It’s the end of the year, and with that flip of the calendar comes new-found motivation to boost your health and fitness by exercising, eating right, and making as many healthy choices as you can. One of the reasons why people struggle with health and fitness is because they don’t have a fitness tracker. A fitness tracker is a coach in their corner; a device designed to challenge and teach, so you know you’re working hard toward your goals.
Fitness trackers like the Fitbit, Diesel, Fossil, and Garmin will be your coach and work out buddy. They will track your heart rate, monitor your daily steps and stairs climbed, watch your sleep patterns, and give you an overall day to day or month to month picture of your health. They even have a few other tricks up their sleeve to offer you help with relaxation and daily motivation.
Fitness trackers show you how active you are
One of the first reasons why people turn to fitness trackers is because they’d like to know just how active they are every day. It’s really easy to think you’re always on the move until you strap on a fitness tracker and you realize you’re not.
A fitness tracker lets you set your step goal for the day. Most people average 3000 to 4000 steps per day, but if you can manage to hit 10,000 steps every day and are watching what you eat, health experts say you can lose one pound per week.
With a Fossil fitness tracker on your wrist, you can see exactly how far you have to go to reach your goal every day. Trackers like the Fossil Carlyle HR smartwatch and the Fossil Julianna HR smartwatch are the perfect his and hers fitness trackers. They will set your daily goals automatically, and track steps, distance, and calories burned. You can also wear them swimming or in the shower because they’re water-resistant.
A personal coach right on your wrist
If you’re already active but you want to take your favourite sport to the next level, fitness trackers can help you too.
With specific settings for different activities including hiking, biking, running, walking, and circuit training, a fitness tracker can track your personal bests and give you the motivation to run harder, bike faster, or workout at a more intense level. One of the most recommended fitness trackers for people who have already kicked off a fitness plan are Garmin fitness trackers.
Garmin trackers like the Garmin Vivoactive, Garmin Venu, or Garmin Fenix are durable trackers with features unique to Garmin. The Garmin Fenix has pre-loaded topographic mapping to plan your routes and uses a multi-satellite network capability to pinpoint you via GPS. It will monitor your heart rate and blood oxygen levels.
Why you should use a fitness tracker to track your heart rate
Did you know the more fit you are, the lower your heart rate will be? If you’re just starting out on a fitness program and you really want to know how all of your efforts to diet and exercise are paying off, just keep an eye on your heart rate.
Monitoring your heart rate during exercise can show you if you are in a peak or fat burning zone, and a Fitbit fitness tracker makes it very simple to monitor your heart rate. The best part of having a Fitbit fitness tracker is that the companion app will monitor your heart rate every day and show you how it’s changed over time. Fitbit Versa 2 will set your goals automatically, track calories burned, steps taken, heart rate, and sleeping patterns, and wirelessly sync them all to the app so they are available whenever you check-in. Check out Ted’s review of the Fitbit Versa 2.
Because the heart muscles of someone who is fit won’t strain as much to support your body, as you become healthier you should see your resting heart rate sink lower over a matter of months. It’s a great motivator and an indicator your hard work is paying off.
Fitness trackers offer more than just fitness
Overall health isn’t just about diet and exercise. Your sleep and stress levels matter too, and that’s why it’s so useful to track that data for the whole family.
Sleep is such an important part of your overall health, and it can make the difference between maintaining your fitness level or how hard you exercise. With a fitness tracker on your wrist you’ll see exactly how well you sleep, and there is fitness trackers for kids that track their sleep too. The Fitbit Ace is a kid’s tracker that will track sleep quality and duration so you can keep an eye on bedtime. For adults, your tracker will monitor your light and deep sleep too.
One of the least well-known perks of having a fitness tracker like the Fitbit is it can help you take a moment during your day to de-stress. The ‘Relax’ feature will walk you through breathing exercises designed to help you relax. Even if you only use it for 5 minutes a day, that’s 5 minutes to help you take a moment to slow down and be present.
Pair your tracker with an app for even more data
A fitness tracker can offer you data right on your wrist, and even if you decided not to sync your tracker with the companion app on your phone, you still can get a lot of useful data from it.
If you do decide to sync your tracker’s data with the companion app, you’ll have access to an amazing wealth of information to help you monitor your total health. The Fitbit app is a good example: it lets you track how much water you drink every day, offers you a place to track your food intake or see food suggestions, and even offers a place for women to monitor monthly cycles or ovulation.
With a Samsung fitness tracker you’ll be able to stay on top of your calories burned, distance, and steps by logging everything into the Samsung Health app. You can watch over food, caffeine and water intake as well as track your heart rate, blood pressure, blood glucose levels, and stress.
Join the community and get support when you need it
One of the hardest parts of getting fit is staying motivated. If there is no one to tell you to get up off the couch and go for a walk or no one to say congrats when you’re just finished a long run, you might lose the motivation to keep going.
You can set your fitness tracker to beep or vibrate to remind you to move periodically, but more than that you can also join the various communities offered by brands like Samsung and Fitbit. You can find your friends who already have the same device, join groups in your area, or sign up for challenges to run for certain lengths of time or run different distances every month.
With a fitness tracker on your wrist, you’re never alone in your quest to get healthier. If your plan is to get fit, lose weight, or maintain your heart health in the new year, take a look at all of the fitness trackers on Best Buy right now.
