My WHOOP Review

My Whoop Review

This review is 100% NOT sponsored by WHOOP. This is my honest experience with the WHOOP tracker over the last 4 weeks.

What’s a WHOOP? A WHOOP is a wearable fitness tracker marketed towards athletes and fitness enthusiasts who want to train smarter

How much is it? The WHOOP band is free...because there is a monthly membership. The minimum commitment is 6 months which is $180. I purchased the 18 month membership which is $18 a month! I wasn’t over the moon that it was a monthly membership BUT my current expenses are low and this felt beneficial for my job.

Battery Life: They claim five days but I have had to charge mine every 3 days

Waterproof: YES! Fully waterproof

GPS tracker/ Step Tracker: No

Heart rate: Yes

Things I like:

  • It’s not all about steps and calories

  • The sleep tracker feels important

  • Observing which workouts really kick my butt vs where I can push myself

Things I am not crazy about:

  • I have an android and the bluetooth disconnects a lot for me

  • They don’t have “barre” and “tabata” as workouts 

  • WHOOP doesn’t connect with some other apps that I would like


Not my first fitness tracker

I had a fitness tracker for years. Unfortunately, they were the years where I was heavily restricting my food intake, over-exercising, and preaching the gospel of thinner=healthier. I used my fitness tracker to count steps, which sometimes led me to random late night walks JUST to make sure I hit the “right” amount of steps. I used it to track how worthy my workout had been. I used it to tell me how much I was allowed to eat, based on how much I burned.

So one day, somewhere at the beginning of my journey to recovery, I took my fitness tracker off to charge and never put it back on. 

My fitness tracker wasn’t an easy thing to give up. I am a total nerd. I like numbers, maps, graphs, and plans. I missed interacting with the metrics that I had become accustomed to, but they were not good for me. I had to fully detach and unplug from any kind of data like that while I healed my relationship with my body, exercise, and food.

Why WHOOP?

I had been considering getting another fitness tracker, but I did not want to fall down the rabbit hole like I did last time. It took me a ton of research online and within my own fitness community to figure out what I was ready to commit to. My friend Melissa had a WHOOP and it was really the first time I heard about this band. I read tons of reviews, looked at prices, walked away from my online cart, read more reviews...then I finally took the plunge. 

The thing that sold me on the WHOOP is that it felt more focused on performance than calories and competition. The WHOOP tracks your workout intensity, daily intensity, sleep, and recovery. Once all those metrics get calibrated, the WHOOP will make suggestions on how much and how hard you workout. Of course you are not beholden to this type of training, but the point is to protect your body and your energy to create optimal performance. 

WHOOP does still have the calorie tracking feature, but it feels like way less of a thing. I am much more fascinated by how strenuous a workout is and how my body responds. 

Overall Review:

Overall, I feel favorably about this WHOOP. In the last month, it has helped me realize how much sleep is optimal for me, what workouts really get me into my target zones, and how I recover. The calorie tracker has not seemed to impact my experience with the app at all. If anything, it has positively reinforced that my body needs to be fueled to get adequate sleep and recovery.

If you are ready to get your whoop, get a free WHOOP strap and your first month free when you join with my link: https://join.whoop.com/leavell

Lauren Leavell