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

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

  • Ah!  Okay gotcha.  Yeah, I agree.  Everything I have seen on Youtube about the Whoop (compared to Garmin) was not favorable to Whoop.

  • The only thing the Whoop does better is that it will deduct naps time from your following night's sleep requirement.

  • A smaller tracker and not worn on the arm would be nice to have.. I thought of one that you could wear on your ankle. That would only count real steps and not folding laundry for example There is/was such a thing (Moov) but that has no heart rate tracking. Maybe stuffing a Vivofit in a sock works?

  • I'm in exactly the same situation for the last three years. Watches have been fascinating me since I was a child (48 now) and over the course of a few decades I managed to get my hands on about 20 mechanical watches. In the last 3-4 years I ended up with 5 of them, each one reminding me a special occasion in my life. Needless to say that I cannot (and won't) part with any of these. Worth mentioning that I've been wearing a sports watch since 2009, my first was a Suunto T3c. 

    7 years ago I was introduced to Garmin. My first Garmin was a Forerunner 645. Great watch for running, I used to wear it during exercise and sometimes in leisure time, sometimes even at the office, but not that much. The fact that it was not very rugged (well, at least in looks), prevented me from using it as a beater. Then the Fenixes came along.

    With Fenix 6 at first and now with Fenix 7 Solar I realized that they get a whole lot more wrist time than all my other watches combined. Fenix's looks and functions make it a much more sensible choice for everyday life.

    Things got worse with the solar, the fact that it feeds off the Sun made me wear it even on the beach, a role assigned for 20 years until now to my beloved Citizen NY0040.

    You know what? I don't care. I love my mechanical watches, I wear them for a few hours at home or at the office and the rest of the day I rely on my Fenix. Life is too short to have such problems.

  • Wear the garmin on your non dominant hand and your nice watches on the other. My husband does this w his Apple Watch so he can track metrics but have a nice watch on otherwise. If it’s under a Dress shirt and suit jacket at work all day, no one notices. Any situation for a nice watch, you probably have on a button down long sleeve shirt on anyway. More casual situation - just wear the garmin. 

  • I have been doing this for years, exactly as described.  Wearing watches on both wrists is more common than you think (Prince William, for example).

  • It's a shame Garmin don't make a smaller Vivosmart for this purpose. I'd love something a little thinner than the Vivosmart 4 for the right wrist.

  • I have a Daytona and a Datejust sitting in a drawer, I much prefer the Garmins and alternate between a Descent Mk3i and Fenix 7 pro. The Rolex's don't even keep time!  ... just my take:)

  • I'll take the Daytona off your hands. If you're not wearing it, you must value it pretty cheaply so I'm prepared to give you $5 cold hard cash to give you back some extra drawer space. Let me know :) 

  • Haha!! I love the watch just don't need to wear it!