{Fitbit Flex $99.95}
As you’ll probably know, I’m pretty into my fitness. Maybe not as much as those on A Community Of The Horse (http://acommunityofthehorse.com/), but I do try to be as fit and healthy as possible. To aid my fitness journey, I decided I wanted a fitness band. So for the past couple weeks, I’ve been researching different fitness bands to decide what would work for me. My main concerns were tracking my sleep, having a silent alarm, tracking not just walking but other activities and having a tracker that wasn’t completely hideous. I honestly went back and forth between the bands and almost bought one right off the bat, but decided I still really needed to do more research!
I originally had my eyes set on the fitbit flex ($99.95), but hearing about an impending lawsuit kinda turned me off of the company (at least for now). The Force, the bracelet they recalled due to people having skin reactions to the bracelets, would have been perfect for me, so it’s a shame they had to recall it! Anyways, I was really excited by the colors of the flex (the aqua is so cute and so is pretty much every other color) and at first, the features seemed like they would work for me. However, after taking a closer look, I found that the accuracy wasn’t very great. I also found that for entering in food, there was no barcode scanner either! Another benefit is the fitbit tracking calories, so I know how many calories I’m loosing or gaining, it’s super useful! I’m constantly on the go and realized that that was an important thing to me as well! Sleep-wise, the flex doesn’t rely on REM cycles; it’s a straight alarm. I was also a little worried about the quality of the basic rubber band; the display in Best Buy was already ripping! After comparing the flex to the other bands on the market, I decided to ex it out of the competition pretty early.
Next up, I checked out the Nike+ FuelBand SE ($149), but it was surprisingly negated pretty quickly! First off, the fuel band doesn’t have an alarm. Also, by nature of the band, the FuelBand is really meant to be for hardcore athletes rather than fitness enthusiasts. So, if you’re largely into baseball or basketball or football or something, this band would probably be more of one for you to look at, rather than myself.
In the end, however, I ended up going with the Jawbone UP24 ($149.99). Why? Well, let me start off by saying I really wasn’t even looking at it at first. With the retail price tag of $150 it was a little high compared to the Fitbit Flex ($99) that I had my eyes set on. (Side note: I ended up price-matching Amazon at the local store which ended up making it actually less expensive than the Viofit!) After hearing so many good things about it, I decided to start researching and I was blown away. Regarding sleep, my UP24 uses REM cycles to decide when it’s time to get up. I tell it that I need to get up at 7 AM and choose that it can wake me up as early as 6:40 AM so I can wake when I’m in the lightest sleep possible. Not only that, but it wakes me up with a vibrate to the wrist which is so much more calming than a blaring alarm. It also tracks my sleep and tells me when I had light sleep, deep sleep and when I woke up. It’s comforting to be able to look and see why I was so tired and run down the morning after sleeping. I try to read correlations from there and change things so I get better sleep! I understand that getting a good night’s sleep can be hard. There are many reasons for this, for example staying on you phone late into the night, or struggling with anxiety. If it’s the latter then it might be worthwhile checking out something like CBD oil as this can help you have a better night’s sleep. If this is something that interests you then you could check out something like these cbd oil supplements to help you get to sleep quicker. I like that my fitbit tracks my sleep pattern though, as at least I feel like this is helping me. I also like that I can use the stopwatch function to track activities other than walking like cycling, elliptical, yoga, weight lifting, cross training… It’s awesome! Plus, for the food portion, they have a barcode scanner for food plus a search database. Not only that, but you can also add a picture of what you ate, where you ate it and when you ate it! How cool is that?!
I can’t wait to keep using my UP24 and figuring out all the cool stuff I can do with it!
Of course there are other trackers available like the Polar Loop and Shine Misfit, but since I didn’t have any interest in them, I didn’t even bother! If you swim, do check out the Shine Misfit! To decide I had to read dozens of reviews and do some in-person investigation myself as well. In the end, I am incredibly happy with my decision; it’s just important to find the band that’s right for YOU!
Do you have a fitness band? If you do, what do you like about it? I’d love to hear what you think.