Today, a bit of fitness miscellaneous from last week. :)

Ice Skating – Fitness & Fun!

Last week I went to Memphis Zoo’s Zoo Lights with friends. It was incredibly cold (for Memphis) but an otherwise perfect night to walk and ride around the Zoo looking at Christmas light displays.

I’d always wanted to go to Zoo Lights so I jumped at the chance this year. I was thrilled with how many activities they had there and how many lights there were. It was really spectacular!

My favorite part was the ice skating. :)

Before I hit the ice I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been on skates. Once I got on the ice and past my initial wobbles I remembered the time I went ice skating in New Zealand. It seems I can go a couple years without ice skating but it always comes back to me… like riding a bike.

I fell once in the beginning but had a great time skating otherwise. Calorie burn calculators said I burned over 200 calories for my efforts and my legs definitely felt it the next day. I think skating might use a few different muscles than my normal biking and jogging routine.

Polar Loop Initial Review

Over the weekend I received a Polar Loop Activity Tracker c/o Polar. Honestly I was surprised because I didn’t think I was still a Polar Ambassador – I never do or say anything about Polar anymore.  Still, I was excited to get the Polar Loop to try out during the Christmas season so I can start the new year right! 

I have a FitBit One that I love, but had stopped using it after moving for some reason. I think all my fitness gadgets were dumped into a box for “sorting” and they still haven’t been sorted. Oops! So getting this Loop in the mail was a reminder to be more active every day.

So far that reminder to move has been the most positive thing about the Loop. I have to admit I’ve been disappointed otherwise so far, especially after a difficult setup experience. The method for fitting it to your wrist made me anxious (it involves cutting the product), product information was hard to find (I had to read reviews on Amazon to get information I needed), I couldn’t get the bluetooth to work at all so the iphone app was useless, and the first day of wearing it was one confusion after another.

Really though the biggest benefit to the Loop is that it is worn around the wrist. That was my biggest problem with my Fitbit One, since I easily lose small items, so I’m thinking after trying this out I might get a Fitbit Flex or Fitbit Force.

Is it bad to say you want a different product in the review of a product? Oops. It seems that I love Polar heart rate monitors, but I’m still digging Fitbit for activity trackers.

However, I haven’t tried using the heart rate monitor strap and connecting it to the Loop so that might make this product soar above all the others cause that seems like a nifty feature. I do want to love this product and I can see where it has potential so I’m hoping after more use my initial disappointment fades away.

I’ll try this for a few weeks and discover all the things I don’t know about it yet and then do a full review sometime in January.