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Which Fitbit fitness tracker should you buy in 2024?

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Which Fitbit fitness tracker should you buy in 2024?

Fitbit

The Fitbit is one of the most popular fitness trackers on the market. But with five different options — plus the special basic Fitbit Ace 3 for kids — it can be hard to know which Fitbit makes the most sense for you, especially when a lot of the features overlap. For example, every Fitbit is water resistant down to 50 meters so you can work up a sweat or even take a swim while keeping your smartwatch or fitness tracker on your wrist.

They all offer a smart wake alarm, too. This handy feature that lets you set the general time you want to wake up in the morning and when it gets close to that time, your Fitbit will monitor for the optimal sleep stage and wake you up. That way, you can start your day feeling refreshed, rather than groggy.

So what are the important differences between each of the latest Fitbits on the market in 2024? Here’s a quick guide to help you figure out what each one can do so you can decide which one fits you best.


Best Fitbit for daily use: Fitbit Versa 4


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The Fitbit Versa 4 is a smartwatch and fitness tracker in one, featuring built-in Google apps like Google Maps and Google Wallet, along with the ability to make on-wrist calls when it’s connected to your phone via Bluetooth. You can also get text and calendar notifications as well as notifications from your other favorite apps.

The fitness tracker can track heart rate, skin temperature, breathing rate and blood oxygen levels while also tracking steps, calories burned, distance and other activity metrics throughout your day. It can track more than 40 exercises and even give you a personalized cardio fitness score based on how well your body uses oxygen during a workout. That way, you can get a better sense of what your current fitness level is and what you should focus on to improve it.   

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This makes it a great choice for anyone who wants a watch that can track their workouts and provide key performance and fitness insights but also gives you the versatility and functionality of an everyday smartwatch. The 4.4-star rated Fitbit Versa 4 is $200 on Amazon.

What we like about the Fitbit Versa 4:

  • Convenient smartwatch features like on-wrist calling and app notifications, built-in Google Maps and your choice of Google Wallet or Fitbit pay.
  • Track your heart rate, blood oxygen, skin temperature, breathing and activity levels.
  • Track heart rate variability and get notifications when your resting heart rate changes, which can be an early indicator of poor sleep quality, stress, overtraining or a potential heart condition worth consulting your doctor about.

$200 at Amazon


Best Fitbit for stress management: Fitbit Sense 2


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The Fitbit Sense 2 is the smartwatch that does it all. Answer calls on your wrist. Pay with Fitbit Pay or Google Wallet using your watch. Track your routes with built-in GPS. And, of course, it comes with all your essentials like heart rate, blood oxygen and activity tracking.

On top of those features, the Sense 2 adds an EDA sensor so you can take an ECG to get a more accurate heart rate reading. But the most standout feature that separates the Sense 2 from the pack is the all-day body response tracking. 

Using the EDA sensor, skin temperature sensor and heart rate sensor, the Sense 2 constantly monitors for fluctuations in your stress level throughout the day. When it spikes, you’ll get a notification so you can pause to reflect or use the built-in mindfulness and breathing exercises to relax.

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At the end of the day, you’ll get a report that shows when your physical stress levels spiked and dropped so you can better identify patterns around when, where and why you’re feeling stressed.

Regularly listed at $300, it’s usually the most expensive Fitbit in the lineup but those advanced health and wellness features make it worth the price for anyone who’s trying to improve their overall wellness alongside their workout performance. 

Right now, you can get the premium stress management smartwatch at Amazon for just $200.

What we like about the Fitbit Sense 2:

  • With on-wrist phone calls, built-in Alexa and notifications from your calendar, email and other apps, the Sense 2 is a fully-functional smartwatch with all the bells and whistles.
  • The all-day body response tracking uses advanced tracking features to continuously monitor your physical stress levels so you can look for patterns and identify the best ways to reduce your stress.
  • Use Fitbit Pay or Google Wallet with your watch.

$200 at Amazon


Best Fitbit for intense workouts and training sessions: Fitbit Charge 6


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The Fitbit Charge 6 is a slim, lightweight wearable — more so than other Fitbits. So it won’t feel clunky even when you’re running or lifting weights. It has Fitbit Pay and built-in GPS so you can go on a run without your phone, and still be able to navigate your way home (or pay for a coffee).

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This makes the Charge 6 the ideal fitness tracker for athletes who don’t like the bulk of a smartwatch but still want some of that functionality.

The Charge 6 also has a skin temperature sensor and an electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor so you’ll get detailed insights into your health and wellness. You can even take an ECG for a more accurate read on your heart. That said, the Charge 6 won’t continuously monitor changes in your skin’s electrical charge for an all-day body-response tracking like the Sense 2 above or the Pixel Watch 2 below.

You can get the popular fitness tracker for $140 on Amazon (reduced from $160). No wonder it’s earned over 2,000 five-star ratings on Amazon after being out for less than a year.

What we like about the Fitbit Charge 6:

  • This fitness tracker includes all the most advanced features for health, fitness, stress and sleep tracking.
  • The Charge 6 is the only Fitbit aside from the Sense 2 that comes with an EDA sensor so you can monitor your stress levels.
  • The built-in GPS lets you track your route and navigate back home during your run or bike ride without your phone in tow.  

$140 at Amazon


The best Fitbit for beginners: Fitbit Inspire 3


Amazon

The Fitbit Inspire 3 is a great introductory fitness tracker for people who are trying to incorporate more exercise into their routine. It’s lightweight and unobtrusive so you’ll barely notice it’s there, but it can still give you comprehensive insights into your overall health and fitness levels along with periodic reminders to get moving if you’ve been sitting too long.

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The slim, lightweight Inspire 3 can go up to 10 days in between charges, giving it the longest battery life of any Fitbit. Part of that extended battery life is the result of ditching the built-in GPS you get with the Versa 4, Sense 2 and Charge 5. But you can still connect to your phone’s GPS via Bluetooth so you don’t completely lose that functionality.

Aside from GPS, the Inspire 3 is also missing a temperature sensor and EDA sensor but it still packs many of the advanced health and activity tracking features you look for in a Fitibit. That includes heart rate, blood oxygen levels and your daily activity levels. It can even send you notifications when your heart rhythm shows signs of being irregular.  

At $100, the 4.4-star rated fitness tracker is also the most budget-friendly option from the Fitbit lineup (with the exception of the Fitbit Ace 3 which is built for kids).  

What we like about the Fitbit Inspire 3:

  • The battery lasts up to 10 days in between charges.
  • The budget-friendly fitness tracker still offers the essentials like heart rate, blood oxygen and activity tracking.
  • The slim, lightweight design is super comfortable for wearing all day long.

$100 at Amazon


A stylish Fitbit that doubles as jewelry: Fitbit Luxe


Amazon

The Fitbit Luxe is a fitness tracker designed for people who don’t like the look of fitness trackers. It’s slim, sleek and comes with a variety of stylish bands including a timeless gold stainless steel link band that looks more like a bracelet than a fitness tracker. You can also change the clock face on the display to better coordinate with your outfit for the day.

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It’s not all about the looks, though. The Luxe also boasts all your fitness tracking essentials like heart rate, blood oxygen and activity. In terms of functionality, it’s on par with the Inspire 3 but with a shorter battery life. 

Get the stylish fitness tracker while it’s on sale at Amazon for $98, reduced from its usual price of $130.

What we like about the Fitbit Luxe:

  • The sleek, stylish fitness tracker that looks more like fashion accessory.
  • Aside from the battery life, the fitness tracking features you get are on par with the Inspire 3.
  • Customize the watch face to coordinate with your outfit.

$98 at Amazon


Honorable mention: Google Pixel Watch 2


Amazon

While it doesn’t have the Fitbit name, the Pixel Watch 2 does have Fitbit technology since Google bought the leading fitness tracker brand in 2019. That includes blood oxygen tracking, a skin temperature sensor and a continuous electrodermal activity (cEDA) sensor. Like the Sense 2, the Pixel Watch 2 continuously measures changes in the electrical currents on the surface of your skin to help track your stress levels.

Those new sensors give the Pixel Watch 2 the ability to offer new health insights like a sleep score and daily readiness score. One of the most impressive additions is “body response,” a measure of stress and excitement that can send you a notification when it detects heightened stress and take you through guided breathing or mindfulness exercises to help you find your calm.

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Beyond stress management, the new Pixel Watch 2 packs tons of new fitness tools. You can now do heart rate zone training with real-time feedback and coaching during your workout when you go above or below your target zone. You can also do pace training, with similar real-time alerts when you go above or below your target pace.

Get the stylish smartwatch at Amazon for $350.

Top features of the Pixel Watch 2:

  • New Gmail and Calendar integrations let you reply to emails and accept or decline invites from your watch.
  • Safety Check lets you set a timer for your watch to check in and, if you don’t confirm you’re ok, it will send your real-time location to your emergency contacts or contact emergency services for you.
  • Google Assistant lets you request health and fitness insights with your voice.
  • Automatic exercise detection is available for seven exercises.
  • The improved aluminum housing is 30 grams lighter, making it more comfortable to wear while working out.

$350 at Amazon


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Fitness

From Lifespan to ‘Health-span’: Use the New Year to Focus on Both Health and Fitness

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From Lifespan to ‘Health-span’: Use the New Year to Focus on Both Health and Fitness

Fitness encompasses cardiovascular endurance, strength training, and mobility/flexibility. These are non-negotiables for continuing to live throughout your later years with your independence and ability to move and socialize still intact.

Instead of thinking simply about living longer, let’s use the start of a new year to focus on getting healthier, so we live better. More than any other time each year, the New Year is a popular time to focus on a “fresh start.” Temporal landmarks like New Year’s Day, Mondays, birthdays and the change of seasons are standard starting lines for many of us when we have a goal to work toward and bad habits to break.

Science Says Fitness Matters (Even More than Weight)

A recent study published in the British Journal of Medicine, Cardiorespiratory Fitness, BMI, and Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, shows that, regardless of body weight (obese, overweight or normal), fitness matters more for all-cause mortality. They measured the weight, BMI and fitness of six groups: normal weight-fit; normal weight-unfit; overweight-fit; overweight-unfit; obese-fit; and obese-unfit.

The analyses revealed that individuals classified as fit, regardless of their BMI, did not have a statistically significantly higher risk of cardiovascular disease or all-cause mortality compared to normal weight-fit people. At the same time, all unfit groups across different BMI categories exhibited a two- to threefold higher risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality compared to their regular weight-fit counterparts.

About Body Mass Index (BMI)

Now, you may be saying, “But BMI is flawed!” Sure. BMI is not the best indicator for distinguishing normal weight, overweight and obesity because it is simply a height-to-weight ratio that does not account for differences in body fat/muscle composition, age, sex or other factors. Before you discredit this entire study because of the BMI issue, remember that it measured fitness levels among people of different sizes. Some had more muscle and were considered fit in the overweight/obese group, while others were deemed unfit in the normal weight group. Still, BMI helps place people of differing sizes (height and weight groups) and focuses on measuring each group’s fitness. In the end, fitness matters more than BMI, so the goal is to exercise, get in shape, build muscle and lose fat.

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Set Your Training Goals to Be Long-Term

It is fine to have short-term, specific training goals, such as strength gains and endurance times, or weight gain or weight loss. However, start this year with a 10-year fitness focus, as what you do in your 40s-50s will determine how you live in your 60s-70s. Always think 10 years ahead, no matter what your age, because what you gain today and maintain tomorrow is needed to continue to live independently for a few more generations in your family’s lineage. You can focus on longevity and optimal performance for your fitness and health goals at the same time by maintaining a consistent activity level and healthful nutrition, sleep and recovery.

Try This Goal: Make Annual Physical and Blood Screening Appointments

If you have not been to a doctor in a while, set an appointment in January, and get into the habit of annual health and wellness screenings. Treat annual physicals with the doctor as opportunities to PR (personal record) common blood work results, such as cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, body weight and blood pressure. These are just the basics to help you assess how to adjust your sleep, nutrition, physical activity and stress management. These meetings are also quite satisfying when you achieve solid results that show health and wellness.

Don’t Give Up

While a large portion of us (nearly half of Americans) will create a New Year’s resolution, only about 9%-10% will achieve their goals. After a stressful holiday season, we are typically burned out in January. This may not be the best time to start a lifestyle change, complete with quitting bad habits (over-eating, smoking, drinking) and starting new healthy habits (gym membership, diet, etc.).

Instead, use the first few weeks of January to focus on stress mitigation and recovery. This should include building easy habits of walking every day, stretching, taking deep breaths and simply not overeating. This is a great way to move into a new fitness focus. Then, when feeling back to normal, focus a little harder, with more intensity, duration of training, and specificity to your fitness and health goals.

There are many ways to expand your “health-span.” Check out these options and get consistent with any or all of them:

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Final Advice

If you want to get started on a focused health and wellness goal of being able to do physical activities, stay social and be independent, start with the basics of walking and stretching daily for a month. The following month, add calisthenics such as squats, lunges, push-ups and the plank pose. The following month, add weights such as dumbbells or kettlebells, or suspension trainers such as the TRX.

This steady progression helps you ease into fitness habits gently and adds a new component each month to keep it interesting. To achieve results with lifelong wellness goals, you need to keep endurance, strength and mobility/flexibility as primary focuses. Stability, durability, balance, speed and agility can also be developed once you have built the foundation. This is the beauty of long-term goals. Focus on doing something each day, being disciplined about eating and drinking healthfully, and learning stress-mitigation techniques such as breathing to take into your next decade on this planet.  

There are dozens of these types of articles at the Military.com Fitness Section. Check them out for ideas on specific ways to train. 

Want to Learn More About Military Life?

Whether you’re thinking of joining the military, looking for fitness and basic training tips, or keeping up with military life and benefits, Military.com has you covered. Subscribe to Military.com to have military news, updates and resources delivered directly to your inbox.

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Exercise ‘snacks’ can keep your fitness on track when time is tight – try these 3 today

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Exercise ‘snacks’ can keep your fitness on track when time is tight – try these 3 today

December is great for many things – socialising, scoffing, falling out with relatives – but sticking to a training schedule is not one of them.

Heading out the door on Christmas morning for a two-hour long run is likely to put anyone on the naughty list, while it takes a dedicated runner indeed to spend part of the festive period running loops of the track.

What the mere mortal needs is exercise “snacks”. These can be enjoyed/endured alongside the carb-based variety and snuck in to even the busiest Christmas schedule.

A review in Sports Medicine and Health Research confirmed that regular, short bursts of physical activity throughout the day improved cardiovascular respiratory fitness, increased fat oxidation and polished off blood sugar levels after eating.

Vigorous intermittent exercises, such as sprints, were good for building muscle strength. Meanwhile, 10-minute resistance training sessions were found to be particularly beneficial to older people. The researchers concluded that exercise snacks could be a viable alternative to longer, less frequent sessions.

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Cram in vigorous bouts of stair climbing for muscle strength, or one or two sub-10 minute morsels for muscle growth as an efficient alternative to meatier long sessions. Here’s some inspo below…


3 exercise snacks to gorge on

Try these simple workouts for results on the quick

For upper-body

Press-ups: 3 x 20 with a 30-sec rest between (b/w) reps

Bench dips: 3 x 15 with a 30-sec rest b/w reps

For lower-body

Bodyweight squats: 3 x 20 with 20-sec rest b/w reps

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Wall sit: 2 x 90 secs with 1-min rest b/w reps

For cardio fitness

Burpees: 3 x 20 with 30-sec rest b/w reps

Skipping: 4mins consisting of 1min normal, 1min high knees, 1min normal, 1min high knees

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Fitness

Study shows the antioxidants in this tea improve exercise recovery

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Study shows the antioxidants in this tea improve exercise recovery

I love many different herbal teas just as much as I enjoy a good old-fashioned British cup of PG tips, Earl Grey, or Glengettie — a Welsh favorite from the rolling valleys where I was born. In an interesting study, researchers explored whether drinking green or matcha tea can improve sports performance and exercise recovery, and the results might have you reaching for a vibrant green drink. If you want to get straight to the results, the short answer is that drinking green and matcha tea can support hydration, body fat control, and exercise recovery. Still, it definitely won’t be a game-changer when it comes to your performance in the gym, on the court, or on the field.

Hydrating with tea

In a study published in Nutrition and Food Technology, researchers reviewed existing studies of athletes and active adults that focused solely on drinking tea — no pills or extracts. They revealed that green or matcha tea can help hydrate the body when consumed in normal amounts. Tea counts toward your daily water intake.

Antioxidants and recovery

The research highlighted how the widely-studied antioxidants in green and matcha tea can improve exercise recovery and help protect your cells from the stress associated with intense exercise. That said, the research shows that drinking tea won’t lead to faster or better strength gains, so it’s no silver bullet for helping you achieve your fitness goals. However, they also concluded that low-caffeine green tea could even improve sleep quality, which I would argue could potentially help you power through that workout if you’re getting better sleep the night before.

Linked to lower body fat

Interestingly, the study authors also concluded that drinking around two or three cups of green or matcha tea per day was associated with slightly lower body fat and improved body composition and fat burning. While the effects weren’t overly significant, they were noted in the research. Cup of tea, anyone?

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