I've been running more and trying to lose a bit more weight and I'm successfully down to my initial maintenance weight of 90 kilos, but compared to the last time I was 90 kilos (couple months ago), I'm actually slightly leaner. I assume that because of the running I've put on a bit of muscle in my legs etc and so there's more fat loss this time around.

Anyway, here's the frustrating part. I still have a gut, and realistically I'd probably need to lose another 10 kilos to get rid of it. As I've lost a few kilos over the last month I've noticed the weight loss not from my stomach (measurements haven't changed) but from my arms!

My arms have gotten incredibly vascular and the muscle definition is becoming quite pronounced. I honestly couldn't give a shit if I didn't lose a single gram of fat from my arms ever again, but yet it appears they're first on my body's checklist.

Argh! I'll get over it but just needed to rant somewhere about it 😄

I've had the FR 70 for a couple of weeks now (waited until all the metrics were available which took 3 weeks for everything) and overall I like the watch and think it's fantastic value for money in terms of what you get in the hardware and the ecosystem. I'm very glad I got it and that I didn't go all out as tempted as I was with a higher end model.

For my more detailed thoughts, I'll outline them below:

Negatives

My main critique of the watch is for the price, it looks very cheap. My Huawei GT is at the same price point as the FR 70 (in my country at least) and makes the FR 70 look like a cheap $20 watch you buy from a discount store or a gas station or something. I've had numerous compliments on the Huawei and all initial reactions of the FR 70 are that of confusion for why I've "downgraded" from my old watch. My wife in particular couldn't understand why I'd want this watch and thought I must've gotten the price wrong lol.

This is not a watch I'd wear out in formal events and overall I'm much less comfortable showing it off. I very much liked the look of the Huawei, and I lament the fact that to get into the Garmin ecosystem I'd have to spend twice the amount of money to get something that looks remotely as presentable, but such is life. For my purposes though, I couldn't really justify that kind of price tag, but perhaps in a couple years when a 970 successor comes out, I can justify a birthday splurge.

Positives

WIth the negatives out of the way, let's look at the positives. I'd say they break down into two main areas: the hardware, and the ecosystem. The software features of the watch itself I don't find to be too enticing as much of what the watch offers was already available on my Huawei, but perhaps under different names (from sleep score, body battery and race predictions - I don't think I came across anything critical that was "new") so if you're coming from another watch expecting the feature set to blow your socks off, you're going to be disappointed.

So in terms of hardware, I'd say where I notice this the most is when it comes to heart rate and sleep tracking. The steps tracking is a bit suspicious IMO as it often counts hundreds of steps while I'm chilling in bed or on the couch and I've never had this issue before on my Huawei or my Fitbit before it. That said, I'll give it a pass as while I'm actually walking or running it matches what I'd expect from the Huawei, it just gets more phantom steps oddly enough.

The heart rate tracking is far more reliable than my Huawei. Not only just day to day when I'm inactive, but during exercise. It was honestly frustrating how often my Huawei reckoned I was under 120bpm when I was fighting for my life during some intense cardio. I've yet to encounter this with my FR 70 as my heart rate always matches my subjective feel.

The sleep tracking is also quite good. Ahead of time I read a lot of negatives about it, but coming from the Huawei it's a night and day difference and reminds me of how accurate my Fitbit was for it. I have a baby and wake up multiple times at night and sometimes get up to go to the bathroom or prepare a bottle etc and it detects me waking up reliably. When I take a nap in the afternoon it captures that too.

Lastly, the last positive is the ecosystem. The phone and web app are great and I love being able to export runs or otherwise sync them with other apps. All the information I would want or need is easily accessible and transferable. Huawei has some syncing to different planforms (e.g. Strava) but it is not easy to get a hold of your data and parse through it. For someone highly motivated by metrics, it's like hitting the jackpot.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a great watch and while I understand why they make it look cheap and crap (in order to upsell people to more expensive watches), if it was slightly more premium this watch wouldn't have any competition at all. I'm happy with the purchase, and for now I'll just swap out the watch for formal events but would recommend it to anybody getting into running and wanting something reliable to work with.

I've had the FR 70 for a couple of weeks now (waited until all the metrics were available which took 3 weeks for everything) and overall I like the watch and think it's fantastic value for money in terms of what you get in the hardware and the ecosystem. I'm very glad I got it and that I didn't go all out as tempted as I was with a higher end model.

For my more detailed thoughts, I'll outline them below:

Negatives

My main critique of the watch is for the price, it looks very cheap. My Huawei GT is at the same price point as the FR 70 (in my country at least) and makes the FR 70 look like a cheap $20 watch you buy from a discount store or a gas station or something. I've had numerous compliments on the Huawei and all initial reactions of the FR 70 are that of confusion for why I've "downgraded" from my old watch. My wife in particular couldn't understand why I'd want this watch and thought I must've gotten the price wrong lol.

This is not a watch I'd wear out in formal events and overall I'm much less comfortable showing it off. I very much liked the look of the Huawei, and I lament the fact that to get into the Garmin ecosystem I'd have to spend twice the amount of money to get something that looks remotely as presentable, but such is life. For my purposes though, I couldn't really justify that kind of price tag, but perhaps in a couple years when a 970 successor comes out, I can justify a birthday splurge.

Positives

WIth the negatives out of the way, let's look at the positives. I'd say they break down into two main areas: the hardware, and the ecosystem. The software features of the watch itself I don't find to be too enticing as much of what the watch offers was already available on my Huawei, but perhaps under different names (from sleep score, body battery and race predictions - I don't think I came across anything critical that was "new") so if you're coming from another watch expecting the feature set to blow your socks off, you're going to be disappointed.

So in terms of hardware, I'd say where I notice this the most is when it comes to heart rate and sleep tracking. The steps tracking is a bit suspicious IMO as it often counts hundreds of steps while I'm chilling in bed or on the couch and I've never had this issue before on my Huawei or my Fitbit before it. That said, I'll give it a pass as while I'm actually walking or running it matches what I'd expect from the Huawei, it just gets more phantom steps oddly enough.

The heart rate tracking is far more reliable than my Huawei. Not only just day to day when I'm inactive, but during exercise. It was honestly frustrating how often my Huawei reckoned I was under 120bpm when I was fighting for my life during some intense cardio. I've yet to encounter this with my FR 70 as my heart rate always matches my subjective feel.

The sleep tracking is also quite good. Ahead of time I read a lot of negatives about it, but coming from the Huawei it's a night and day difference and reminds me of how accurate my Fitbit was for it. I have a baby and wake up multiple times at night and sometimes get up to go to the bathroom or prepare a bottle etc and it detects me waking up reliably. When I take a nap in the afternoon it captures that too.

Lastly, the last positive is the ecosystem. The phone and web app are great and I love being able to export runs or otherwise sync them with other apps. All the information I would want or need is easily accessible and transferable. Huawei has some syncing to different planforms (e.g. Strava) but it is not easy to get a hold of your data and parse through it. For someone highly motivated by metrics, it's like hitting the jackpot.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a great watch and while I understand why they make it look cheap and crap (in order to upsell people to more expensive watches), if it was slightly more premium this watch wouldn't have any competition at all. I'm happy with the purchase, and for now I'll just swap out the watch for formal events but would recommend it to anybody getting into running and wanting something reliable to work with.

Initially I followed the program as prescribed but my first couple weeks were a bit shaky and a weekend off turned into 3-4 days and then I felt the need to play catch up and did back to back days so I ended up deciding to have a schedule of "run, rest, run, rest" etc.

I found this a bit easier personally to stick to as it didn't allow me any temptation to take an extended break and ultimately it actually grew my desire to run where I now itch to run on my days off and have to have some self discipline to stop myself (though I do plan on increasing volume once I'm finished).

I just finished week 7 today and only have 2 weeks to go and I think I'll maintain this schedule for a little while, I'll just give myself some more variety in my runs than I have now. Anyway, do you follow this set up, and if you did, what did it transform into when you wrapped up C25K?

I currently have a Huawei GT 5 and looking to upgrade.

In terms of activities, I recently started running and will be doing a half marathon end of November. I also hike, cycle and half heartedly do weight training.

From what I can tell, the 70 has most of the things that caught my eye in the original watch I was looking at (570) which are the training readiness, body battery, pace pro, suggested workouts and training plans as well as phone notifications.

The only useful thing I can think of from my searching is the flashlight, but that's not even available on the 570 and I'd need the 970 from that. Aside from that, given my situation is there any reason I should consider the 570 more? Budget isn't really a problem, but at the same time I'm not looking to spend money for no benefit.

I currently have a Huawei GT 5 and looking to upgrade.

In terms of activities, I recently started running and will be doing a half marathon end of November. I also hike, cycle and half heartedly do weight training.

From what I can tell, the 70 has most of the things that caught my eye in the original watch I was looking at (570) which are the training readiness, body battery, pace pro, suggested workouts and training plans as well as phone notifications.

The only useful thing I can think of from my searching is the flashlight, but that's not even available on the 570 and I'd need the 970 from that. Aside from that, given my situation is there any reason I should consider the 570 more? Budget isn't really a problem, but at the same time I'm not looking to spend money for no benefit.

Thanks!

So, this is my second time through the program. Last time I stopped early on because I realized I could run for 30mins non-stop already, but I didn't keep up with it because it was really hard and I dreaded every session and so fell off the wagon. This time I said I'd go through with it till the end and allow myself to more gradually get used to running for 30mins.

Anyway, the TL;DR of what I've learnt 5 weeks in (just finished W5D1):

• Warming up is the key between a good workout and a bad one. I've learnt I need about 10mins of walking on the treadmill at a decent incline to get the blood flowing. 5mins or just a casual walk and I spend most of the workout feeling rough and don't get into the groove till I'm basically done. With a good warm up, the entire run feels much easier.
• Quality Rest/Sleep like a good warm up, are the difference between a good workout and a bad one. Last week the night before my second workout I had shocking sleep (have a baby, what I can I do?) and I was surprised at how much harder that workout felt when the first one was hard but manageable. Third workout I had better sleep and unsurprisingly it felt easier.
• The psychological adaptation is just as important as the physiological. I did W5D1 which is 3x5min run intervals. Last week it was 2x3min and 2x5min running intervals and mentally those 5mins were very hard, and it made it feel physically even harder. This week I went into it and I felt so good throughout that I did an extra 5min rep because why not? To my absolute surprise my heart rate was higher than it was last week. The run felt so good I assumed I must've adapted and my heart rate dropped, instead a higher intensity felt easier. Crazy.

I was fairly confident that I was going to be able to do a 30min run by the end of this even though I'm aiming for a faster pace (30min 5K) because I had shown I was able to do it before, but I was worried that it'd still feel very difficult. Today's workout is the first time I thought to myself perhaps I'm going to come out of this running a 30min 5K and not feel like absolute death and I think the psychological adaptation (along of course with the physiological) is the key to it this time as I'm more slowly working towards that 30min number rather than just diving right on in.

Anyway, let's see how I feel after the infamous W5D3 workout 😄