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February 4, 2025 19 mins

Navigate the world of fitness trackers including the BEST NO APP OTION, ensuring your choice enhances your wellness journey without overwhelming your wallet. 

Discover the balance of functionality and affordability with our top pick and learn tips and tricks for both Apple and Android users. 

Join us as we compare an array of smartwatches, from stylish,kid-friendly, high functioning, to no-app required.  

Whether you're seeking style, functionality, or insight into heart health, this episode is your comprehensive guide to making a smart investment in your fitness journey.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I highly recommend this one.
If you want a budget-friendlywatch that does not require an
app but has higher functionality, this one is app optional.
Welcome, rising stars, totoday's live training.
It is so lovely seeingeveryone's faces here If you are

(00:22):
listening or watching thereplay later or you are catching
us on the Rise Renewed podcast.
Today we are talking aboutfitness watches.
Whether you want the complexhealth picture in one device or
you are looking for a simple,bone-free option, which is

(00:46):
actually harder to find, we'regoing to talk about five, and
these five cover the whole gamutof fitness tracker watches for
women.
Finding the right fitness watchis really important, because
you have to know what your goalis in using it, or else you are

(01:07):
a at risk of overspending onsomething that you're not
actually going to utilize to itsfull capacity, or two.
You're going to buy the wrongwatch for your goals.
So you could not only wastemoney, but also time, because I
don't know about you, but myleast favorite part of buying

(01:29):
any device is reading the 80page manual that comes with it,
because we have so manytechnology options now that I
ended up giving up on half of it.
I don't even use the device toits full capacity, because I
don't feel like reading themanual.
So, whether you want apractical and stylish device,
you want to monitor steps, youwant sleep pattern recognition,

(01:51):
you want to assess your hearthealth, ekg monitoring, even
stress levels, we're going totalk about five, we're going to
be really simple, five that willgive you options across the
board.
That will give you optionsacross the board.
So, number one this is one ofthe most popular health and

(02:12):
fitness smartwatches.
It's one of the highest ratedon Amazon and it is the Fitbit
Versa smartwatch.
That's the Fitbit Versa.
It is a top recommendation onlybecause, as compared to some of
the other higher rated, likethe Apple watch, which, by the
way, is not even on this listbecause it is only specific to

(02:33):
Apple users so all of these canbe used whether you are an Apple
or an Android person this oneis popular because I think it
offers the range without theprice.
So Fitbit will enable you totrack steps, calories, heart
rate, sleep stages.
Also, apparently I did not knowthis menstrual cycle.

(02:55):
Now I have a friend she isactually going to come in as an
expert guest one of these daysinto the group who is an expert
in hormone health.
She says that these do not tendto be as accurate.
So, depending on what your goalis in tracking your menstrual
cycle, maybe you just want tokeep track of the date Something

(03:17):
like this is probably perfect.
But if you actually want toknow when you're ovulating, et
cetera, then, per herrecommendation, these are
probably not super accurate, butit does provide comprehensive
insights smartphonenotifications.
It does need an app.
One of the cons that I found isapparently there's reports that

(03:41):
you need to charge it prettyfrequently, which this makes
sense right For these higherfunctioning devices.
You got to be prepared everynight.
You're going to charge it onyour nightstand or wherever you
keep it.
This is also, for a price pointlike this, probably a watch
that you are using regularly Atleast, I would hope you're using
it regularly and these rangeanywhere from $150 to $200.

(04:02):
And these range anywhere from$150 to $200.
Number two happens to be onethat I have that I get so many
compliments on.
It is the Fossil Women's CutScreen Smartwatch, so I'm going
to hold it up here.
This is one that I wearregularly to church.
I wear it to businessconferences.

(04:27):
This is definitely more of a ifyou're looking for a chic,
jewelry-like watch.
It does offer all of thedifferent abilities that you
would typically see with afitness watch.
It will track steps.
You can work out with it.
The one downside to this is that, personally, I have no desire

(04:48):
to work out in this watchbecause it's not comfortable.
It's nice, but it's not verycomfortable.
So this is really nice forconferences, work, church, et
cetera.
I do get app notifications, sowhen someone texts me, when
someone emails me, I do get allof that on this, but it is not
really conducive to exercisingin my opinion.

(05:11):
It's also pretty heavy.
So if you're looking for arelatively budget friendly, this
one ranges from like $200 to$250, which, for a nicer watch,
is actually pretty reasonable Ifyou look at like the um the
more stylish.
If you want something like this, they range from like $500 and

(05:31):
up, and I've had this one forprobably at least five years,
but I've had this one for apretty long time and you can
also change out the actual watchband really easily as well.
So I highly recommend this one.
This is the Fossil Women'sclutch screen smartwatch.

(05:52):
The battery life is also alittle shorter.
Again, it's a higherfunctioning.
It has more options.
So I would say it lasts meprobably a day and a half if I
don't charge it overnight.
Number three I did have this oneand then lost it in our move,
so I don't have it to show you,but you may have heard me talk
about this one before.

(06:13):
This is the app free.
I just realized I didn't plugmy mic in Hold on.
We're going to do that rightnow.
There we go.
My mic in Hold on.
We're going to do that rightnow, there we go.
This is the app free.
Digital sports watch.
So this one is the one thattracks steps only.

(06:36):
You may have heard me talkabout this one, um, when we
talked about a healthy routinefor kids, but I also talked
about it in our summer six-weekchallenge, because when we do
the summer six-week challenge inthe Rising Stars community, the
bonus focus for the summer issteps, and this is the watch

(06:59):
that I talked about.
It is super affordable.
It's anywhere from $15 to $30.
It is waterproof.
I mean I went swimming, I wentin the ocean, I went shower.
I don't think I actually tookit off really at all.
It has a two-year battery life.
Now I can't remember how long Ihad it.
Again, I lost it in our move,so I can't speak to how long the

(07:24):
battery actually would havelasted, but it is an incredible
option, especially for kids, ifyou're spending $15 on it.
Even if it only lasts for sixmonths, that's still a pretty
good investment if you can useit constantly.
It does not track heart rate,so when we talk about the heart

(07:44):
rate monitoring and NEAT versusEAT, exercise activity
thermogenesis versusnon-exercise activity
thermogenesis, this one is notgoing to track heart rate.
But if you just want steps,that is all that you are looking
at and you want something thatis really, really simple.

(08:04):
It is an incredible option.
By the way, you're going to getall the links to these if you
want the links.
It's also going to come out asa blog post as well, so you can
see them.
But the app-free digital sportswatch the other thing when we
go into Q&A if you want the linkright now to any of these, just

(08:25):
take a mental note and I'lljust drop it here in the Zoom
chat for you guys who are herelive.
Number four is the GarminVivoactive smartwatch with body
battery feature.
If you are going to spend a lotof money on a smartwatch, this

(08:48):
is my go-to recommendation Ifyou are really, really
interested in getting that morecomplex health profile.
I highly highly recommend thisone, and it's because of the
body battery feature.
This is trademarked to Garmin.
This is exclusive to them.
I did an interview with a doctornamed Dr Torkel Farrow and he

(09:11):
talks all about the body batteryfitness watch and the essential
element to seeing if you'reresting.
So he talks all about heartrate variability.
It's on my podcast.
You can just search bodybattery and you can get a whole
interview with him.
Fantastic interview.
I highly recommend it.
But what he talks about isusing this feature to actually

(09:34):
assess heart rate variability.
You do not have to understandeven what that means, because
this watch will process all ofthat for you, but what it tells
you is how well you are resting,which sounds backwards.
This is not typically what weuse fitness watches for, but his
whole point is that we oftenthink that our body is resting

(09:56):
when it's actually not, and wecan determine that by heart rate
variability.
A prime example that he talksabout is alcohol.
I found this so fascinating andit speaks to what I have been
saying, but he said it in a muchmore educated way and
experienced way.
He calls alcohol liquid stressand he is, I want to say Swedish

(10:20):
.
Forgive me, I can't rememberexactly which country you're
from, but he lives in a countrywhere a nightcap of wine, one or
two glasses of wine, is likecultural.
It's what everyone does.
He grew up doing it, even young, you just you ended your day
with wine and he said he wasn'teven drinking it in excess.

(10:44):
But when he started steppinginto this concept of heart rate
variability and he was trackinghow well his body was resting,
he started to see a even afterhe would drink a glass or two of
wine.
So he started this deep diveinto what are other things that

(11:15):
are actually causing stress inthe body, even if you don't
consciously feel it, that arecreating inflammatory states
because we think we're restedwhen we're not.
And, to be perfectly honest, Ithink this is true of women in
ways that go way beyondsubstances like alcohol.
And I think about myself.

(11:35):
There are times I think I'mresting right, I'm like sitting
on the couch and it feels likeI'm resting, but I can feel the
fact that I'm still stressed.
It's like the next day I don'tactually feel rested.
And so to actually have aphysiological tracker to be able

(11:57):
to show you those patternsanother great example and I saw
this in the emergency departmentall of the time the number of
chest pain patients that came inthat were not actually cardiac,
that had no cardiac markers atall, but they had significantly
tight chest pain.
It often ended up beingsomething called costochondritis

(12:17):
, which was an inflammatorystate of basically the
connective tissues in our chest,and the person would often say,
well, I don't feel stressed.
And then I'd probe a little bitfurther.
Women especially get this morethan men costochondritis.
And when you actually dig into,have there been any significant

(12:38):
changes?
Has there been any stress,added stress with your kids,
right?
And then they start thinkingthey're like, oh yeah, this did
just happen recently where, yeah, I've been taking care of my
chronically ill mother for thelast year, but in our minds it's
not this life-alteringsituation, so we think, no,

(12:59):
we're actually doing okay, whenin reality it's just a lot of
buildup stress over time when wethink we're resting and we're
really not All that to say thisbody battery feature.
Listen to the interview with DrTorkel Farrow.
If you are going to spend a lotof money on a watch, I do
recommend this, but to get themost out of it, like I just said
, so you don't waste your timeor your money would be to pair

(13:21):
it with listening to thatinterview and also buying his
book.
It was a fantastic read.
I read it more than once, whichI rarely say of a lot of my
podcast guests and their books,if I'm being completely honest.
So highly, highly recommendthat.
And again, you can search thaton the website and find that

(13:44):
number five.
I just mentioned some of my toprecommendations.
If you want like the fancierwatch I said fossil, I put the
Fitbit only just because it'slike the highest rated one on
Amazon for what that's worth,this is my favorite fancy one
that no app for kids steptracker.
Number one recommendation theretalked about, if you're going

(14:07):
to spend a lot of money, it isthe body battery watch with
Garmin, but the best overallbudget-friendly watch that I
personally recommend oh, it's inmy lap.
I was like where is it?
Is this one?
That has been a newer find.
It is by a company called Urans.

(14:31):
This is from Amazon, but whythe need for a phone?
But if you want a more complexprofile, it will not be as
extensive as the Garmin, theFitbit or even this fossil watch
, um, but it will do sleep.
It will do uh GPS tracking soyou can actually do um route

(14:57):
mapping, heart rate zones.
It will track it for youdistance covered, whether you're
biking, running, et cetera, andthen it will log it in the app
on your phone If you wantsomething that is a little bit
more, um, like diary based.
The other thing that I likeabout this this is only $30.

(15:18):
On Amazon is $30.
I actually could not believehow much came on it when I
bought it and was testing it.
This seems like a silly thing,but as someone who is hardcore
about I want simple, not supercomplex.
One of the downsides to cheapwatches are the bands.
The bands will rip and come offand, depending on how cheap the

(15:39):
watch is, you're done becausethe way the band is attached,
there's no replacement optionfor it.
So I was also surprised withthis $30 watch is it actually
has the more expensive theselittle like latches right that
you can slide over and actuallytake it off?
Um, so it's like super easy tojust take these off.

(16:01):
So I have only had this one forprobably six months, if that
Maybe not quite that long Bandis still on.
I don't wear it every day, butI've worn it for a lot of days.
The band is not ripped yeteither, but even if it does,
this is something that doesstand out is that you can pretty
easily replace it.

(16:25):
This one, to my knowledge, I donot believe that this one will
give you text notifications orknowledge.
I do not believe that this onewill give you text notifications
or emails.
I do not believe will actuallysync with your phone.
Again, I have not used the app,but I don't believe it will do
that.
I would love to hear your watchrecommendations.

(16:48):
I would also love to hear anyquestions, feedback.
I will do my best to answerquestions on those five and I'll
also give you any links thatyou want.
Ladies, let me pray over ourweek.
Lord, thank you so much for thewomen that are here.

(17:08):
Thank you for the women thatwill listen later or tune in
later.
Lord, I thank you so much forthe ability to move our bodies,
for the ability to use our minds.
It's so easy to take forgranted the things that we have
something as simple as movement,which is the whole reason that
we even are interested infitness watches in the first

(17:31):
place.
And right now, I just think ofthe women who are struggling
even to be able to move, whomight be dealing with injury or
sickness or illness, whether itbe acute or maybe it is chronic,
and they're now facing the restof their life with this chronic

(17:51):
illness that is making it a lotharder to move.
So, lord, I just pray that wewould be grateful that we would
rise to live, loved by you, andthat that would include praise,
a lot of praise, even in thehard things.
But, lord, may we never takefor granted what we do have
today, because we're notguaranteed tomorrow.

(18:13):
So help us to rise with thatintention to praise you for it
all.
I do pray over us that we wouldstay safe, that we would move
well and wisely and that wewould be good stewards of the
gifts that you have given us.
And I just pray that we wouldgo forth this week in peace,
trusting that you lead the way.

(18:34):
You're our protector, you'reour savior, and that you would
just give us wisdom every day.
We love you, amen.
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