My Favorite Fitness Gadgets
It's no secret I love being active. The aesthetic reward is great, and working out does wonders for my mentality. Those endorphins are no joke! Over the past few months I've purchased some fitness related gadgets and services that I think are awesome.
Note: This is not a sponsored post.
1) Fitbit Charge HR - So I probably spent about a month reading up on different fitness trackers. I debated between this gadget, and an option by Polar that offered the same features, and is waterproofed. But I elected the Fitbit ChargeHR for a couple of different reasons.
The app is fantastic, and does a good job at breaking down the different metrics and displaying them in easy-to-interpret graphs. This is important because the metrics and stats are basically your report card for your fitness. Fitbit made it really easy for a user to stay on top of their own metrics. It even measures how well you're sleeping, and allows for you to keep track of your diet and water intake. The charts and graphs make it simple for you to identify progress, and see where you need to up the anty.
The social component of Fitbit! This feature is genius, and is what sealed the deal for me! Essentially what it does is it allows for you to search for your friends that also have Fitbits (they don't have to have the same model as you) and then it ranks you amongst your Fitbit friends so you can see who has the most steps! You can also do fun things like create and participate in challenges with your Fitbit buddies.
I also think it is worth noting that I chose the ChargeHR and not another model for these reasons:
The fact it calculates your heart rate. This helps me gage my intensity in my workouts.
There are no text notifications on this device. I feel like I'm over-connected as it is, and I don't want to tempt myself with another "thing". My workouts are MY time.
I did consider the schnazzy Blaze, but with the desire to not have the ability to allow for texts to show up is what made me choose otherwise. I also felt like the ChargeHR looked and felt more durable, and being rough'n'tough with my hobbies and activities, it was important to have something that could handle a beating.
Really, the only downfall to the ChargeHR is that is NOT waterproof. It is water-resistant, and can handle the occasional splash, but it is not meant to be submerged, which brings me to my next favorite fitness item...
2) Waterfi - So most of you all know I live in South Florida, and am quite the water bunny. That being said, my first Fitbit lasted all of 1 week before it took a fatal dunk in the Atlantic. I just couldn't remember to take it off each time I went swimming or showered. So when I went for Fitbit Round 2, I looked into different waterproofing services. I ended up giving Waterfi a shot, and I am SO glad I did. Their customer service department was incredibly friendly, and answered quite a few questions I had quickly. Basically the way it works is that you can either order a product directly from them, or you can ship them a product to waterproof and send back to you - I did the latter. I'm happy to report that my new Fitbit has been submerged in water repeatedly, and is doing just fine! The only thing you lose in utilizing this service is the ability for your Fitbit to correctly calculate the number of floors climbed. But that was a metric I didn't really care much about, and didn't find motivating to begin with, so I don't mind not having it.
3) Fitbit Aria - The Aria is the scale that Fitbit offers. Before I go a sentence further, I would like to declare that I think that weight is mostly a bullshit measure of fitness. I get that it can give you a gage of health of sorts, but it's such a small piece of that story. Now you're probably wondering why I bought it. The reason is because the Aria also calculates your percentage of body fat, BMI, and lean mass! That's what I'm talking about! But seriously, I like that this scale offers more meaningful measurements, and integrates seamlessly with my Fitbit app.
The stats from the Aria automatically sync to the app. Rest assured, if you're having a horrible fat day and you want to delete the evidence from the app, you totally can. I also appreciate the fact that you can name your scale. On day one, I gave went with something cute and dubbed her "Scaley." She has since been renamed, and is now called "Lying Wench."
