wearing fitbit face down

Gritty_Gal

I just got Charge HR and I'm trying to figure things out. Would love a little help from you guys...

Whenever I wear a watch, I always wear it with the face inside of my wrist and the clasp on the top. I know that FitBit charge HR is supposed to be work with the face up and clasp down. Would it work accurately if I wore it the other way? Has anyone tried it?

When I connected it to MFP, I find that the calories burnt by walking are very high. (2000 steps = about 180 cals) is that normal?

Would love to hear you opinions...

lectric102002

I tried doing that with the Surge to hopefully improve the heartrate monitor, the thinking being that it was closer to my wrist pulse point. It didn't help.

NancyN795

I think I've seen someone mention they wear it that way. I've put it on that way a couple of times and when I'm sedentary it seems fine, but I haven't tried wearing it on the inside of my wrist during a workout. I'll give it a try today.

Edit: I just did a 21 minute stroll around the house while reading a book. I put the HR into exercise mode and it was worn with the HR sensor on the inside of the wrist. My heart rate averaged 98 BMP (middle of the "fat burning" range for me). It was 2004 steps and burned 133 calories. It seems pretty consistent with other times that I've done the same thing except that I don't usually put the Fitbit in exercise mode for a "reading stroll". If I'd been exercising more intensely, it is possible that could get 180 calories from 2000 steps, but not for me at a normal walking pace.

Gritty_Gal

lectric102002 wrote: »

I tried doing that with the Surge to hopefully improve the heartrate monitor, the thinking being that it was closer to my wrist pulse point. It didn't help.

I know what you mean, but for me it's just the way I'm used to wear my watch, so each time I want to look at it, it feels unnatural to move my arm towards me as opposed to away from me.

If it works just the same, then I'll try wearing it "my way"

heybales

Gritty_Gal wrote: »

I just got Charge HR and I'm trying to figure things out. Would love a little help from you guys...

Whenever I wear a watch, I always wear it with the face inside of my wrist and the clasp on the top. I know that FitBit charge HR is supposed to be work with the face up and clasp down. Would it work accurately if I wore it the other way? Has anyone tried it?

When I connected it to MFP, I find that the calories burnt by walking are very high. (2000 steps = about 180 cals) is that normal?

Would love to hear you opinions...

Calories isn't per steps, but per distance, unless you had the activity record going and HR based calorie burn.

Steps to calorie burn doesn't really workout well in the math between people for many reasons.

Was the walk that far off?

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

retirehappy

I had trouble getting good readings wearing it face up. So I have worn mine face down. I wear it comfortably, I don't pull it extra tight like some people report,heck I don't even do the push up, push down routine others have reported, the Fitbit 'catches' my heart rate just fine. I had been using a standard chest strap HRM, and the Fitbit and that test to compare them was within a few beats of each other. Personally I think it works great on the inside, I am not a HIIT person, I do walks, hikes, strength training classes, and yoga. I have been losing weight at the rate the math says I should, YMMV

Gritty_Gal

Calories isn't per steps, but per distance, unless you had the activity record going and HR based calorie burn.

Steps to calorie burn doesn't really workout well in the math between people for many reasons.

Was the walk that far off?

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

Thank you for the information. The more I get into this whole fitness thing, the more I realize how green I am on the subject.

Normally, when I used my phone to track my steps, 2000 steps would be about 50 calories, so 180 seemed a bit excessive. The steps were accumulated over half a day period, so it wasn't an actual "walk" per se.
I'm still trying to figure out the fitbit and have been reading more about how the calories burnt are calculated. Hopefully the information will shed a little more light on this little mystery

Thank you for sharing the website. I'll check the distance/speed on my phone and play around with the number.

So much information...

aylajane

Walking 2000 steps in 20 minutes will burn dramatically different calories than walking 2000 steps over 4 hours. So unless you compare the same walk/pace both ways, you really dont know if accurate yet or too high, etc.

I wear my fitbit one daily, and on days I hit near 10k steps exactly, my total calorie burns can be anywhere from 1800 to 2400... depends on how many hills were in those steps, whether i walked or ran them, etc.

Gritty_Gal

aylajane wrote: »

Walking 2000 steps in 20 minutes will burn dramatically different calories than walking 2000 steps over 4 hours. So unless you compare the same walk/pace both ways, you really dont know if accurate yet or too high, etc.

I wear my fitbit one daily, and on days I hit near 10k steps exactly, my total calorie burns can be anywhere from 1800 to 2400... depends on how many hills were in those steps, whether i walked or ran them, etc.

Thank you for sharing your experience. Since I'm just starting I just want something to compare to as I have no baseline to know if my FitBit is working well or not.