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!
Would love track the daily deviations in all aspects and try and achieve a balance on a day-to-day basis
step count for me! i exercise daily, but its still not enough with a full-time desk job, sadly. I’d love to try this out!
After gaining 15 pounds within 4 months of college, I tried losing weight but bought all the wrong gadgets. I would love to win a Polar Loop-finally I would have something that I can base my calories burned by. I am sooo excited! So tired of having watches that don’t work! Hope I get it, Julie!! Also, it just looks weird but cool!
I just started working in an office and staying active is hard! I would love the inactivty alerts to tell me to get up and walk around!
Have been dying to try one of the many activity trackers out there, and this one seems like a great motivator! I’d love to know how my activity levels on weekdays (with my sitting-standing desk) compared to weekends.
I have a Polar watch and LOVE it. I would love to see when I need to get up and walk around at work when i’m not being active enough. I know it will make me move more often!
I’d love to see my overall daily activity. I work a desk job, but try to move around to make up for it. I’d love to see if I’m doing enough.
I would love to be able to set goals and track my activity!
I am most interested in the inactivity alerts. While I am an active college student, it is easy to find myself sitting for a good part of the day in class or studying so a reminder to get moving would be great!
I would love to use the inactivity alert. Some days I feel like I am on the go all day long, but really doesn’t always relate to calories burned. That may mean my mind is busy but not always my body. The inactivity alert and overall tracker intrigue me to see what I do day by day and help me find ways to increase my moving on less active days.
I have been debating with myself over whether to get a fitness tracker – the sleep monitoring especially appeals to me! I know that I’m a really light sleeper, but I would be curious to see how many times I actually wake up in the middle of the night without realizing it.
For me it would definitely be the inactivity reminder that I find most intriguing… Long days in front of a computer it would be nice to have a reminder to get moving.
I would love the inactivity alerts! I consider myself a pretty active person, but I have a job that forces me to sit all day. I think it would be so cool to get alerts to remind myself to get up and walk every now and then, just to stay somewhat active during the work day!
I have a Fitbit One, but I’ve been looking at the Polar Loop because I always forget to put my Fitbit on and I don’t really like the user interface of the phone app.
I have to pick j
I’ve tried a fitness tracker in the past and was disappointed with lack of tracking movement besides steps as I do mostly functional work outs. I’m most intrigued that the Polar device seems to track it all and has the optional heart monitor! I think this would be a great way for me to keep track of exactly what I’m doing and set goals with my daily exercise/movement!
Julie
I would love one of these! And so would my dogs Jackson and Fenway! I have been looking at different versions for awhile but haven’t taken the plunge. I wear a pedometer through a work sponsored program but it lacks the ability to track any more than steps. I defienlty am intrigued by the overall activity and inactivity reminders (especially since I am at my desk much of the day). I generally get ~14,000 steps a day and am also very active with Barre and Power Yoga. I would love to know how this translates- what I am really getting out of it.
And of course my boys love their walks and I would love to make sure we are getting the most out of them.
Becasue I have a desk job, I would love the inactivity feature! I am frequently so caught up in what I’m doing that I forget to get up and walk around.
I think the sleep information will be the most informative! However being reminded to move, I basically have a desk job half of the week, would be a wonderful feature too!
The heart rate monitor!
I lost my polar ft4 in my move from Washington to California and the loop has definitely been catching my attention! I love the activity tracker aspect of it all because my job requires a lot of running around, which I’m sure adds up! I just haven’t been able to budget it in quite yet.
Great give away 🙂
I’m definitely interested in the inactivity alerts since I’m sitting at a desk all day. Very cool feature!
I like that it gives you inactivity alert. I had a fit bit and recently lost it so I really really want a new device to track everything!
I am curious how many steps I take a day!
I would love to see how many calories I burn in a day or even just in my workout. I’ve always wondered if I burn as many as I think I do! 🙂
I need help getting motivated to move more so the inactivity alerts intrigue me.
I am always interested in seeing the numbers! I like tracking my workouts and setting goals, and this would be perfect for me!
The inactivity alert intrigues me the most!
LOVE this! I am a dancer and sometimes being in the studio all day, it is hard to track exactly what my activity level is. I especially love that it tracks sleep too- an area I need to work on. Technology is sweet 🙂
I’m really interested to see how much I really move in a day!
I feel like most days I am pretty active, but I would be interested to see if I am overestimating. On days when I need to get some extra activity in, I think the polar loop would help motivate me to be active in the evenings instead of relaxing.
I think the sleep data would be most interesting, but I also like the idea that it notifies you when you have been inactive for too long. This would be great at work!
I like that there’s an option to use it with a heart rate monitor and I love the idea of inactivity alerts!
My husband has a fitbit and I’m a little jealous. I think I would really like the inactivity reminder for when I’m at work and sitting all day.
I’m a grad student, and I sit in my office all day. Although I work out 6 times a week, it would be great to have some motivation to take more breaks every now and then to walk around!
I love that an alert goes off when you have been inactive for too long!
These seem so cool! I think it would be a great tool to track my fitness!
As a student, the inactivity feature would be a great excuse to step away from the computer and take a break! However, I’d love the sleep monitoring features as well.
This would be great! I would love the inactivity reminders. I work in an office and its very hard to remember to get up and walk around, so that would be great for me.
I want to try this SO bad! I got my boyfriend the Fitbit for Christmas and have been jealous ever since. He loves it, but the one thing we both commented on is that we wish it would track heart rate as well. I love that Polar has answered my concerns! This is awesome!
I love the inactivity alert. I work a desk job and it’s really easy to get caught up in something and end up sitting for WAY too long!
I’m up and down a lot at my job, and I’d really like to see how many calories I’m actually burning throughout the day. It would probably be pretty surprising!
The inactivity alerts look amazing! Since I have a desk job, it would be great yo be reminded to get up and walk around a bit more!
The inactivity alert and sleep tracker sound fun to try out!
Inactivity alerts!
I’ve always been interested in seeing exactly how much activity I do in a full day! I know I think I do wayyy more than i actually do…I spend most of my time in a cubicle at work 🙁 It would absolutely motivate me to walk around the office a bit more!
The inactivity alert would be great, since I am at a desk job – it would remind me to get up and walk around for a bit. I think the sleep data would be depressing – since I am a terrible sleeper!
Ah it all sounds awesome to me! I have been really wanting this I think it will help me push harder during the day. The sleep tracker does sound great to see your patterns.
This sounds really cool! As someone who works at a desk all day I think the inactivity alerts would be a good reminder for me to get up and get moving throughout the day. Getting information about my sleep patterns would be pretty interesting too.
I love the inactivity alerts. I sit at a desk during work hours, so the the inactivity alerts would remind me to get my butt up! I also think the calorie counter is awesome, because it’s very easy to over estimate how many calories you burn in a day.