My fitness tracking has truly evolved over the years. 

When I ran my first half marathon, 10 years ago, I had a small step and distance tracker. There was a special tracking piece that went into the sole of my shoe and synced up with the tracker on my wrist. It was as basic as basic gets. No heart rate monitoring, no mile pacers… basic. So I essentially had to carry my phone whenever I ran just to have all the information I needed to train….

Then I got pregnant 5ish years later and wanted to be able to monitor my heart rate while working out. That wasn’t something my basic tracker could do, so I had to get a separate heart rate monitor… in addition to carrying my phone…

Then I decided to run another half marathon and figured it was time to invest in a quality fitness tracker. And so my “advanced” fitness tracker journey began… Yet something I’ve always struggled with is finding a fitness tracker that is also chic and fashionable (read: able to be worn with my everyday clothing), while still being functional. 

Enter Garmin. Over the past month or so I’ve been using the new to me Garmin Venu fitness tracker watch that is both functional and fashionable. With it’s rose gold stainless steel bezel I was immediately drawn to its aesthetics… then I began to read more of what it offers, and I was convinced I needed to give it a try. After using it for over a month I can firmly say it’s everything it’s cracked up to be… the perfect combination of function and style. I wanted to highlight a few of the features that got me hooked on the Venu fitness tracker in particular. 

1. Built In Sports Apps + Fitness Tracking: Since different workouts have different effects on the body, I love that Garmin allows me to select from over 20 different workouts (swimming, running, cycling, strength, yoga, hiking, etc…) to track my activity specific performance. Additionally, during my workout, it tracks steps taken, heart rate (which I’m always interested in), floors climbed (great when we’re hiking), intensity minutes, and calories burned… and on my runs it tracks my mile paces, which is helpful when I’m working on speed training. 

2. Music: If I don’t want to carry my phone with me during a workout, I can download songs from my Amazon music account (or spotify/deezer work too) to my watch which allows me to be completely hands free during my runs since I can also sync up my earpods to the watch as well. 

3. Safety + Tracking Features: If I do chose to leave my phone at home during a run, I love love that Garmin has a safety feature built into the watch. As long as my watch is synced up to my phone (which it is) my live location can be sent to my contacts manually or,  during outdoor activities, automatically with built-in incident detection. This was one of the features that really drew me to the watch. 

4. Health Monitoring: While the Garmin can monitor so many facets of my health, the features I find myself using the most include Stress Tracking,  Hydration Tracking, and Body Battery Energy Monitoring. I found the body battery energy monitoring to be so fascinating… it tells me the optimal times throughout the day for me to rest and utilize energy to be at my best. While I can’t always sync up with that, given I have two kiddos running around, it’s for sure a helpful guide for me in understanding my daily body fluctuations. 

The hydration tracking allows me to be much more mindful of my water consumption throughout the day. I feel as if I go through phases with being really mindful of drinking water, and other times, usually during high stress, I forget. Having the accountability piece of logging my consumption daily has really helped me to become much more consistent… and stay much more hydrated. It also adjusts based on my activity levels, which is super helpful on days I go on my longer runs. 

The stress tracker is super fascinating as well. It takes all my data and will let me know, based on how my body has responded, if my day was overall stressful, balanced, or calm… and will provide me with needed reminders to practice stress reducing techniques, such as deep breathing (which does wonders for helping me feel more centred). 

I feel as if the Garmin Venu is such a great gift option for yourself, or someone you love (it’s currently $100 off as well). Garmin also has the vivomove, which is a hybrid smartwatch with real watch hands. It has almost all the features of the Venu and it’s currently $200 off making it $150. Both seamlessly move from workout to everyday life. 

And for the little ones in our lives, there is the vivofit jr.3 Princess Theme… Harper has this and she loves wearing it and “matching me.” There is an app that comes with it that allows parents to set chores and goals, and when they’re completed assign a token… which can be redeemed for an agreed upon reward (this is so behavioral therapy based and the therapist in me loves it). You can also send friendly reminders of the chores that still need to be completed…. 

And, if you know someone who already owns one of these great watches, consider the gift of a new stylish watch band, since both the watches I shared are able to change out watch bands (perfect to match your outfit). 

To say my fitness tracking journey has come a long way would be an understatement, but so glad that it has!
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Thank you to Garmin for sponsoring this post