Even before summer hits, there’s always a sudden frenzy to get a “bikini body.” And as soon as summer actually rolls around, the guilt of my finals binge eating and my week of welcome home meals start to wear on me. Some people make New Year’s Resolutions to get fit, I make summer ones and I mean them.
For me, summer always means a little more time than I know what to do with, working, more time to cook, and time to actually be active. The discipline to get up in the morning to go running or go to the gym is sometimes lacking or I work “too early” to start my day sweating.
However, I do my best to find ways to convince myself that I really do want to go to the gym or run around campus more than I want to plop down on my bed or watch my 12 cable channels.
This summer, I finally broke down and bought a fitness tracker, something I had been researching and eying for a while. Originally the Fitbit Force had peaked my interest, but it was recalled a week after I first looked at it. Having been the highest rated fitness tracker, I was lost as to where to turn next.
As far as features go, here were my top 5 priorities:
1. Ability to track/input calories
2. Wearable on wrist
3. Display on device
4. Silent alarm
5. Price
After searching through endless pages of reviews, I had decided the Fitbit Flex (the forerunner of the Force) was lacking significant improvements that had been present in the later model. I was no longer content to wait and see if Fitbit had a new product coming out any time soon, since it had been nearly five months since the recall. My top contender was the Vivofit by Garmin, but the more I read customer reviews, the more I was unwilling to spend about $130 to get a device that lacked some of the most important features I wanted.
Once I confirmed that the device I wanted (with all of the specifications I desired) did not exist, I decided I would have to settle for the closest thing I could find. With a more open mind, I explored the Fitbit One.
The Fitbit One had everything I wanted, except that you are meant to clip it onto your clothing, not wear it on your wrist. I think I liked the idea of wearing my fitness tracker in a prominent place, but the One is more understated. In its clip, the One is about the length of a pinky finger and not even twice as wide. It’s tiny and the clip is secure.
If you’re looking for a way to stay motivated this summer and you’re thinking about buying a fitness tracker, take the plunge and get this one.
Hre are just a few of the Fitbit One’s feautures:
1. Ability to track/input calories
The One not only tells you how many calories you can eat to maintain weight, but it will tell you how many you can eat daily to lose weight. I’m currently using mine to help me lose two pounds a week and I’m finding it very helpful.
You can input all the calories you eat and I believe it’s possible to sync the data from other apps like Lose It!, which is great if you like that platform already. It displays your total calorie burn, which includes what you burn just by being alive. If you work out, the app increases your calorie allotment for the day and the tracking seems to be pretty accurate.
My only complaint about this part of the tracker is that the calories remaining can be a little misleading. The app starts to predict your level of activity based on how active you were the previous day and how active you’ve been earlier in the day. The only real repercussion of this is when I decide to be a couch potato after dinner and my activity level plummets.
I’ve had the app tell me after dinner that I have calories still remaining, only to look at it a few hours later to see that number has plummeted and I’ve now gone over. Thus far it has only seemed to do it by about 60 calories, but it is something I have learned that I need to be mindful of when I’m looking at my calories remaining.
Overall, this feature works really well and I think if I were more consistent about my activity level at night, I wouldn’t be confusing the app.
2. The device read out, the phone app and the online platform
I am guilty of spending a lot of time on my phone, so I love the phone app. The device gives you a lot of read out info on it (time, calories burned, flights of stairs, steps, distance covered, a progress bar), but the phone app tells you even more. I love what the device can tell me.
Currently it’s telling me “Let’s Go,” probably because I’ve been pretty stationary for the last hour. You can tell the app how to greet you and when you first pick it up, it will greet you by name. My tracker just gave me smooches, can we see why I’m in love with my Fitbit One?
But back to the phone app. The app tells you everything that the device does, but it also gives you data about how many minutes you’ve been active, how much weight you have left to lose (if you’re trying to lose weight), how much sleep you got the night before (and how restless you were), calories eaten, calories remaining and how much water you’ve consumed. Aside from the calorie data, if you click on any of the items you can view detailed bar graphs.
I have learned that I’m a pretty restless sleeper, so that’s something I’m trying to work on. You can set goals on the app (for me, that’s losing weight), you can also set your silent alarms (the best thing ever, I no longer have to wake my boyfriend up with my loud alarm when I get up for work), and there are some other advanced settings.
I got an email at the end of the week with all of my data compiled and summarized. It was pretty awesome to see how many thousands of steps I have walked. The site is also great. There are even more functions than the app, especially for logging data. There’s an added journal function, a space to input your heart rate and blood pressure, and even a way to log your glucose levels through the day. There’s a community feature as well, where you can visit help forums, join discussions, and even connect with other members using Fitbit for support or to compete!
3. Silent Alarm
One of the most magical features of the One is the fact that it can wake you silently. At night you take the One out of its clip and slip it into a light, breathable and very comfortable wristband. You set the alarm on your phone and once it’s set the Fitbit will say what day and time the alarm is set for. Then you hold the button to put it in sleep mode (it vibrates and starts counting) and in the morning you’re awoken by a light, but insistent vibration. No more harsh blaring alarms.
4. Motivation
The emails are a great way to see your weekly progress and stats, but you also get badges (via email) for reaching your step goal for the day (Fitbit sets it for you and it increases or decreases slightly each day in accordance with the previous day’s statistics). You get bonus badges for every 5,000 steps you take past your goal as well. The phone app also has a badge that lets you know when you’ve reached your daily step goal. Overall, it is very motivating and I’ve even talked myself into walking to work and to the bar just to burn a few extra calories and see that “Congratulations!” on my phone.
5. Price
Like many college students, I often feel like I live in a state of semi-brokeness. As a result, I can often be hard-pressed to part with my hard earned cash. The Fitbit One is usually $99.95, not super cheap, but definitely a reasonable price among fitness trackers, which often run closer to $130.
However, being the savy shopper I am, I checked Amazon and the Fibit One retails there for $87.99. With free shipping thanks to Prime, I took the plunge and am in love with my One.
I would highly recommend the Fitbit One to anyone who is trying to become more active, stay active, lose weight, or even just monitor their fitness.
Besides the slight fluctuation in the calorie data, the other data is spot on. If you’re looking for a fitness tracker and you’re willing to forego a wrist wearable, this one is the way to go.
Check out the Fitbit One here. Best of luck getting your bikini body this summer, or at the very least, developing some great fitness habits.