A little confused on what I should be doing... (Charge HR)

gerryleanne92

Hello!
I bought a Fitbit Charge HR on Monday, and have since been having a play around with it, searching up my questions and reading the best ways to do things. I've also read the big sticky on here, but since I'm quite new to how it all works and the terms used, I'm still a little lost.

In terms of my working out, I do pretty much the same things every week, so I was hoping that if I list what I do here, I could possibly get a definitive correct answer from somebody on how I should log which and where. Since I keep thinking I've figured it all out, then I spot another tread/article/post that contradicts it... I'm starting to become a little disheartened about my new purchase rather than excited, so I'm hoping somebody can tell me exactly what I should be doing!

- Every morning I do a quick 10 minute routine, consisting of a plank, press ups, a variety of crunches, donkey kicks, squats etc. (I sometimes switch it up, but it's always a floor routine focusing on toning, quite Pilates style)

- My job is also one that I'm struggling with. I'm not supposed to disclose what I do, but it's the only way to get an answer for this: I'm a character performer, one of those people who dresses up in layers and layers of padding and fur, and dances about on stage under intense lighting to bring kid's very favourite TV/Film characters to life... It's extremely hard work, and extremely hot (Some of the costumes weigh up to 3 stone each). The shows are acting and dance based, so I'm not sure how and what Fitbit would record if I were to wear it in costume one day. My heart rate is what I'd like to see, but if it calculates my calories based on steps, it wouldn't be accurate since I spend periods of time sweating buckets but not actually taking many steps during parts of the shows.
My work is the part of the day where I'm definitely burning the most by miles, but I've always struggling with figuring out how to track it.

- I go to the gym three times a week - Treadmill, Cross trainer, Spinning, then a variety of the Leg and Arm machines...

- I attend 2-3 gym classes per week too, from Kettlercise, and Pilates to things like Zumba and Yoga.

- Finally, I also do a lot of dancing and dance workouts too. One dance workout I like to do every week is an hour long cardio routine with weights, some periods of the routine are static, so again it'll be a pain if my Fitbit is going to be going off my steps.

So can anybody explain to me exactly what I should be doing in terms of tracking when using both Fitbit and MFP with the above being all of my regular activity?

I've read a lot of people saying to track all exercise in Fitbit and all food in MFP, which although it will make me look lazy on MFP, I'm fine to do - I'm just not sure what I should track my workouts as, and I'm now worried from what I've read that my calorie burn is always based ons steps, which is pretty much useless for everything that I do do...
Sorry for such a long post, but I've been searching every evening since Monday and am just getting more confused with so many opposing posts. I'm starting to feel a little disheartened about my new purchase rather than excited, I just need to understand exactly what I need to do so I can start making proper use of it.

Thanks in advance for any help with this xo

NancyN795

I can't be much help, but my initial reaction is that your job would be a challenge for any tracker to estimate.

Your workouts sound pretty straightforward. Some can be automatically tracked by your Fitbit (dancing, treadmill, etc.) and others can be logged manually using either Fitbit or MFP's database. The way I understand it, when you're exercising, if you push the button to put your Fitbit into exercise mode, it should primarily use heart rate, not steps, for calculating calorie burn. You just have to make sure that it doesn't overestimate your calorie burn for exercises where heart rate does not accurately reflect calorie burn. It's great for steady state cardio, but not for stuff like weight lifting. If you're doing a mix of cardio with other stuff, it is probably not as close but still okay. I'm hoping that someone more knowledgeable will jump in and give better info on this.

Your work on the other hand... Your Charge HR is going to base calorie burn on a combination of steps and heart rate. This is my understanding of how it works. I'm assuming you won't keep your Fitbit in exercise mode while working, so Fitbit gets to decide whether to use heart rate or steps to determine calorie burn. When your heart rate is below the Fat Burn zone, your Fitbit will calculate calorie burn based on the steps it sees. It adjusts the calorie burn not just by the number of steps, but the intensity of the steps. So, wearing a heavy costume will increase the calorie count but still might not be accurate since Fitbit doesn't assume that you're carrying a lot of extra weight. Instead it will assume you're taking bigger steps. I'm guessing this would result in a lower calorie burn than is accurate, but I'm really not sure. When your heart rate is in the Fat Burn zone or higher, I think Fitbit will consider switching to using heart rate to calculate your calorie burn, but it has to see at least some steps (I don't know anything about how many steps, how often, etc.) or it will assume the increased heart rate is due to some other factor than activity. So, if your heart rate is up mainly because you're hot as the blazes in your costume, and you're moving just enough for Fitbit to want to use the heart rate formula, I think it might over estimate.

I'm guessing that the Charge HR is going to do a better job of tracking your calories than a purely step based tracker like the One or the Flex, but you're not a "typical" user, so who knows how close it will be.

FishyK

Wow!!!! That's a super active life! I'm very impressed. I'm sure more knowledgeable folks will opine shortly but it seems to me that the only exercise you need to log into Fitbit is strength training. Which in itself doesn't burn a lot of calories, but the muscle mass it generates will. I'd wear my Charge HR all day, every day if I were you. It will know you are stepping with your heart pounding.

I was tracking my easy, flat, local walks on my Fitbit phone app because I wanted to see the mileage and it just seemed like a more solid way to record it. Then I did a more strenuous hike and really regretted it because it recorded the miles only and not the uphill effort. If I had just let Fitbit record my steps + heart rate I would have a more accurate calorie burn record.

If you manually enter an activity in the phone app or on the desktop for a period of time, Fitbit will override the HR and steps info for that time. Use what you have....it should be very informative. And a lot less work for you.

heybales

I'll agree on Charge being hard for work aspect of calorie burn, either step based (carrying extra weight it doesn't know about) or by HR based (inflated HR from the extra heat).

Workouts will be just fine, or close enough for the time and frequency done, just start the activity record per button.

So 2 ideas for getting best estimate for work burn.

Make your deficit smaller than even reasonable would allow, let Fitbit come up with underestimated calorie burn if step based, and realize you are actually burning more than you see, making the deficit bigger, but still reasonable.
So if 1 lb weekly is reasonable, select 1/2 lb weekly.

Or.

Make deficit bigger, and let Fitbit over-estimate if HR-based calorie burn. Same effect, opposite direction.

And/Or.

Probably good to do this anyway for comparison.
Do your routine at home, at least say 15 min of it, carrying in hand the weight of the costume, but not wearing it.
This way no heat elevated HR, and get to see what the calorie burn would be in best case scenario.

You could in theory then manually enter a workout and replace the Fitbit calorie burn with that better estimate, or at least get an idea of how far it's off when you compare a 15 minute block of time actually doing your work normal.

Depending on which method Fitbit uses, one may be closer than the other, and it's using the best estimate one anyway. Just remember the inaccuracy in calorie burn x actual time span. 50 cal difference in 15 min could add up for a 2 hr show badly.