The following post is sponsored by FitFluential, LLC on behalf of Polar. As always, all opinions are my own. Stay tuned for a giveaway at the bottom of this post where you have a chance to win a Polar Loop of your own!
Polar Loop Review
Having a goal motivates me. It doesn’t have to be a big, lofty goal. Small goals add up to some pretty amazing accomplishments, right?
When I received the opportunity to try out the Polar Loop, an activity tracker that notices every jump, step and run, I was very intrigued and immediately agreed! I had a feeling it would motivate me to move more throughout the day and I was absolutely right. That is my favorite thing about the Polar Loop: It’s motivating!
I see so many people at my gym wearing fitness trackers and I’ve heard more than a few of my clients rave about them, so I couldn’t wait to set up my Loop and get moving when it arrived in the mail.
Set Up + Battery Life
A little tip: When fitting the Polar Loop to your wrist, check out the instructional How To video online.
Though directions are included, I found it much easier to watch someone go through the steps of fitting the Polar Loop to their wrist than figuring it out with the illustrations.
Once I had the Polar Loop fit to my wrist, I charged it using the USB cord that came with the Loop and set up an account on Polar.com. An important side note: The Polar Loop has great battery life and charges quickly! I figured I would need to charge it at the end of each day, but it lasts several day without needing a charge.
When I created an account on the Polar Loop site, I loved checking out the map of the world to see what people around me were doing! I zoomed in on Florida and enjoyed looking at the activities my fellow Floridians were completing.
You can also set your profile to private (which is what I did) if you’d like so no one can see what you’re doing and you can be oh-so-sneaky. Or, you can allow only certain people to see your profile by adding them as “followers” which I think is a great way to sync up with friends and family members to motivate each other to move more throughout the day.
Once the Polar Loop is set up, you can press the button on the front of the tracker to view the LED display that flips between showing you the time of day, calories burned, total steps and your daily activity goal.
Polar Flow App + Inactivity Alerts
The Polar Loop can also connect to the Polar Flow (free) app and give you real-time updates about your movement and activity levels for the day.
Here’s an example of the breakdown:
One thing I really liked about the Loop was the inactivity alerts! If you’ve been sitting for too long, an alert will let you know and that was a big motivator for me to get off my butt and walk around or move even if it was for only five minutes or so.
Adding Your Heart Rate Into The Equation
The Polar Loop does not come with a heart rate monitor so this is an added cost if you want it, but it’s a great way to get accurate data about your overall calories burned and how hard you are working at certain times during the day. The Polar Loop retails for $109.95 and the heart rate monitor is an additional fee, but even without the heart rate monitor the Loop can tell the difference between activities like sleeping, walking, running and more. It’s also safe to use in the pool!
What Trends Did I Notice?
Some days it was really easy for me to hit my activity goals. On Saturdays, Ryan and I often work out and then take Sadie for a long hike after breakfast, so meeting my activity goals on Saturdays is rather easy. (And if I incorporate running into my workouts, it’s much easier to hit my goals!) On other days when I am working from home or even days when I am personal training, it’s a little harder because I am often sitting or standing around and only walking from one place in the gym to the next.
Since my hometown is not very walkable, the best way I found for me to hit my activity goals was to increase the distance of Sadie’s walks!
So, I think it’s safe to say Sadie is the Polar Loop’s number one fan.
On days when I might be more inclined to play fetch with Sadie in the backyard, if I was under my goals on the Loop, I’d leash her up for a walk instead so she wasn’t the only one getting exercise.
Polar Loop Giveaway
Now here is your chance to win a Polar Loop of your own!
To enter this giveaway, please comment on this post and tell me what feature of the Polar Loop intrigues you most. Are you most excited to see your overall activity for the day tracked? Are you interested in your sleep data? Do the inactivity alerts intrigue you? Let me know!
I will randomly select a winner on Friday.
Good luck!
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The inactivity alerts! I just returned to my desk job from maternity leave so I find that I spend most of my day glued to a chair and don’t move often enough!
I am psyched to see what I really burn in a day. How cool to have all this information. What a great time to be alive, eh?
I like that you can wear it on your wrist- allows you to keep an eye on it and check it easily throughout the day.
Thanks for reviewing this product! I’ve recently become interested in having a tracker to figure out just how many calories I am burning each day and so how much I should change my diet up. Since my weight is fairly consistent, I would say I’m doing just fine.
The thing I love about the Loop is the inactivity alert! I have a desk job and have an alert in my email that goes off every 15 minutes to either get up and move or stretch. I don’t always see it if I’m elbow deep in what I’m doing, so the physical alert would be great. I’d also be interested in trying it for my husband, who’s had a hard time sleeping lately.
Thanks for hosting the giveaway!
Sitting at a desk studying all day definitely makes me forget to get up and move! This would be a great reminder to throw a little exercise into my day!
I would like the inactivity alerts to remind me to get in some movements while I study!
I am really curious to see how many calories I actually burn during my workouts and throughout the day! I believe this would also be a great reminder to get up and be active for at least a little every day.
I would love to win one of these to track my daily activity!
I would be so intrigued by the difference between workdays and weekends. I have a desk job and would find it interesting to see if I am more active when not working. Great blog & awesome giveaway!
The inactivity alerts would be perfect for the long periods of time I am at my work desk. I am also very interested in my sleep data!
Definitely the inactivity alerts for me, it’s so easy to get lost in work and forget to get up and move around.
What a great idea to get inactivity alerts! And I would also like to track my activity through the day.
I like the idea of being able to see my overall activity for the day. I think this will help me realize what days I am active and what days I need to work on being more active.
The inactivity tracker for sure. Since I sit at a desk all day, I know that is an issue for me. I’ve been toying with buying a tracker and I’m now leaning towards the Loop since I have a Polar HRM I can use as well.
Being at a desk all day makes it hard to get up and move around. The inactivity alerts would be great!
How neat!!! I would be super interested to see how much I burn a day. It would be nice to see how much time I spend inactive in my desk chair as well :(.
Props to Polar on a great activity tracker. Overall activity AND inactivity reminder would be loved by this 9-5er!
All of it is intriguing! I think the inactivity tracker is what makes me most excited though. I work a desk job and I’d love to see how inactive I am. I’d love to see how much more active I can be and set goals to reach too!
What a great tool! I think the most intriguing function of the Loop would be knowing my daily activity level and working to increase it.
I am so intrigued by the sleep data. I think I sleep a long time but I also know I wake up a lot. I’d love to have my theories confirmed.
The inactivity alerts! I definitely need that in my life to get me motivated and moving more.
I like that you can wear it in the pool! I was looking into the FitBit but it is not waterproof and cannot be worn in the pool. I’m training for my first 70.3 Ironman triathlon and wanted something to track all my training, including pool time. Would love to win this!
I am very interested in the inactivity alerts. I work from home and I am on the computer all day. I need reminders to get up and walk around!
all of the features have grabbed my attention! i have been looking into getting some sort of gadget like this to help keep me motivated, and this sounds perfect!
Hi Julie,
I was diagnosed with the dreaded mono virus ~5 weeks ago. I am an avid runner/exerciser and have completed 6 marathons. Mono is not fun to say the least–this same body that ran a 3:36:04 marathon now gets exhausted from walking 1 mile! I’ve been researching a lot about returning to exercise after mono and monitoring vitals, rate of perceived exertion, and self reported fatigue are key to preventing a relapse and chronic fatigue syndrome. It would be so awesome to have the polar loop to help me pace my activity, to prevent doing too much as well too little, and to be able to monitor my heart rate throughout different activities during the day.
Thank you for considering me to win the polar loop!!
Lindsey
I’d love to be able to track my daily activity!!
I love that you can see how it tracks every movement. I would love to see the how much walking to work or taking the stairs changes my daily totals. Like you said, motivation!
Definetly the sleep cycle. I wake up several times a night and it takes me at least an hour to fall asleep! I’m also curious to see what my activity goal would be anyways, as I’m often afraid I remain sedentary for too much of the day!! I’d love to get a healthy schedule and routine going!
I have a desk job and I try to get up and walk around as much as possible, so a little reminder would definitely help and would motivate me to get up and move around more. I would also be very interested in seeing my sleep data! Sounds like everything it does is pretty interesting and motivating! Thanks for the giveaway!
Two things I would like to see would be my sleep – i don’t think I have ever slept a whole night through and also the inactivity. I am at a desk and I try to get up and move but I forget! Thanks!
I’d love to have the inactivity tracker to get my butt of the couch!
All of it sounds great! Have always wanted to try an activity tracker! I would also be very interested to know my sleep data since I have trouble sleeping most nights.
I love that you can use it in a pool!
I really want to see what my overall activity for the day is like! I recently relocated to LA from Chicago and am walking so much less than I was in Chicago. I need some hard data to motivate myself to move more!
I think the inactivity alert would be cool, as I do a lot of sitting during the day. It would also be interesting to track my sleep (or lack thereof!) patterns.
I would love to see my overall activity — not only during my workouts — but also at work and school. I feel like I walk quite a bit throughout the day, but I would be interested to see some actual numbers!
I’d love the activity alerts- Im so prone to just zoning out when reading or on the computer I’d really need it!
Thanks for this review- there were some really helpful tips
I’d be interested in knowing my overall activity levels.
The inactivity alerts! That would be amazing to get reminders throughout the day to keep moving!
I already wear a HRM for my workouts, but I’m curious about the rest of my day. I can’t wear the HRM to work, so having the Polar Loop to monitor day-to-day activity sounds great to me!
I’d love the reminders to get up and move when I’m being inactive for too long at my desk!
I’d love to see how active I am when I’m cleaning, playing with the dog, pacing, etc.
I’m pumped to see my total activity for the day!!!!
The feature that intrigues me the most is the sleep tracker!
I love the inactivity alerts……sitting at a desk for the majority of the day I find it hard to take time to get active while at work. This will motiviate me to get moving more and not just at the gym 🙂
I would love to see the breakdown of my activity throughout the day, and my inactivity. I’m curious to see how it all balances out! What a cool idea!
The inactivity alerts sound awesome! I would love to use the Polar Loop to remind myself to move around more during the work day. I’m an editor so most of my time is spent at a computer. I try to get up to get water every so often to keep moving, but this would be even better.
I’m intrigued by the inactivity alerts. I also like that you can add a heart rate monitor.
I use the polar heart rate monitor but it’s not something you want to wear all day as it’s bulky and bright pink 😉 I would LOVE this! Since I have a desk job it would be great to help me stay accountable for getting up to MOVE throughout the day!
Those inactivity alerts would be wonderful! I often get too “zoned in” at work so it’d be great to know when to break out for a walk or maybe some jumping jacks.
Looks super cool!