The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

131. My Experience with the Oura Ring: A Game-Changer for Your Long-Term Health

• Kristy Castillo

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I’m super excited to be chatting with you, all about the Oura Ring today!

I’ve been using my Oura Ring for almost a year now, and I’ve gotten quite a few questions about what I think of it. Honestly..it’s been a game-changer for my overall health, and it’s a seriously great product! I wanted to take some time and dive into what my experience has been like, and really, why I believe it’s such a phenomenal tool for your long-term health.

First of all, the Oura Ring isn’t just another fitness tracker - it’s actually not a fitness tracker at all. The Oura Ring monitors a variety of health metrics, from your sleep quality and heart rate variability, to your daily activity, resilience, menstrual cycle (a huge reason why I wanted it), and more. It literally breaks everything down and is customizable to YOU; it gets to know you on a deeply personal level. 

The Oura Ring has really transformed my health and fitness, and has helped me better understand other important metrics I didn’t think about as much (or really know about). I feel like it’s more of a ‘balanced’ approach to tracking too; it’s given me extremely accurate data without me falling into the trap of obsessive monitoring like I have in the past. 

Whether you're curious about tracking your sleep or menstrual cycle, managing stress, or simply wanting a clearer picture of your overall health, I hope this episode gives you the knowledge you want (and need) to know about the Oura Ring! 


In today’s episode about my experience with the Oura Ring, we cover:

  • My previous experience with the Apple watch + our society’s obsession with fitness trackers
  • Why I wanted to try the Oura Ring + the specific factors it tracks
  • What my personal Oura Ring stats are like on a typical day
  • The 5 tabs that show up in the Oura Ring app + how the Oura Ring is customizable and unique to YOU
  • What the readiness, sleep, and other various pages within the app provide


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Un-Fuck-Your-Fitness Podcast. I am your host, Christy Castillo, and I'm here to give you real talk and cut the BS so you can actually enjoy building a body you love. I'm a personal trainer obsessed with giving you simple action steps to take you from feeling stuck to feeling sexy. Let's go. Hey guys, what's?

Speaker 2:

up. Welcome to today's episode. I am going to be talking to you today all about the Oura Ring. I have had my Oura Ring for just about a year and that's plenty of time for me to figure out whether I like it or not. Obviously, it took me a long time to decide whether I wanted one or not, and I'll kind of get into that. But I get a lot of questions about it.

Speaker 2:

If people see it, if I'm in person, and they'll ask is that an Oura Ring? Do you like it? What do you love about it? What is the track? If I post a story, I post a photo, something. Sometimes you can see it and it's a very I think it has a distinct look to it. Obviously there's different colors and there's different designs, but you need to be wearing it on your middle or index finger and so and it just it's thick, it has a certain look to it, so people can see that I'm wearing it. And then on my stories sometimes, more so recently, because I'm kind of ready to talk about it I will post a little screenshot of, like, my steps or my calories burned or something like that, and it's that's from the Oura Ring. And people will say what is that photo of? What kind of tracker do you use? And I get a lot of questions about it. And I'm finally ready to speak about the Oura Ring.

Speaker 2:

Now I don't know how it works technically, but I'm just going to tell you I don't work for Oura Ring. Okay, I don't even have. I actually might have like two discount codes. Anybody gets them when you have an Oura Ring. Inside the app there's like four discount codes. I've given them out to a couple people. I'm not sure if they've used them. I think I might have a couple left.

Speaker 2:

But again, I don't work for the company. I'm not sponsored. I literally have nothing to do with the company. I wouldn't mind because I love the company. So I'm not saying that's off the table because it is something that I love. I will always only work with companies that I love.

Speaker 2:

But I want to just make sure that you know this is literally just my thoughts on it. I don't work for the company. I don't know the technology behind it, I don't know the very like that kind of stuff about it. I'm just going to tell you what I love about it and that's it. So I wish I could show you. There's an app, obviously that goes along with it and that's what I'm going to kind of be reading information from and just kind of pulling just looking at that while I'm telling you what it tracks. I have sent many videos to people, many screenshots showing like this is what it tracks, this is what the app looks like. So if you have any questions after this, please feel free to bombard my Instagram DMs. I can't believe I'm saying that, but I would be happy to take some screenshots. I'll just have them ready and kind of send them your way so you can see what it looks like, what it tracks. You can also Google. You can also Google it. So there's that little disclaimer.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so I have not tracked my fitness a lot. In the past I did have an Apple Watch for I don't know, maybe a year, maybe two years, I really don't know. It's been a long time. My husband actually got it for me when I hit diamond status as a Beachbody coach, because that was a big deal at the time. That was something that I thought was really big and it's a big milestone and Beachbody kind of pushes that and it was very exciting. So he got me an Apple Watch to celebrate that and I really I liked it.

Speaker 2:

I don't like to wear watches. I've never really worn. I do have two permanent, tiny, teeny, tiny little permanent bracelets that I've got with my best friend, jenna, when I was at her house about a year ago actually, that I've kept something on my arm that long is crazy and not broken it, but anyway, I don't like to have a watch anything like really on. I'm not big on jewelry, I'm not big on any of that kind of stuff. So I did wear the Apple Watch for a while. I liked it, it was fine. It was annoying that every time I got a text message it rang.

Speaker 2:

I didn't want to do a lot on the Apple Watch. All I wanted to do was track my workouts, basically, and that's what I used it for, and I found myself being obsessed with. You know, it's time to stand up, it's time to move around or whatever it says time to breathe, and that was annoying to me. I found that it was just annoying. I didn't want to be reminded that I've been sitting on my ass too long or whatever. I didn't like that. I didn't like some of those things that came with it.

Speaker 2:

I also would become obsessed if I did a workout and I forgot to quote, unquote, record it like push, start and stop. Then I remember one time and I'm sure you've done this if you have an Apple Watch I remember not recording it getting done with my workout, looking down to see how many calories I burned for that particular workout, and I didn't start it and I literally thought should I do it again? Because it was a big thing a couple of years ago to post, take a photo of the calories you burned, post it on your story and, I guess, show that for proof that you worked out. Who even cares? But that was a huge, huge thing. Maybe it still is, I don't know. I don't really follow people like that, but anyway I literally remember thinking I have to do that workout again. It's almost like it didn't even count, which is ridiculous because obviously it counted for my body and that's all that matters. But anyway, I did get a little addicted to that part of it seeing my calories, seeing my circles close, that kind of a thing.

Speaker 2:

Other than that, I've never had a Fitbit, a Garmin, nothing ever like that. I've never tracked my steps or anything since and this was years ago that I was in that Beachbody status. Okay, so in between then and a year ago, I tracked my fitness. Zero, not at all, not my steps, not my calories burned during a workout. I've told you before in episodes that that shit doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how many calories you burned during the workout and I was doing fine with my fitness honestly, not tracking my steps. I know I was getting enough moving in, so it was fine. So it can be done.

Speaker 2:

People, if you are addicted to these trackers and you need a break from them freaking, take it, because this is not the end, all be all. But I really wanted the Oura Ring because it tracked my sleep and my menstrual cycle. I wanted something that tracked my health. I was seeing a couple girls on my ladies on my social media posting that they had an Our aura ring and kind of posting their sleep. It gives you an activity score. So when I wake up in the morning, a little bit after I wake up, I get right onto my aura app. It then tells me how long I slept. It tells me your total sleep, my sleep efficiency, my restfulness score, my REM sleep time, my deep sleep time, my latency I don't even know, what that is.

Speaker 2:

You can click on it and see. So I just clicked on it. Sleep latency I think I'm saying that right is the amount of time it takes you to fall asleep at night. Sleep latency is only shown for your longest sleep period. Ideally, you should fall asleep between 15 and 20 minutes of lying down. Falling asleep in less than five minutes can be a sign of overtiredness. And there's another paragraph so it gives you an explanation of all these things Timing, the timing of my sleep, so whether I went to bed at a decent time or not, how long I slept.

Speaker 2:

It gives me the details of my sleep. Again, my time sleep last night was I had terrible sleep last night. Anyway, it gives you your lowest heart rate while you were sleeping. It says my breathing regularity was optimal. My average oxygen saturation was 98%. That's good, I guess. So anyway, it gives you a ton of information. So that's kind of the first thing that I look at, honestly, when I am judging my day. I will look at it. And today it said okay, it's not going to tell me. Anyway, I'm in the middle of the day right now, so it's not going to tell me. But in the morning it'll say kind of like a score and it'll assess your sleep score and kind of say, today's a great day for you. You slept great, your heart rate was great, go get it, or something like that. Or it'll say basically kind of like not in these words, but struggled a little, and that's a great thing to have.

Speaker 2:

And I really wanted to see how my sleep was. I really wanted to start focusing on my steps, my sleep and my menstrual cycle and really just see. I had no idea where I was for steps, my sleep. I knew because it was okay, but I wanted to track it and I didn't want to wear a watch. So I had started looking into the Oura Ring. Like I said, I literally wear my wedding ring on a daily basis and that's kind of all that I wear. So I was nervous about how it felt.

Speaker 2:

You can order a ring size kit and I highly suggest doing this. It sends you I don't know eight to 10 different sizes of the Oura Ring. It's a bulky, little chunky thing. It's the same size as width-wise and everything as the ring itself. So they suggest that you wear it for, I think, two weeks, just so you're kind of experiencing everything. You can shower with it, do the dishes with it, you know, run with it, work out with it all the things. So you see how it feels. You see how it fits. You do not want it to spin a lot because there are these sensors inside the ring that need to sit underneath, like on the on the palm of your hand side. These sensors need to sit and fit on that side of your hand. So you you want to make sure that your ring isn't moving around a lot, and so I wore that for two weeks, figured out a size, ordered it, got it.

Speaker 2:

I was told that the aura bring like the support if you needed a new ring. Anything was going wrong If you called their customer service or support. Basically, I was told that it was terrible and so I was really nervous about that. One friend had told me that she had to get a new one and it took her a really long time and they kind of Fought with her on it. So I was nervous about that. But I'll be honest, I have had zero issues with it in this year.

Speaker 2:

It stays charged for, I think, like four days. At first I didn't know how long it would stay charged, so I I didn't charge it and I just kind of let it go, and I've done. I. Finally the app sent me an alert saying that my Oura Ring battery was getting low and I needed to charge it. Honestly, I'd kind of forgotten about it. At that point. I'm like, oh, I haven't even used the charger yet, so I had to figure out how to do that Tiny little charger. It fits right into a USB, so I keep it in the bathroom. Now, whenever I take a shower, I just pop in the charger and I pop it on the charger, and so that's just kind of my time to charge it. When I'm showering, when I'm washing my face, that's just the time that I charge my ring every single time so that I don't forget and I remember then to put it back on, and so that's just kind of my routine. But it does stay charged for a really long time, so you don't have to worry about that. I've had zero issues with anything happening to it at all. Obviously I haven't lost it, and you know, thank God. But I've had zero issues with it. So I haven't had to deal with customer support, but so I can't speak on that, but I've been really, really happy with it.

Speaker 2:

So, like I said, I want to talk a little bit about what it does track and I'm literally going to. I'm staring at the app right now. I have it open. It is 2.22 in the afternoon on a Wednesday when I am recording this, so I have already gotten my workout in. I took a 40-minute walk this morning and I've been working all day and moving around. I had some errands to run, so it's been kind of a productive day, I guess. But I'm just going to kind of give you some stats and go through the little list here of what my app looks like right now.

Speaker 2:

Again, in the morning it looks a little bit different because it'll literally say kind of your, I guess. I just want to say it kind of gives you a score. It'll say strong, resilient. That's usually what mine says. So I'm trying to think if you didn't sleep well and what it says I can't think of the word, but it lets you know basically first thing in the morning. I love to open it, like I already said, and see what it says, see what my sleep looked like, and I kind of gave you a rundown of that already, but that's the first thing that shows up and it's really nice to know. Ok, I didn't get so much sleep. So you know, just kind of being aware of that, like, ok, I thought I slept eight hours, I slept great, but I didn't get a lot of REM sleep, I didn't get a lot of deep sleep. So it just it helps you to be able to track those things and to know why you're feeling, how you're feeling as far as energy in relation to your sleep. So I found that to be really nice.

Speaker 2:

So there are five tabs at the bottom of your Oura Ring app when you open it. There are five tabs there's one just your home, your home screen tabs. There's one just your home, your home screen. There's one called readiness, there is one for sleep, there's one for activity and there's one for resilience. Resilience is new. That was not on there when I first got the app. I want to say that's been there for about three to four months and I really really like that. So I'm still kind of learning my trends as far as that goes.

Speaker 2:

When I first got the Oura Ring, it didn't know anything about me and so you can log your periods. There's a circle with a little plus sign, kind of like my app, if you're on there, where you can log period. You can do an unguided session, which is a mindfulness session. There is a 10-minute option and a wave motion option. You can literally just take yourself through a little meditation session, which is great. You can add a tag to something. I just clicked on that. You can add anything.

Speaker 2:

So if you slept great, you can add a tag why, like it was a cool night, the fan was on, you meditated before bed, you had a sleep mask on I'm looking here sleeping aids, a weighted blanket If there are things that kind of helped you. There are also tags for the other side of thing If you had cramps, if you had bad dreams, if you were fatigued, if you had a fever, stress, sugar, anything to kind of explain. So if I had a really bad night of sleep which last night I did I could kind of explain. So if I had a really bad night of sleep which last night I did I could kind of explain what was going on. Honestly, I was so freaking sweaty, so thank you for that perimenopause and my new tattoo was really, really itchy and pissing me off, so it was just not a great night. I don't think tattoo is an option on here, but anyway, you can add tags to pretty much anything. If you had a good workout, you can add tags. If you had a bad workout, you can add tags. So that's really cool. So you can go back and be like, why did that day suck so bad?

Speaker 2:

There is another option to add a workout and there is an option to record workout heart rate, which I really like. So while you're doing your workout, you can click if it's an outdoor running, indoor running, outdoor cycling, indoor cycling or walking, so basically any kind of cardio activity. You can record your heart rate during your workout. When you click add a workout, you can choose a ton of different options as far as what kind of workout you're doing and I mean a ton, so I'm not going to click that. You can click your start time. You can click the or fill out the duration of your workout and the intensity. So if you want to choose your workout, you can do that and kind of add like OK, today I did some weightlifting so I could go in there and click weightlifting 30 minutes just to keep track. I personally do not do that.

Speaker 2:

Something cool about the Oura Ring is that it figures out when your heart rate is elevated, what you're doing so. My Oura Ring knows now when I'm going for a walk. I don't have to log it. If I wanted to log my heart rate I totally could, and I think it actually does that for me, but maybe not in that particular section. I'm not sure. I haven't looked. But when I'm going for a walk, if I open my Oura Ring, it will say at the top it'll say basically are you out for a walk 20 minutes? This time to this time, I can click yes and it will add that as a workout. Or it will say it knows basically what my heart rate is elevated to during a workout. It knows what my heart rate is elevated to when I'm doing housework, so it learns. And you, of course, I have to click. There's an option called flexibility, so I'll use that for stretching. If I'm stretching in the evening or something and my heart rate is elevated, it will now say are you doing some flexibility? Yes, and I'll click that. If not, if I'm just running around with my kids or chasing Mac around or whatever, it'll still ask me are you doing some flexibility? Are you doing some housework? Are you going for a walk, whatever? And I can click no if I don't want it to log that I'm doing something. But that's really cool.

Speaker 2:

It learns you, which is something I really liked about the ring in itself. It learns my sleep patterns. It learns, like I said, my menstrual cycle, and I really wanted to have that. I wanted to look ahead and say your period's going to start in five days and it'll say your temperature is elevated or your temperature has decreased and maybe your sleep has been bad, and this is why I wanted something to learn me and I really like that about it. It will also tell me certain things about other people that have an aura ring. So if I click on sleep efficiency, it says track the impact of tags across the aura community. So a lot of people right now apparently have the common cold, which drops your sleep 2%. A lot of people have clicked the tag sick, sore throat, common cold, confirmed COVID-19, and fever. So those will drop your sleep score apparently 2% to 3%. So those are just common things. So it takes a collective community look at the Oura Ring community and kind of tells you what's going on, like it's the sick season, right. So this is kind of going on. I really like that part of it.

Speaker 2:

As far as sleeping, like I said, it takes your resting heart rate, it takes your sleep efficiency. All of that into consideration. Your total sleep, your time in bed gives you a sleep score and then it gives you all of those sleep contributors that I mentioned earlier Total sleep efficiency, restfulness, REM sleep, deep sleep, latency and timing Gives me the details. It gives me a graph. I was awake two hours and 16 minutes in bed. My REM sleep was an hour and 21 minutes. Light sleep was four hours and 28 minutes. Deep sleep was 51 minutes. So it literally breaks it down, which I think is so cool. I can see it in the middle of the night. It's the lights on the little tracker behind on the underside of my finger will turn red or green based on kind of what it's taking my heart rate or what it's looking for my temperature. So that part is really cool. I love the sleep part. I love waking up to that.

Speaker 2:

So, like I said, on the Oura Ring, when you open it there is the home screen tab on the left. When you first get the Oura Ring you can set up some goals. So in the top left-hand corner you can click my profile and it will ask you your current goal. For me. I clicked improve my athletic performance. There's also a goal of be more present and focused, be productive and energetic, develop my learning skills and creativity, manage stress levels and improve my health. It says what's your focus area. Choose the most important thing for you right now. Important thing for you right now. I love that because if you just want to track your stress levels and manage them, it's going to probably have you do a yoga session, a guided meditation. It's going to really focus on those things for you. For me, it's asking me about my workouts and my steps and my activity goals. So I love that you can make it so personal.

Speaker 2:

So when I click the home screen right now, it tells me my activity goal, tells me where I'm at in accordance with that, my daytime stress, and it has the option to do a little meditation if I want to. So it tells me how many minutes I have been stressed today and it kind of shows me a little graph. Also on the home screen it shows me my heart rate beats per minute. That's pretty cool. It tells me my heart health. Right now it says your cardiovascular age is aligned with your actual age. So cardio capacity is high. That's also a new feature. I haven't really taken the time to dive into that yet, but very cool. It has a summary of my day so far, walking. It has that I took a little nap in there, which, thank God, I did that.

Speaker 2:

My activity goal completion it says my trend detected. Your activity goal completion rate has trended up over the past eight weeks and is above my baseline. So my baseline every day my activity is the goal that it set for me, based on the goal that I checked. My active calorie burn goal is 300. Right now I'm at 301. There are some days where I sit too long and I'm under that I don't hit that goal. There are some days where I sit too long and I'm under that I don't hit that goal. There are some days where I'm over that. Right now I'm trending up. So that's great. My readiness 78. Nice timing. It says Great job. Pausing and recharging your body and mind. Your well-timed nap improved your readiness score. It has my sleep on there Again, an overview.

Speaker 2:

It has my cycle insights. This is all on the home screen. So much information. So this is my cycle, day 15. It says I'm in the luteal phase. During this phase you may see higher heart rate, lower HRV, warmer temperatures and experience a desire to prioritize comfort. It says my period is going to start in eight days. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of information. There's some resources down here and reports on my cycle insights. I can share them with a medical professional apparently. So that's pretty cool. There's a tab to just send that out. And then there's my history in there as well, and it does go back to November. So apparently I've had this just under a year, like I said. So that's pretty cool. It has my resilience as strong it has my body clock.

Speaker 2:

So it says the midpoint of your sleep was aligned with your chronotype. I love that too. It figures out my type, how my body works, and it says that I should be going to sleep around 1030 and waking up around 630, based on my body, who I am, how I function. That's my chronotype. It says my bedtime tonight should be between 945 and 1030. And then it also says explore. Take a break with guided breath work and meditations and explore. So if I were to click that, I could go through a meditation.

Speaker 2:

So that's just the home screen. I freaking love that. That's all the options. That's kind of an overview, but look, that's so much information. I just found like I love the Apple Watch and you know that was fine. I didn't like to wear it as a feature again and I find that, like having my text messages not come through on this app is actually great. The fact that I can open this Oura Ring app and just see my health is so great and that's literally what I wanted. But there's so much information on the home screen.

Speaker 2:

So now I'm going to take you through the readiness page. It has my resting heart rate, it has my heart rate variability, it has my body temperature, it has my respiratory rate and my readiness score on here. So it says readiness contributors, resting heart rate, hrv balance, body temperature. It says optimal recovery index, sleep fair, sleep balance, sleep regularity, previous day activity and activity balance. It says my lowest heart rate of the day, my average HRV for the day, my max 98. There's some gaps in there and there's a little tab that says why the gaps. So there's so much information. If you don't understand, you can click on every single tab, every single word that I mentioned resting heart rate you can click on it. Hrv balance you can click on it. So it tells you what everything means, which I also love because I don't want to have to go look it up, I don't want to have to guess, I just want to click on it. Let's see if I click on HRV balance.

Speaker 2:

Hrv balance helps you keep track of your recovery status by comparing your two-week heart rate variability trend to your three-month average. Optimal means your heart rate HRV trend is on par or better than your average, which is usually a sign of good recovery. There are sometimes it'll say pay attention, that's if I don't sleep good at all. That is, your recent HRV trend is below your average, which can be a sign that your body or mind is under stress. And then there's a learn more section so you can read all about it. I mean, the information is absolutely amazing. I should probably mention there's like a $5 a month fee for the app I want to say which sign me up. That's totally fine. So that's your readiness page.

Speaker 2:

You can also go back. At the very top there's these graphs. So it says today, yesterday, it will take me all the way back through last year. I can go back and see all of that information right at my fingertips to say, like, where was I at last month, at this day, 30 days ago, 60 days ago, 90 days ago and kind of compare. So if I'm really wanting to improve my HRV, improve my heart rate, right, if I'm really trying to improve my sleep, I have all this data to figure out. Like, okay, on this day last month I took some sleep aids, I took some melatonin, I used an eye mask, I had a fan on me and I slept freaking great. Well, let's do that again. Okay, so it just tracks all of that kind of stuff, which is why all the tags and everything are so important.

Speaker 2:

The next tab is sleep. So it says my total sleep, my time in bed, my sleep efficiency and my resting heart rate. My sleep score again was 75. I've already been over the details of sleep, so I'm not going to go into that page again. But all of that is great. I love that and it really does set me up.

Speaker 2:

So this morning, like I said last night, I slept like crap. I opened my app and basically said you slept like shit, maybe rest a little bit today Instead of doing that. I had calls this morning early, so I jumped on my walking pad, got my calls in, got my workout done and, yeah, I did take a little nap this afternoon before I recorded this, because I was so freaking tired. There have been times where I'm like, oh, I slept like shit, I'm not going to work out today. I'm not going to work out today, I'm just going to take it easy. I do need to make myself aware of okay, I did sleep like shit, but I also need to be mindful about getting some movement in. Maybe sleep better, maybe rest a little bit tonight, maybe take it easy, things like that. I will admit that at first I would say I would see that my sleep score was struggling or was bad and I would be like I'm just going to take a rest day. And now I've learned that, okay, just because your sleep score wasn't great doesn't mean you can just take a rest day.

Speaker 2:

Let's get into the activity tab, because that one's amazing. I love tracking my steps. I feel like it's pretty accurate. I will go for a walk around the track and I'm not even going to say how many steps now, but I've tracked it enough to know, kind of how many steps I'm going to get there in about 20 minutes, 40 minutes, that kind of a thing, based on obviously opening my Oura Ring a couple of times while I'm there. So on the activity page it says my goal and then my progress. So my goal is 300 active calories burned. My progress so far today is 308. So I'm killing it. I'm starting in 3 pm. I'm good. My total calorie burn 1764 for today. My walking equivalency so far today is 4.8 miles and my steps is 7,789. My activity score is optimal so I've had a really good day so far of activity.

Speaker 2:

The contributors on this page there's just little lines, like I said, you can click on every single one Stay active. It will tell me if it will just send a little notification to my phone, like any other app does, if I haven't, I think, stood up or moved every hour or something like that. So it says I've had two hours and 40 minutes of inactivity that I've been sitting or napping today. Move every hour it hasn't had to alert me of that yet. Meet daily goals. It has my training frequency, my training volume and my recovery time. All of that is optimal. So my movement is really good. My movement today of high activity I've had five minutes, so no sprinting today. Medium activity an hour and four minutes That'd probably be my workout. And low activity, just walking things like that three hours. So that's great.

Speaker 2:

The activity page I find to be something that I check a lot. I do like to check my steps throughout the day and just see where I am, because if I have a busy evening then it doesn't really matter where I'm at at three o'clock. I know I'll be able to get those in. If I'm kind of slacking throughout the day, I'll check in with friends and be like oh, where are you at with steps? I'm only at 5,000. Hold me accountable. So that's really nice.

Speaker 2:

And then, on the far right of the bottom of the app, is resilience. My resilience is strong. The options are exceptional strong, solid, adequate and limited. Again, this is something new. So my resilience contributors are my nighttime recovery, my daytime recovery and my daytime stress load. My nighttime recovery is good, my daytime recovery. It says pay attention, and my daytime stress load is high.

Speaker 2:

So this is what it says here about that. It says resilience, insight. Your resilience is strong, which is an amazing sign given your high levels of stress recently. You're in a great place overall, but be mindful that your body is asking for more daytime recovery. Good to know. Good to know Because here I am thinking I'm killing it, I'm doing so good and you get on kind of a high about that. My body's like cool, but we slept like shit, remember.

Speaker 2:

So it says can you make time for restorative 10-minute breaks now and then? So my body personally is asking me to slow down a little bit during the day. So there's breathing exercises, deep breaths. Take a couple deep breaths. Time perception, remind yourself that thoughts aren't facts. Question your thoughts and try taking on alternative perspectives. Will you still think about this a year from now? So that's kind of nice. It gives me some little tips on guidance, meditation, mindset Love that. And then I can also follow it in real time. So I guess, if you're working on a project or something and you want to see, maybe you're talking to your boss and you just want to see how your stress levels adjust. Might be kind of interesting. But anyway, those are the tabs and that is all of the information that it tracks. I love it because it gives me all of the information that I want.

Speaker 2:

Like I said, I wanted to be able to track my menstrual cycle. I wanted to be able to track my sleep. I wanted to be able to track my menstrual cycle. I wanted to be able to track my sleep. I wanted to be able to know how those two things are affecting me. So if I am feeling more tired and I don't feel like working out three days in a row, chances are it has something to do with my menstrual cycle. And to be able to read that and say I'm in my luteal phase, I'm probably going to want a little more rest or be a little mindful about X, y and Z. I love that.

Speaker 2:

For me, the Oura Ring really tracks everything that matters long-term in my health and fitness journey. It's not a workout tracker and I think a lot of people will ask me that I've heard that it's not very good at tracking your workouts and it's not, but for me those things don't matter. If I were to turn on and track my heart rate during the workout, I could do that If I wanted to add a workout. So let me go in here If I go into my activity tab and it didn't record my workout today. I lifted pretty heavy today and my heart rate probably didn't honestly get up that high, so that's fine. My heart rate is probably like recording this podcast probably gets my heart rate up just as much as a workout honestly, because I'm just lifting heavy and then taking like two minute breaks during my workouts right now.

Speaker 2:

But let's say walking. It tracked my walk this morning. This particular walk because I stopped it halfway was 24 minutes and it was 61 active calories. So, yeah, I can go in and see if I were to click on that white circle with the plus sign and say that I logged a workout for that moment, or to track my heart rate. It'll then say obviously I worked out for 30 minutes, this was my average heart rate, this is how many calories I burned during that workout. So it will tell you those facts if you want them.

Speaker 2:

I personally do not care how many calories I burned during the workout. I want to know how many calories I'm burning in a day. That matters so much more to me because I'm probably burning more calories with my walks than I am with my workouts personally. Now, building muscle during my workouts obviously is going to have us burn more calories long term. That's a whole different conversation that I'm not going to have. But don't misunderstand what I'm saying there. I am not saying at all that that's better or worse. Okay, you need to do both. But these are the things that I really wanted my body to track.

Speaker 2:

There is another tab, too, where you can look at trends, reports, experiments, explore rest mode settings there's a whole bunch of different things. And then there's refer, a friend tab where you could do have those little discounts I was talking about. But it's so great. I love the app. If you are looking for something that fits right on your finger, it doesn't come off. So you don't have to worry about putting it off and on. You don't have to worry about charging it for a long period of time. You don't have to worry about putting it off and on. You don't have to worry about charging it for a long period of time. You don't have to worry about forgetting it at home.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I'm sure not all places allow you to wear rings, not all jobs, things like that, but for me it's something that I have on all the time. So one time I did go for a walk and I left it on the charger at home and I was like never again because at home. And I was like never again because now I don't know how many steps I got and it was that little bit of obsession that I had to kind of steer myself away from. But I reminded myself that. Yeah, it would have been good to have my ring on, because it does keep these graphs, it does keep this information. So I do want to have the information to be accurate, right. So I do want to have it on, not so much for the obsessive reason of calculating everything, but I do want to know what are my averages, you know, depending on how my sleep was. Did I move enough? Did I move too little? How's my resilience? How's my sleep score? How is all of that stuff Like? How is my body doing? That's what I really, really cared about and that's what this app for me, tracks. So I hope that was helpful.

Speaker 2:

I know it was literally. I know I did the Renpho, the smart scale episode, and that went over really well. I felt like it's just I'm just literally spewing you information about what this app looks like and what this little device does, but it went over really well. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have any questions, please reach out to me Again. I don't know anything about how it pulls the information from my finger. Okay, there, I know I Googled it. I read all about that. I don't understand it, I don't care, but if you have any questions about what it does, what the app looks like, anything else, please let me know. But I gave you pretty much all the information as far as what it tracks and I think it's very, very helpful.

Speaker 2:

This is what I want my clients to be able to know. I want you, first of all, to have a Renfro scale or a smart scale, because I want you to track those numbers, and an Oura Ring is more expensive than a smart scale. Guys, I got the cheapest one and I love it. So please feel free.

Speaker 2:

I got the cheapest one because I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but it's still a couple hundred dollars, so it's obviously a little bit more of an investment than that. But if you can save up some pennies, if you can ask for it for a gift holidays are coming up something or maybe just save up for it, I think it's really, really, really worth it, because this is what I want you to. Yes, I want you to focus on macros and working out and water, all the things, but I also want you to focus on your sleep and your overall health and this mindfulness that this app kind of pushes and teaches. So I think it's a great addition to have, and it's great to focus on these things as well as the other things I constantly talk about in your fitness journey. So I hope this episode was helpful and I will talk to you next week.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to today's show. Go ahead and leave a rating and a review and, of course, follow the podcast so you don't miss out on any future episodes. And I would love it so much if you came to connect with me over on Instagram at Christy Castillo Fit. I will see you next time. Bye.