My Journey With Health And Fitness – Transitioning Smart Watches

I have been doing some pretty good walking/running the past few weeks. Today I did a run despite the fact I kept trying to talk myself out of it but I pushed through it and got it done. Then I decided I wanted to get that last 5km in for the day and decided to walk to my caregivers’ support group. Bad decision! While I had on a rain jacket my legs were still getting wet and by time I got to the event they were pretty soaked and my feet in particular were freezing. Still, I got in a total of 16km today. So, when I got home it was time to get into the hot tub and finally warm up my still freezing feet.

2 weeks ago I transitioned from my beloved Fitbit to an Apple Watch. I had various models of Fitbit for 6 years but sadly they all seemed to die after 1 year while as my husband had the same Apple Watch that entire time. I realized I needed to get something far more stable that had a better lifespan hence I transitioned. It has been a bit of a learning curve but I am slowly getting there.

I have come to acknowledge there are benefits and flaws with both devices. Ok, I am far more used to the Fitbit technology and may have a bit of bias there. Having said that, I am slowly getting used to the Apple Watch and determining the functionality that fits my needs. I am also finding the things I miss from the Fitbit but pretty sure I will eventually get over it.

Where they are similar is that both provide me the information that I need from all of my workouts; time, calories, steps. Where I find them different is my calorie burn during exercise is quite a bit less with the Apple Watch. Strangely what offsets this is the non-active calorie burn which is higher than the Fitbit. Also, I am still working on getting used to having to charge the Apple Watch every day rather than every 4 or so days with the Fitbit.

So which do I prefer? Sorry but quite frankly I am still so new to this that I am not sure. I am still trying to sort out changing workouts with the Apple Watch when I do a walk/run/walk but I am getting there. The bottom line is I am at least tracking the information that I feel I need to have.

Bottom line is if you ask me which is best my response is I really don’t know at this point.