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Keeping going back and forth with my Garmin and traditional watches..

7828711
over 1 year ago

Greetings everyone :-)

I am seeking some additional thoughts to what seems to be a never-ending mental battle that I keep having in my life, lol.   First, I love watches and have some nice watches that I enjoy wearing (Omega, Tudor, etc).  Both are special to me (wedding gift years ago and another when my mother passed).   But, at the same time I try to stay fit and enjoy all the aspects of what the Garmin eco system offers.  Let me elaborate a bit more..

2019 I decided to "get in shape".  I bought the 245 Music and was in love with it.  It offered both the data and just in general the overall motivation to get going with gym / running etc.  At this time, I did not mind not wearing my "real" watches, as I was on a mission to get into shape.   Then, about 6 months into it, I decided to upgrade the watch to the Fenix 6s (this was now Feb of 2020).  This was great and used it during the pandemic to continue.  Now, at some point I leveled off with my progress and all the Garmin stats I would look at, just were not changing and became very predictable.  At this same time I was turning 40 and wanted to buy another "nice watch" to mark that point in my life.  So, I did and at the same time questioned weather or not I wanted to even bother anymore with the Garmin.   

So, I stopped.   

I switched into a basic Casio G-Shock to time my workouts and rest periods and also pretty much stopped running, due to a weak knee.   At this point I remember feeling a great sense of "freedom" LOL, no longer having to look at, worry about or stress about any metrics with the Garmin.  I quickly told myself that I did not need it (anymore) and I just needed to keep doing what I am doing and I will be fine.

This is / was largely true.

I now had the freedom to wear all the different types of watches I wanted and started to even realize how silly I looked when wearing the clunky looking Fenx all that time, LOL.

So, now fast forward about 1.5 years till now...  I am still in great shape and the weight that I was when I dropped off.  So, there is no issues there.  For the most part I look like the same person and my experiment seemed to have been successful (in thinking for me, I really no longer was getting what I needed to from the Garmin).

However..

Lately I just FEEL like I am not doing well.  I also look back and think that I mis-read the situation.  When I concluded I had leveled off with my fitness.. I should have looked at it differently (need to crank things up and not just do the same and ditch the tracker).  For example, if the Garmin had of slapped me in the face and said, "look dummy, you need to increase your load and / or change what you do to continue to build" etc. than I may have not stopped when I did, or at all.  Hard to say now.

The problem:

So, if I ask anyone who does not understand the Garmin eco system, they say the same thing to me:  "Just wear it when you workout & run" then, go back and wear whatever watch you want.  This obviously makes sense, but I have found that in order to get what I want from the watch you need to wear it 24/7.   I like seeing the HR data over time, stress, Body Battery, etc.  Recovery etc.  It all makes sense when worn all the time.  So, for me it's all or nothing.  Unless I change this mindset and gain a new viewpoint (please let me know some other ways of thinking here).

Anyway, yesterday I went out and bought a 7 Pro.  Ran last night for the first time in a LONG time and it was great!  Did my daily gym workout today and it was nice to see the HR data, and after the load score and recovery etc.   So, it has already been a new motivator all over again for me.  For some reason just *wearing* the smart watch keeps me focused on my fitness vs my non fitness watches.

But, of course.. I worry that I might end up returning it in favor of my thousands of dollars invested in my other watches and the love of wearing them.  Fitness really is super important to me tho, and I seem to struggle with this so much :-(

Any thughts?

Travis

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    One thing that helps me cope, is I bought a nice Garmin titanium band, which actually makes my Fenix 7X or Epix Pro 51mm look pretty darn nice, for when I want to wear something a little more classy than a nylon sports band. I wear that for special occasions, date nights, business trips, etc, and it does a pretty good job of making it look like a nice fancy expensive watch (which, I mean honestly, at $1100 for the watch and $300 for the band, it sort of IS a nice fancy expensive watch!)

    The Garmin titanium band really is pretty dang nice, if you haven't seen it. It's super expensive for a Garmin band, but they really put a lot of attention to detail into it. It's worth the $300, easily. In my opinion it's every bit as nice as the band you'd find on an Omega, Garmin really did a fantastic job of making a proper jewelry-grade band. Don't get a cheapo alibaba knockoff, get the real Garmin one and you won't regret it.

    But my band is the 26mm version, and I'm not sure if they offer the same bands for 20mm or 22mm.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I've been on the same boat, constantly flip flopping between my mechanicals and various Garmins, especially during running season. I've realized that for myself, the stats that mattered most are really my mileage, sleep, and resting heart rate, and so I only wear mine mostly during activity or bedtime now. Resting heart rate is lowest during sleep anyway so there's no reason to wear it 24/7 for this metric. All other occasions I'd go mechanical.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 9754894

    This...I wear my Garmin during runs and sleep - that way I get my recovery data. Other times when I am at work or out and about I wear my mechanicals. You miss out on the steps but never mind. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Gr4z

    It would be cool if one of the big YouTubers for Garmin devices (Chase, Des, or DC) would do an extended experiment and see how the data is really affected from fulltime wear to part time wear and truly breakdown the differences. 

    Just recently I got Covid, and it was crazy how I can see it on the watch through stress and RHR data.  The body battery started to drop in the days before hand for no reason and it almost predicted I was getting sick.  Then, I used it again to see when the stats started to come back to normal before I even thought about walking / going to the gym (today was actually the first day back).

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    You can always be a dork like me and wear two watches. I have been a fenix user since the fenix 3 but I decided to try out the Apple Watch when the ultra was released. I found a killer deal on a second hand Ultra and went for it. I absolutely love the AWU as a smart watch and there is simply no competition on my opinion. I tossed the fenix 7x into my desk drawer until I needed it for a run or what not.

    They i realized how much easier it was to get an overall health and fitness picture with the garmin ecosystem. I could almost get what I needed from the AWU if I downloaded sufficient apps but I am generally lazy and didnt want do this... so the fenix came back on. I now use the AWU on my left wrist and my fenix on my right.

    I am actually looking to see if garmin makes a smaller "tracker" which I can use during the day to keep track of everything except exercises.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to RobCuadro

    Yeah, I hear ya!  Hey, Kevin O'lery on Shark Tank uses the whoop on one wrist and his luxury watch on the other LOL :-)  

    I thought of that too.  But, don't like the monthly membership of whoop nor the reviews from it.  I figure, I will wear the Garmin Epix 24/7 for now.. I may get burned out and take a break for a few months and then go back etc.. so I will see.  Either way, I decided I will be sticking with Garmin (eco system is amazing like you said).

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to RobCuadro

    Been there, done that...dumped the apple watch. Didn't do anything useful for me.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 7828711

    Currently doing just that at the moment. I think the Whoop will go the way of the Apple watch at the end of the subscription period as 10 month's worth of data tells me that they both report pretty much the same thing.

    I bought a Marq Aviator Gen 2 to supplement my Fenix 7 Sapphire and to mitigate my dress watch and 24/7 data cravings.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to mcbit

    Yeah, love the Marq.  I would have gotten one now (got the new Epix Pro) but hate that they don't update the hardware very often.  That said, I know it's not a big deal.  In 2021 I actually bought and kept the Aviator for 3 weeks.  But, decided it was too much to spend every 4 or 5 years.

    What did you mean by Whoop will go the way of Apple?

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 7828711

    Previous post...will dump the Whoop too.