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5 Top-Rated Fitness Tracker Watches for Women [plus the best NO APP OPTION!]

• Ahna Fulmer

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Navigate the world of fitness trackers including the BEST NO APP OTION, ensuring your choice enhances your wellness journey without overwhelming your wallet. 

Discover the balance of functionality and affordability with our top pick and learn tips and tricks for both Apple and Android users. 

Join us as we compare an array of smartwatches, from stylish,kid-friendly, high functioning, to no-app required.  

Whether you're seeking style, functionality, or insight into heart health, this episode is your comprehensive guide to making a smart investment in your fitness journey.

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Speaker 1:

I highly recommend this one. If you want a budget-friendly watch that does not require an app but has higher functionality, this one is app optional. Welcome, rising stars, to today's live training. It is so lovely seeing everyone's faces here If you are listening or watching the replay later or you are catching us on the Rise Renewed podcast.

Speaker 1:

Today we are talking about fitness watches. Whether you want the complex health picture in one device or you are looking for a simple, bone-free option, which is actually harder to find, we're going to talk about five, and these five cover the whole gamut of fitness tracker watches for women. Finding the right fitness watch is really important, because you have to know what your goal is in using it, or else you are a at risk of overspending on something that you're not actually going to utilize to its full capacity, or two. You're going to buy the wrong watch for your goals. So you could not only waste money, but also time, because I don't know about you, but my least favorite part of buying any device is reading the 80 page manual that comes with it, because we have so many technology options now that I ended up giving up on half of it. I don't even use the device to its full capacity, because I don't feel like reading the manual. So, whether you want a practical and stylish device, you want to monitor steps, you want sleep pattern recognition, you want to assess your heart health, ekg monitoring, even stress levels, we're going to talk about five, we're going to be really simple, five that will give you options across the board. That will give you options across the board. So, number one this is one of the most popular health and fitness smartwatches. It's one of the highest rated on Amazon and it is the Fitbit Versa smartwatch. That's the Fitbit Versa. It is a top recommendation only because, as compared to some of the other higher rated, like the Apple watch, which, by the way, is not even on this list because it is only specific to Apple users so all of these can be used whether you are an Apple or an Android person this one is popular because I think it offers the range without the price. So Fitbit will enable you to track steps, calories, heart rate, sleep stages.

Speaker 1:

Also, apparently I did not know this menstrual cycle. Now I have a friend she is actually going to come in as an expert guest one of these days into the group who is an expert in hormone health. She says that these do not tend to be as accurate. So, depending on what your goal is in tracking your menstrual cycle, maybe you just want to keep track of the date Something like this is probably perfect. But if you actually want to know when you're ovulating, et cetera, then, per her recommendation, these are probably not super accurate, but it does provide comprehensive insights smartphone notifications. It does need an app. One of the cons that I found is apparently there's reports that you need to charge it pretty frequently, which this makes sense right For these higher functioning devices. You got to be prepared every night. You're going to charge it on your nightstand or wherever you keep it. This is also, for a price point like this, probably a watch that you are using regularly At least, I would hope you're using it regularly and these range anywhere from $150 to $200. And these range anywhere from $150 to $200.

Speaker 1:

Number two happens to be one that I have that I get so many compliments on. It is the Fossil Women's Cut Screen Smartwatch, so I'm going to hold it up here. This is one that I wear regularly to church. I wear it to business conferences. This is definitely more of a if you're looking for a chic, jewelry-like watch. It does offer all of the different abilities that you would typically see with a fitness watch. It will track steps. You can work out with it.

Speaker 1:

The one downside to this is that, personally, I have no desire to work out in this watch because it's not comfortable. It's nice, but it's not very comfortable. So this is really nice for conferences, work, church, et cetera. I do get app notifications, so when someone texts me, when someone emails me, I do get all of that on this, but it is not really conducive to exercising in my opinion. It's also pretty heavy. So if you're looking for a relatively budget friendly, this one ranges from like $200 to $250, which, for a nicer watch, is actually pretty reasonable If you look at like the um the more stylish. If you want something like this, they range from like $500 and up, and I've had this one for probably at least five years, but I've had this one for a pretty long time and you can also change out the actual watch band really easily as well. So I highly recommend this one.

Speaker 1:

This is the Fossil Women's clutch screen smartwatch. The battery life is also a little shorter. Again, it's a higher functioning. It has more options. So I would say it lasts me probably a day and a half if I don't charge it overnight.

Speaker 1:

Number three I did have this one and then lost it in our move, so I don't have it to show you, but you may have heard me talk about this one before. This is the app free. I just realized I didn't plug my mic in Hold on. We're going to do that right now. There we go. My mic in Hold on. We're going to do that right now, there we go. This is the app free.

Speaker 1:

Digital sports watch. So this one is the one that tracks steps only. You may have heard me talk about this one, um, when we talked about a healthy routine for kids, but I also talked about it in our summer six-week challenge, because when we do the summer six-week challenge in the Rising Stars community, the bonus focus for the summer is steps, and this is the watch that I talked about. It is super affordable. It's anywhere from $15 to $30. It is waterproof. I mean I went swimming, I went in the ocean, I went shower. I don't think I actually took it off really at all. It has a two-year battery life. Now I can't remember how long I had it. Again, I lost it in our move, so I can't speak to how long the battery actually would have lasted, but it is an incredible option, especially for kids, if you're spending $15 on it. Even if it only lasts for six months, that's still a pretty good investment if you can use it constantly. It does not track heart rate, so when we talk about the heart rate monitoring and NEAT versus EAT, exercise activity thermogenesis versus non-exercise activity thermogenesis, this one is not going to track heart rate. But if you just want steps, that is all that you are looking at and you want something that is really, really simple. It is an incredible option. By the way, you're going to get all the links to these if you want the links. It's also going to come out as a blog post as well, so you can see them. But the app-free digital sports watch the other thing when we go into Q&A if you want the link right now to any of these, just take a mental note and I'll just drop it here in the Zoom chat for you guys who are here live.

Speaker 1:

Number four is the Garmin Vivoactive smartwatch with body battery feature. If you are going to spend a lot of money on a smartwatch, this is my go-to recommendation If you are really, really interested in getting that more complex health profile. I highly highly recommend this one, and it's because of the body battery feature. This is trademarked to Garmin. This is exclusive to them.

Speaker 1:

I did an interview with a doctor named Dr Torkel Farrow and he talks all about the body battery fitness watch and the essential element to seeing if you're resting. So he talks all about heart rate variability. It's on my podcast. You can just search body battery and you can get a whole interview with him. Fantastic interview. I highly recommend it. But what he talks about is using this feature to actually assess heart rate variability. You do not have to understand even what that means, because this watch will process all of that for you, but what it tells you is how well you are resting, which sounds backwards. This is not typically what we use fitness watches for, but his whole point is that we often think that our body is resting when it's actually not, and we can determine that by heart rate variability.

Speaker 1:

A prime example that he talks about is alcohol. I found this so fascinating and it speaks to what I have been saying, but he said it in a much more educated way and experienced way. He calls alcohol liquid stress and he is, I want to say Swedish. Forgive me, I can't remember exactly which country you're from, but he lives in a country where a nightcap of wine, one or two glasses of wine, is like cultural. It's what everyone does. He grew up doing it, even young, you just you ended your day with wine and he said he wasn't even drinking it in excess.

Speaker 1:

But when he started stepping into this concept of heart rate variability and he was tracking how well his body was resting, he started to see a even after he would drink a glass or two of wine. So he started this deep dive into what are other things that are actually causing stress in the body, even if you don't consciously feel it, that are creating inflammatory states because we think we're rested when we're not. And, to be perfectly honest, I think this is true of women in ways that go way beyond substances like alcohol. And I think about myself. There are times I think I'm resting right, I'm like sitting on the couch and it feels like I'm resting, but I can feel the fact that I'm still stressed. It's like the next day I don't actually feel rested. And so to actually have a physiological tracker to be able to show you those patterns another great example and I saw this in the emergency department all of the time the number of chest pain patients that came in that were not actually cardiac, that had no cardiac markers at all, but they had significantly tight chest pain. It often ended up being something called costochondritis, which was an inflammatory state of basically the connective tissues in our chest, and the person would often say, well, I don't feel stressed. And then I'd probe a little bit further. Women especially get this more than men costochondritis. And when you actually dig into, have there been any significant changes? Has there been any stress, added stress with your kids, right? And then they start thinking they're like, oh yeah, this did just happen recently where, yeah, I've been taking care of my chronically ill mother for the last year, but in our minds it's not this life-altering situation, so we think, no, we're actually doing okay, when in reality it's just a lot of buildup stress over time when we think we're resting and we're really not All that to say this body battery feature.

Speaker 1:

Listen to the interview with Dr Torkel Farrow. If you are going to spend a lot of money on a watch, I do recommend this, but to get the most out of it, like I just said, so you don't waste your time or your money would be to pair it with listening to that interview and also buying his book. It was a fantastic read. I read it more than once, which I rarely say of a lot of my podcast guests and their books, if I'm being completely honest. So highly, highly recommend that. And again, you can search that on the website and find that number five.

Speaker 1:

I just mentioned some of my top recommendations. If you want like the fancier watch I said fossil, I put the Fitbit only just because it's like the highest rated one on Amazon for what that's worth, this is my favorite fancy one that no app for kids step tracker. Number one recommendation there talked about, if you're going to spend a lot of money, it is the body battery watch with Garmin, but the best overall budget-friendly watch that I personally recommend oh, it's in my lap. I was like where is it? Is this one? That has been a newer find. It is by a company called Urans. This is from Amazon, but why the need for a phone? But if you want a more complex profile, it will not be as extensive as the Garmin, the Fitbit or even this fossil watch, um, but it will do sleep. It will do uh GPS tracking so you can actually do um route mapping, heart rate zones. It will track it for you distance covered, whether you're biking, running, et cetera, and then it will log it in the app on your phone If you want something that is a little bit more, um, like diary based.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that I like about this this is only $30. On Amazon is $30. I actually could not believe how much came on it when I bought it and was testing it. This seems like a silly thing, but as someone who is hardcore about I want simple, not super complex.

Speaker 1:

One of the downsides to cheap watches are the bands. The bands will rip and come off and, depending on how cheap the watch is, you're done because the way the band is attached, there's no replacement option for it. So I was also surprised with this $30 watch is it actually has the more expensive these little like latches right that you can slide over and actually take it off? Um, so it's like super easy to just take these off. So I have only had this one for probably six months, if that Maybe not quite that long Band is still on. I don't wear it every day, but I've worn it for a lot of days. The band is not ripped yet either, but even if it does, this is something that does stand out is that you can pretty easily replace it.

Speaker 1:

This one, to my knowledge, I do not believe that this one will give you text notifications or knowledge. I do not believe that this one will give you text notifications or emails. I do not believe will actually sync with your phone. Again, I have not used the app, but I don't believe it will do that. I would love to hear your watch recommendations. I would also love to hear any questions, feedback. I will do my best to answer questions on those five and I'll also give you any links that you want.

Speaker 1:

Ladies, let me pray over our week. Lord, thank you so much for the women that are here. Thank you for the women that will listen later or tune in later. Lord, I thank you so much for the ability to move our bodies, for the ability to use our minds. It's so easy to take for granted the things that we have something as simple as movement, which is the whole reason that we even are interested in fitness watches in the first place.

Speaker 1:

And right now, I just think of the women who are struggling even to be able to move, who might be dealing with injury or sickness or illness, whether it be acute or maybe it is chronic, and they're now facing the rest of their life with this chronic illness that is making it a lot harder to move. So, lord, I just pray that we would be grateful that we would rise to live, loved by you, and that that would include praise, a lot of praise, even in the hard things. But, lord, may we never take for granted what we do have today, because we're not guaranteed tomorrow. So help us to rise with that intention to praise you for it all. I do pray over us that we would stay safe, that we would move well and wisely and that we would be good stewards of the gifts that you have given us. And I just pray that we would go forth this week in peace, trusting that you lead the way. You're our protector, you're our savior, and that you would just give us wisdom every day. We love you, amen.

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Ahna Fulmer

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