wonderful battery life (4 days) and allows you to accurately track workouts and sleep patterns.

Apple Watch - Series 4 - $519-$599

A fitness-focused smartwatch. This watch is a powerhouse. It will help you stay more active, healthy and connected! It has a built-in electrical heart sensor, fall detection and an emergency SOS feature.

Stream Apple music, podcasts and make calls easily before or after your workout.

WHY SHOULD I BUY A FITNESS TRACKER?

Train better. Measure and track your progress. Understand your overall health. These are just a few reasons why you should buy a fitness tracker. One of the other benefits is that by wearing a fitness tracker, you will increase your motivation to be more active!

For the majority of us, exercise is much more rewarding when we can see numbers telling us how great we are doing. Think about a very common goal of hitting 10,000 steps. When we use our fitness trackers to count our steps and our wrists buzz with excitement when we reach our goals, it helps to keep us motivated!

BEST FITNESS TRACKER FOR CROSSFIT?

For activities like Crossfit or powerlifting, fitness trackers that include the things you care about can be hard to come across.

Most fitness trackers don’t have the ability to track your heart rate accurately when it changes so rapidly. When you go for a run, your heart rate doesn’t vary as much as it does when you step up to the barbell for a heavy lift.

The other thing that most fitness trackers don’t have is the ability to records your weight and reps.

Here are a few fitness trackers that will include important details for you during your Crossfit workouts:

Atlas Wearable

Garmin Forerunner 935

Fitbit Charge 2 Heart Rate

BEST FITNESS TRACKER FOR RUNNERS?

Looking for a step up from the average fitness tracker to take with you on your runs? You will want to look for a watch that has GPS tracking, run distance tracking, run speed, and has the ability to pair with a chest strap for an accurate heart rate reading.

Garmin Forerunner 645

500 songs easily downloaded for your listening pleasure

• Provides advanced running dynamics, including ground contact time balance, stride length, vertical ratio and more

• Uses wrist-based heart rate4 to offer performance monitoring features, including evaluating your current training status

• Battery life: Up to 7 days in smartwatch mode; 5 hours in GPS mode with music

Garmin Forerunner 630

Smartwatch with advanced running metrics.

Advanced running dynamics include ground contact time balance, stride length and vertical ratio

• Features stress score, performance condition and lactate threshold

• Automatically upload to Garmin Connect

• Audio Prompts and music controls

• Social media sharing and other smart notifications

• Download data fields, watch faces, widgets and applications

HOW DO FITNESS TRACKERS COUNT CALORIES?

Let’s discuss how fitness trackers count the number of calories you burn. Fitness trackers take information from the built-in sensors that track your movement.

The fitness trackers use their algorithms (every company uses a different one) and then the fitness tracker will spit out your running total of calories burned for that day. Using these estimated numbers, you have the help you need to make decisions around what to eat, drink or what to avoid.

FITNESS TRACKER SUMMARY

Scrolled all the way to the bottom? No problem! I do that too.

If you are on a budget, consider the Fitbit Charge 3.

if you are ready to splurge, the Apple Watch or Fitbit Ionic would be a solid choice.

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