Help picking a good fitness tracker!!!!

sparksja82 wrote: »

For Christmas, I have asked my husband for a fitness tracking device. I want it to have some sort of screen that tells time, tracks heart rate, tracks steps, etc. We have looked at tons of options and I want to make sure we get something good that will last. Being waterproof would be a bonus...and I would like it to sync with my fitness pal.

In the absence of knowing what you hope to gain from having one, and what sort of training you do, all you're going to get is people chiming in recommending what they themselves have. Essentially what I consider good may be wholly inappropriate for what you want to use it for, or outside your budget.

What type of training do you do, and what do you hope to gain from a tracker of some kind?

sparksja82 wrote: »

I'm just starting out with fitness....so right now it will probably be walking, bike riding, and swimming. I am in the process though of being approved for weight loss surgery....and as I lose weight I will want to continue to challenge myself. We also have a punching bag and hand weights at home to use too

OK, so there are different categories, so from what you're saying you've got different options, with different strengths and weaknesses.

A simple step tracker will do, recognising that it won't help with swimming or cycling. For swimming your best bet is just logging distance and time, for cycling then phone apps are probably the best option initially. To be honest entry level HR monitoring really isn't worth the money and wouldn't give you anything of significant value for those activities anyway.

If you've got more budget then a GPS device with built in step tracker would do the trick, so reasonable for both walking and cycling. You're talking a fairly significant jump in budget requirements for that though.

Punch bag and weights, there's nothing really appropriate for measuring that kind of thing.

So for entry level step trackers, there's nothing really to distinguish the hardware side of life, so it may be that you want to think about the platform behind it, in terms of community etc. If you have friends already using something then you might want to get a related device so that you're all on the same platform.

I have a Fitbit Charge HR and a polar FT4, both are great. Both have their pros and cons, but I find them reliable and they keep me accountable.