Five of My Favorite Fitness Trackers for Optimizing Health, Performance and Diet

What gets measured gets improved - Robin Sharma 

There are SO MANY trackers on the market. And the landscape changes all the time. The ones discussed in this post are the ones I have personally used at various stages of my fitness journey and have seen work for many of my clients. If you have something that is already working for you, GREAT! Don’t fix what ain’t broke. But if you are looking for something to aid you along in your wellness journey maybe one or some of these can help. 

They all track specific data across movement, nutrition, recovery, sleep and body composition and present the data in ways that inspire action or change. No tracker is perfect. Perfect doesn’t exist. But they are pretty darn good and that’s better than guessing. I often joke I wish they would all merge so we could have one mega tracker that did it all (MY PRECIOUS!). And yes, I have been known to sometimes wear two at the same time because, frankly, I’m a crazy person.  

And before the Apple Watch people crucify me, no, I don’t include it in this list. In my personal and professional experience, the Apple Watch is a beautifully designed timepiece that tracks some solid health stats. It certainly wins in the design/looks department. I’m not dissing the Apple Watch. If you have, use and LOVE your Apple Watch keep rocking it! I know many people and have several clients who use and love theirs. But if you have one and it’s not inspiring the right change in you or you are on the market for something different then this list is for you. 

[Side story: A few years ago I traded in my FitBit and gave the Apple Watch a whirl and I didn’t love it. It was like having another iPhone and frankly, I don’t need a mini iPhone on my wrist reminding me of unanswered texts, incoming emails and upcoming meetings while I’m trying to workout. For the cost and for my needs it wasn't a fit and I ended up selling it to a friend.]

FitBit

The FitBit is often the best choice for someone who just wants to start moving more. It’s claim to fame is that it measures your steps. If you are feeling sedentary and just want something to inspire you to get out and walk or run more and hit a specific step goal (10k steps/day is the defacto) you may want to start here. It’s also the most cost effective option starting at about $100. There are no contracts or monthly subscriptions. For a long time, this was my personal go-to for basic running and overall daily stats. I loved seeing how many steps I could muster in a day and if I was just under my goal it would inspire me to get up and move just to feel that buzzer alert go off. And it would inspire healthy competition with my partner Peter and also with my clients. It has a watch face (I like knowing what time it is!), a simple design and decent sleep monitoring/metrics as well as estimated caloric burn based on heart rate. 

Garmin 

If you are a sport-specific person or care about your athletic performance, this one’s for you. Once I got into marathon training I outgrew my FitBit and upgraded to the Garmin (my partner Peter and I both have the Forerunner 935). It measures and presents so many performance metrics relevant for runners, hikers and bikers. It has powerful GPS/mapping and heart rate tracking that monitors, reports and archives your performance in a variety of actionable charts and graphs so you can see your development over time. It estimates your caloric burn by activity and for the day and monitors your sleep and recovery with recommendations on how to optimize your performance. And yes, it also tells your total steps and what time it is. 

Whoop 

The FitBit (generally speaking) is for the casual mover. The Garmin is for the sports-specific enthusiast. The Whoop absolutely is the best tracker for “high performers” (ie athletes, weekend warriors and anyone who already exercises A LOT). Whoop there it is (I couldn’t resist). 

The Whoop is sports/movement “agnostic” in that it doesn’t measure steps, distance or elevation. Whoop executives argue that steps and miles are irrelevant. By tracking your heart rate and measuring and analyzing Heart Rate Variability (HRV) with some super impressive algorithms, AI and predictive analytics the Whoop provides highly actionable data to help you determine how hard you are pushing yourself (what they call “Strain”), how much you have (or have not) recovered and how well (or poorly) you have slept sleep. 

Over time the Whoop learns more and more about you and what fuels or deters your performance (in terms of exercise, recovery and sleep) and it’s app becomes your personal coach that helps you decide how hard you should push each day (or whether you need to go lighter or rest), what time you should go to bed depending on what you have planned the next day and how daily behaviors (like medications, meditation and sleep habits) are impacting you. The Whoop has helped me cure some really bad overtraining and under recovering habits and has definitely improved my sleeping habits so that I perform better in my workouts and am better able to maintain my optimum body composition. (Julian, you were right!).

The tracker itself is just a simple, sleek strap on your wrist. It doesn’t even have a watch or display (which is my only major ding). And it’s very cheap ($30 or less depending on if they are running a special. Mine was free because of a promotion). The power behind the Whoop isn’t the hardware; it’s the engineering and analytics of the data which is continually tweaked and improved. For that you pay a monthly membership fee of ~$30. 

FitTrack Smart Scale 

Most of us track our movement because we have some physical goal (i.e. lose fat, maintain physique or build more muscle). For the most part, the mirror and the fit of your clothes can tell you what you need to know. But, if you are like me you want to also have something quantitative to track over time. There are a ton of in-home “smart scales” on the market. I like this one for it’s simple design and easy-to-use app. 

All of these scales are inherently flawed in that they aren’t super accurate. Meaning if you absolutely must know your precise body fat or muscle mass measurements you’ll need to go get a DEXA scan. BUT, if you don’t desperately care about the true number and just want to track changes over time, this gets the job done nicely. It measures 17 different stats (most of them not really relevant but are “neat”). I look at body fat mass/percentage and muscle mass mostly. Metabolic age is also kind of cool. Again, the mirror and fit of your clothes are more important in my experience, but this data is also nice to have when trying to bring about specific change. 

MyFitnessPal 

There are LOADS of nutritional strategies out there: keto, veganism, intermittent fasting, Whole 30, cleanses, lotions, portions and incantations. If you have one that works for you, great! I coach “flexible eating” which allows me the freedom to eat the things I love (pizza, ice cream, burritos) while also eating to my body’s genetic needs and for my body composition goals. I cover it all in my free nutrition guide. My go-to tool for tracking my nutrition (calories, macronutrients and vitamins/minerals) is the MyFitnessPal app. It’s an easy to use food journaling app with a huge database. Yes, it’s kind of a pain to start food journaling if you aren’t used to it. But every single one of my clients who has done it consistently has achieved their goals. Let that sink in. EVERY, SINGLE ONE. So when people ask me the fastest, most efficient way to achieve weight loss I encourage them to read my guide, download MyFitnessPal and start using it. 

Feel free to comment and let me know if any of these trackers are working for you or if there are any awesome ones I don’t include! And maybe one day Google or Apple will buy up all the good ones and make one “perfect” tracker one day. Until then, here we are!