Fitbit Charge HR review.

First I have to apologize: I wrote this review months ago (back in October - I'm trying to edit to make it slightly more accurate but if it seems a little off, it's because it's a bit old) and totally forgot to post it up. I still feel the same way as I did when I first wrote this, though, and I've added a note at the bottom.

This review might be a bit late because I don’t know if you can still buy the Charge HR’s, or if you can just get the Charge HR 2’s now, so this will be a review on Fitbits as a whole. I got a Fitbit Charge HR for Christmas in 2015 and I feel like I can finally give a review on it now that I’ve had it for over year, dealt with customer service over several different issues, and used it daily. 

Let me say that I like my Fitbit, and I like the information it gives me. It’s interesting knowing how I sleep (or how it *thinks* I sleep; sometimes I find that a bit inaccurate), I’ve wanted to know my heart rate from the beginning, and knowing how many steps or miles I walk in a day was great. It helped me keep track of my goal to log in 1000 active miles in 2016. The app is pretty user friendly, easy for people like me to get (sometimes it takes me a few tries to grasp it all) and I was concerned about that because I don’t have an iPhone (or a smart phone in general, just a 5th generation iPod touch). I like knowing all the information it can give me. It’d say it goes for any Fitbit that you may have. So things like that are great. Is it 100% accurate? Well, no. I get quite a bit of steps in when I’m sitting on the couch knitting. ;) The other day I was stretching my hands overhead and standing in one place and all of a sudden I felt that vibration against my wrist that I had met my 10k step goal, just by stretching. I’m not sure how accurate the heart rate monitor is, and I know that soon after Christmas there was that whole big thing about Fitbit being sued and not being accurate. That never bothered me. It gives me a general idea, which I like. I can track my workouts, it helps keep me accountable. Rest days make me feel like a lazy sloth because I’m not meeting that goal (which hurts and helps someone like me, which I’ve touched base on in previous issues about Fat Girl Mentality and the possible fact that maybe I went about getting healthy all wrong) so, that could be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it.

So while I do like the device. I like it when it is WORKING. I’ve had a lot of issues with my Fitbit breaking and falling apart. I wash it as per the directions on their website, I don’t shower with it on. I take it off immediately after a sweaty workout and wipe the sweat off of it. It KILLED me to walk up the 4 flights of stairs to go down the water slide and not have all those darn steps count because it would probably get wet and therefore ruined. I’m not hard on it at all, that I think at least. I work out with it on, obviously, I mean it’s called FITbit, I take it off when I shower, clean it, sleep with it on and I am currently on my 3rd replacement since Christmas. In my experience my Fitbit Charge HR has lasted approximately six to twelve weeks before falling apart. The side button falling off, air bubbles getting in the band, etc. Customer service was great the first couple of times and replaced it for free, but this last time (with still two months left in the one year warranty) it’s been absolutely deplorable. Constantly telling me about the new Fitbit’s, the color I originally had being unavailable (I had one in teal and it’s been phased out as they go on to the Charge HR 2, so I was only able to choose between two colors), getting told one thing from one Customer Service Representative, but then getting told something completely different from another one, asking a question and being ignored over four times before finally I started getting snippy to get my question answered. It’s so frustrating. I get that you they made a new Fitbit and it’s considered an upgrade to what I had, but my Charge HR isn’t even a year old yet, I’m on my 4th one (3rd replacement) and I honestly believe that something that was $149 should last longer than 6-12 weeks. 

Do I recommend the Charge HR or Fitbit in general? Well, I’m not sure. Some people I know have never had an issue with their Fitbits and love them. Some have never had their Fitbit break but just don’t like the device. Others are like me: they like the device, but it’s constantly breaking. And now that I’m getting the runaround from Fitbit’s customer service, mixed together with the fact that I’ve had a terrible experience with these things breaking, I have no idea what to say. I honestly don’t. I love the device when it works. I love the device when I call customer service and can get customer service, not a constant feeling that I’m stupid and that they want me to drop another $149 on their new device. Why should I do that when this device obviously didn’t work well for me, especially when I’m really getting the runaround and I’m just not pleased with the customer service? It’s all a big question mark.

I’m not sure how long this new replacement will last. Frankly, I am not confident that it’ll last longer than 6-12 weeks because that has been my experience. In the mean time, I’m going to look at all the different fitness trackers I can find (anyone have any suggestions where I might find real people reviews on this, by the way?) and decide, because I like the idea of a fitness tracker, even if it does kind of make me wonder if it’s the best for me. Do I recommend the Fitbit? If you don’t get a defective one, sure. ;)

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Okay, so back to the present again, that last replacement is barely holding on. Just this week I had an issue where it stopped working. It's been superglued together twice. It lasted exactly four months, to the date before falling off. I glued it back together with E6000, and that help hold it together for another month or so. The band is now separating and it has major syncing issues. I've been looking in to Garmin trackers, which seem really interesting, but I'm still not 100% sure. I don't want to lose all those Fitbit badges I've earned over the years, I'm familiar with the Fitbit app, and I have no idea of the Charge 2 is a good step up or not. Phew! Why am I so addicted to the tracker?! 

Jillian Michaels Six Week Six Pack - Level 2

Look up cruel and unusual in the dictionary and you may very well see Jillian’s face. I’m not even kidding. I’ll be honest: Level 2 scared me. I did another program in between Level 1 and 2 because it intimidated me so much! But finally did Level 2 and I’m not going to lie. It was hard, but it’s also probably one of my favorite workouts. And here’s the rundown! Basheerah and Matty are back. Matty is still the modifier and Basheerah is the advanced, but Jillian has Matty hold on to a weight, which was the main modification in Level 1. You start with your warmup, like always, and it’s your regular warm up except…THERE ARE BURPEES IN THE WARM UP. Well, not exact burpees, but up-downs which are basically a burpee without the jump at the end. Isn’t that a bunch of crap? ;) Who thinks of burpees in the warmup. Oh. Yeah. Some crazy lady named Jillian. ;). A few other moves; lunges, squats, that sort of stuff to get your muscles loose and then you begin to torture yourself. It’s all worth it!

Like in Level 1, you do one long circuit, and repeat it a second time going at a quicker pace. I held on to one 8lb dumb bell the whole time. You begin stepping into lunge and doing lunge with chops, where you’re basically wood-chopping to one side. Then you go to an oblique crunch with your weight up, touching your elbow to knee. Drop the weight and do jumping jackknives. Yes. Jumping jackknives. Repeat the lunge chops and the oblique crunch on the other side, and then you move on to low to high. This move is where you are holding the weight up high up in front of you over your head, and then twisting and pivoting into a 180, and dropping into a lunge. After that, you do repeater knees with the weight. Jillian takes mercy on you for two seconds - she lets you drop the weight, and then get into plank and do plant twists. Repeat low to highs on the other side as well as repeater knees. Next you do a lunge twist with a pass through, which I actually really liked. Lunge forward and twist, same leg lunge back, and pass the dumbbell under the front leg. Then she had you do light house swings, which I also enjoyed. Swinging your arm out straight in front of you and turning your hip and pivoting on the ball of your foot side to side. Next she has you do bicycle crunches, and after that you repeat the twisting lunge with a pass on the other wise, but instead of light house again, she has you do dumbbell swings, which are like swinging a sledgehammer. That’s always fun, right? 

Now the fun begins. Get into plank. Now. Plank moguls. After that, you have my sympathies, because she has you doing t-stand kicks. That’s where you start in plank and move into side plank, and then kick your foot out. And then back into plank, and do so on the opposite side. Those are tough. It got a little bit better for me when I realized to keep my hands pointed straight out in front of me and not turn my wrists. Otherwise, I’m asking for a broken wrist because I lose my balance easily. After that, you do double crunches, and as if she’s not evil then you do hollow man. And then flip over into mountain climbers. 

And guess what? You get to do it all over again, but at a quicker pace! On level 1, it seems like the quicker pace was almost too much, but this one wasn’t too bad. Even going at my own pace, what I felt was safe, was pretty much on time with the girls. So that was awesome! Not that modifying is bad at all, you still get an incredible workout when you modify, but it kind of kills my ego a bit. ;) 

Seriously though?? I really like this one, as hard as it is! Maybe because there isn’t lot of mat work, which we all know I hate. It’s more standing ab work. With how much I didn’t want to do it, and how bad Level 1 hurt my back, I’m surprised by how much I liked it! I expected this to be a terribly painful experience. It is, kind of. Haha! But it’s one that I like afterwards, which I can’t say I had that experience as much with Level 1 just because how bad it hurt afterwards. I’d say the DVD is worth it just for Level 2. I didn’t take measurements and I didn’t take my weight reliably but I definitely notice a lot of changes in my body. Positive changes! 

Revisiting Ripped In 30

I decided to revisit Ripped In 30 in between Level 1 and Level 2 of Six Week Six Pack (6W6P). RI30 has always been a favorite of mine (if not my absolute favorite program), and doing it again was great on so many levels! Six Week Six Pack really hurt my back and let me know that I may have lost some core strength while taking my Jillian break, so I thought, why not go back. Plus, Level 2 of 6W6P was sooo intimidating. I didn’t think I was strong enough to do it, so what a better way to get myself back in the groove than to get ripped?!

The first time I did Ripped In 30, I had been doing Jillian workouts for just a couple months, but it was the second Jillian program I ever did. Now that I’ve done a few different programs and a few different people, it was nice to go back and see how far I’ve come. Definitely a non-scale victory! It was great showing myself how far I’ve come physically! Since I’ve already given the rundown of what each week entails in previous entries, I won’t do that again, but feel free to go back and read those entries.

Week 1, I loved. It was great going back to Jillian and doing the 3-2-1 plan again. And I felt that it was a great way to reboot myself and my system again and get an all around whole body workout. It was all pretty basic and getting the moves down, but even for me, I still felt challenged. This time around I used 8 pound dumbbells and did fine with it. My first time around I used 5lbs.

Week 2 can burn in hell. I only did this one for five days because I’m pretty sure this workout made my back hurt something terrible - I had the same issue with 6W6P, so it makes me wonder if I’m doing something wrong or if I’ve pulled something. Since I’ve never been to a gym and never had anyone tell me that my form is absolutely correct, it very well could be that I’ve been doing all this wrong. But this time, I felt more challenged than I did the first time! 

Last time around, I hated Week 3. This time, I loved it! I can’t believe that I found duckwalks and bear crawls so hard! I mean, yes, they’re difficult, but I feel like I had them down! The whole entire workout was great. Challenging, fun, but I still loved every minute! 

And Week 4 is still my favorite, even with the burpees, which I’ll be honest - are not as scary as they used to be! That’s an amazing feeling! And at the end, the speech Jillian gives about brought me to tears. Again. I’ve been doing two workouts a day; an hour of cardio and then a strength DVD or youtube workout that’s anywhere form 30-45 minutes for over two years. And sometimes I just feel like a zombie. It’s just gotten to be routine now that I forget what I’m doing. Wow. I’m actually doing something! Not a lot of people do this, and her speech was another reminder of that! 

I didn’t take measurements or track my weight this time around, but I feel like I’ve come a long way. I can tell that when I read my old posts about this workout program. It was so nice to revisit and go back to the basics. It was like going through my old closet of bigger sized clothes, just to see how far I’ve come only fitness style. I think I need to do it more often!