Thanks to the delightful Debenhams team, we got the gift of fitness, the new ‘FitBit Charge HR’ in a tasty tangerine! The exercise of choice to test the latest activity tracker was the Cancer Research Winter Series 10km in London. Sadly H had a tight hip flexor and so opted out of this; nonetheless I took to the streets of London with fellow Lorna Jane sister Adrienne Herbert.
I set up my tracker the night before, which took no more than 15mins. Even for a technophobe like myself! Simply charge up your watch and download the app. It’s as easy as that! I set my alarm for 6am and nodded off, dreaming of the many kilometres to be covered the following morning armed with my new gadget.
The subtle buzzing of the FitBit Charge HR was actually a rather pleasant wake up, much less startling than the usual screaming phone that welcomes my waking! It also records how long you slept for and if you were restless or awake at any time throughout the night. As the name suggests, the FitBit has two little green lights on its underside which record your heart rate, so wearing it during the night gives you a pretty accurate reading of your resting heart rate. Always useful to know right? As you can see from my graphs my resting heart rate is around 48 beats per minute, which I was pretty chuffed with as it puts me above ‘excellent’ for my age. Gold star to my heart!
Breakfast gobbled, laces tied and bag packed I headed out for the race. You can see on my distance graphs that my navigation skills failed me ever so slightly, but I finally by 8.15am I had reached my bag drop and was almost ready to run.
The tracker is easily adjustable making it a snug fit for any size wrist, and although a little wide it sat comfortably underneath my thermal long sleeve.
We set off towards the start line at 9:10am which you can see on the steps, heart rate, distance and calorie charts. We jogged and walked until crossing the start line at 9:30am. It was useful to check my heart rate throughout the run to make sure I was not peaking too early. It’s easy to get over excited after all! We ran our 10km in around 47mins and then walked 20mins back to Nuffield health. You can clearly see the 10km on all graphs which then slowly tapers off as we walked back. The heart rate graph is extremely useful here as you can see how quickly your body recovers from exercise. On the whole the quicker it drops the fitter you are.
For the afternoon I vegged out and had Sunday Roast with my family. Well-deserved don’t you think? This can also be seen on the graphs as my heart rate stays low and my steps and mileage reduce.
I would highly recommend the FitBit Charge HR as an excellent tracker. The app is easy to use and you can even add the water and food you drink each day.
The only downside I had with the FitBit charge HR was that it is only sweat proof not waterproof so you cannot shower or swim with it.
To get your own FitBit click below…
http://www.debenhams.com/home/fitness-equipment/fitness-activity-trackers
E x
TTH x
