Vivofit Help!!

HaideeJo13

Alright I got a vivofit yesterday. I have some questions. First off is there any way to get your steps to count up instead of down? Also do you add more steps to your goa to make up for all the the steps it says your taking even though all your doing is moving your arms, like cooking, driving, etc. And how accurate is the calorie burn? I have tons and tons of questions lol Thanks!

lalepepper

Hi there,
I've had my Vivofit since it's release last year and hopefully can shed some light on some of your questions.

The way the band works, your steps will subtract from the goal. There are two screens regarding steps on the original Vivofit - the first displays your total steps for the day (counting up), the second shows you how many steps you have to reach your daily goal (counting down). You should be able to move between displays by pressing the button on your band. The steps screen has two small feet at the bottom, and the goal screen says GOAL at the bottom.

As far as inaccurate steps, I've found making sure my band is fitting my wrist closely really helps reduce inaccurate steps. Yes, they will still happen, but they're less likely. To be safe, I've always assumed a ~500 step margin of error, or about 1/4 mile for most people. I've played around a bit to see what tends to cause inaccurate steps, and it does a pretty good job of ruling those out. I believe there is a feature that doesn't count steps if it is only a brief movement of 5 "steps" or less, which helps.

The accuracy of the calorie burn depends on how closely the data you put in matches your actual activity and build. Again, all these tools can do is provide an educated guess. I don't pay too much attention to the calorie burn myself, but sometimes its nice to have a visual reminder that we're always burning calories. I keep my calorie burn set to sedentary as my activity levels can very significantly from day-to-day, and I figure that it's better to low-ball than high-ball it! I would be careful to update your weight regularly on the Garmin app to have your best shot at accuracy.

If you're using a heart rate monitor with the bracelet, it can lend some additional accuracy to your calorie burns. The general consensus is that HRMs are more reliable than MFP or machine estimates for calorie burns. I have an HRM I use with my Vivofit, but feel sometimes the calorie counts can seem a bit high. It's certainly possible that I'm so used to underestimating I have trouble acknowledging I'm burning that much, but my workouts just don't FEEL like they're burning that much sometimes. For example, for a 35 minute, 10 mile bike ride, MFP says I burn over 600-700 calories. The machine says I burned about 350. The HRM might say I burned 400-500. Since there's so much variability, I figure the lowest number is my best bet, especially as I sometimes eat calories back.

HaideeJo13

Oh you are so great for getting back to me! I upped my step goal to 15,000 to account for steps I did not actually take since my true goal is 10,000. I am also going to low ball a little just to keep things somewhat in my eyes more accurate. It is way cool to have this on and a constant reminder of everything done in a day. It makes me want to get up for no reason and walk here and there when I feel i am sitting to much. according to my calories right now I have already burned 1400 calories and all i have done is some cleaning and about 30 minutes on the treadmill just casually walking so I think I just might cut those in half just to give my self piece of mind and encourage me to do more lol

Grumpy_Marmot

I love my vivofit, I use the 4iiii (its both bluetooth and ant+) strap when working out. That allows for an accurate calorie burn. If your doing the treadmill, it's worth the investment as it will give you a better idea (I think my calorie burn almost doubled). Then if you want to get into target zones for fat burn or cardio it really helps!

DWBalboa

To add to what lalepepper said which was good stuff by the way, you also need to (ok maybe should more so than need) go in and set up you resting heart rate. I've talked to a few others I hazard to guess that it is set to zero by default, also your max heart rate. Which is 220 - Age.
Also measure your pace then set that up in connect as well. The easiest way is to take a known measurement say like 100 yards, walk it three times counting the number of steps that it takes each time take the average and that will be your pace. That will be taking into account for your miles walked/ran.
Y'all can feel free to add me on connect as well my user name is dwfalls67.
I'm having an issue with the HRM, it drops in and out, one sec it's 120 (or whatever) and then zero! I have done just about everything to fix it but no joy. This is actually the 3rd different system I have tried and all three have done this. Maybe it's just my electrons are cray-cray! Have y'all experienced this?

shadow2soul

1) I think lalepepper did a pretty good job of answering this one.
2) I have the setting for auto goals turned on. The goal adjusts based on how many steps I'm getting.
3) Calorie burn doesn't seem to be to far off for me so far. Your results could be different though. I've had mine for a little over 4 weeks now. Based on Intake vs Garmin Calorie burns, I should have lost approx 1.13lbs per week. I lost 1.34lbs per week. The difference in loss rates could easily come from the fact that I subtract a few calories from the HRM calorie burn.

HaideeJo13

Thanks guys! I just need to figure out how to change all the settings lol like your resting heart rate and what not. I decided to take of my wrist band while I was doing my jillian video because i didn't want it to count steps i wasn't taking since i do a lot of arm things with weights. I did wear the chest monitor though. I burned 509 cal in the 35 min. WOOOOO HOOO!!!!! I am also going to wear my heart rate monitor while I am on the treadmill but wear my wrist band as well. This may be a silly question, but CAN you wear the chest monitor all day? I am keeping my chest monitor on for another 30 minutes just to see how many calories i burn just sitting here after a kick butt workout. I know your calorie burn stays up for a while after working out. Thanks again for all the help guys. So far I am loving my vivofit. I know its not perfect but nothing is

shadow2soul

You could, but I wouldn't expect the calorie burn to be accurate. HRM's are only accurate for steady state cardio. As you get further away from steady state cardio the accuracy decreases. That's the main reason I take a % off the reported calorie burn from the HRM.

HaideeJo13

Ok thanks! I am just gonna wear it while i am doing my workout and while I am on the treadmill or bike or whatever.

HaideeJo13

Another question lol. Do you only log your actual workouts on MFP or do you allow it to sync all your "aerobic" activity?

dlveck

So here's a question - the "get up and get moving reminder" is there a setting to turn that option off? It's my understanding that once it starts beeping or vibrating that the only way to get it to stop is to get up and walk. There are times where I am in a 2-3 hour meeting and I can't just get up and walk. Thanks!

HaideeJo13

LOL that would be way annoying. Do you have the Vivofit? Cuz from what I can tell mine does not beep or vibrate it just builds up the red bar.

mersh24

The "get up and moving reminder" is simply a red arrow on the display- it does not beep or vibrate on the Vivofit, so you can effectively ignore it if necessary.

HaideeJo13

yea that is how mine is

dlveck

The Vivofit 2 says it has an audible reminder... https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/into-sports/health-fitness/vivofit-2/prod504038.html

shadow2soul

hdenton13 wrote: »

Another question lol. Do you only log your actual workouts on MFP or do you allow it to sync all your "aerobic" activity?

If you have them synced, MFP says to log workouts on Garmin (or at least that is what Jay from MFP support said). Garmin will send over the workout data to MFP and it will show up on your newsfeed.

dlveck wrote: »

So here's a question - the "get up and get moving reminder" is there a setting to turn that option off? It's my understanding that once it starts beeping or vibrating that the only way to get it to stop is to get up and walk. There are times where I am in a 2-3 hour meeting and I can't just get up and walk. Thanks!

No clue. The original VivoFit doesn't vibrate or beep it just has a red bar. I did read that the new VivoFit2's have some sort of beep or vibration alert, but I don't know if they will have a setting to turn it off or not. From what I've seen it still looks to be on pre-order, so I'm not sure if anyone will have an answer for you yet.

HaideeJo13

I just have the original

HaideeJo13

OOOOOOHHHH Ok I will do that tomorrow Hahahaha still getting the hang of all this lol

Ninadavis424

I lost 18lbs in a month and 12 days using my VIVOFiT Band. I love it. Its an amazing device that gets you where you need to go. I love how it shows how many calories you burn. Keep up the good work and walk until you drop.

HaideeJo13

Awesome Job Nina!!! I am walking my chubby little booty off It makes me just want to walk walk walk i love it