Fitbit Charge HR and 30 Day Shred

mgonyer123

Has anyone used this combo? Does the fitbit tell you how many calories you burn doing this?

heybales

That's not really the kind of workout that is best for HR-based calorie burn formula, because I think when you do it the HR is constantly up and down.
So it depends on how far up you get it, and how long it takes to come back down.

But I believe it would at least be in the aerobic range, not like normal lifting where it's shooting in to anaerobic and coming back down.

HR-based calorie burn formula is ONLY valid for steady-state aerobic exercise, same HR for 2-4 min.

Farther you get away from that - the more inflated the HR is - the more inflated the calorie burn is.

But if only 30 min a day a few times a week - not a huge deal with an otherwise decently active lifestyle.

If your only exercise for 1 hr 3 x weekly and very sedentary otherwise - could be a bigger deal.

Oh - Fitbit is going to tell you how many calories you burn doing anything.
Whether it's accurate or not is the real question.

nicehormones

I used my charge HR as well as my polar ft4 with chest strap today to compare the two while I did a cardio dance dvd. The charge HR said I burnt about 23 more calories than the polar hrm. I thought that was pretty close enough.

mgonyer123

I wore my husbands watch (samsung something) and my heart rate stayed elevated the whole time but it said I only burned 78 calories. His isn't actually a fitness watch and doesn't tract cardio like the fit bit does.

I just don't want to get the fitbit then realize it's not going to work out with 30DS as that's my main cardio workout (aside from hiking)

heybales

If HR was elevated the whole time around the same 5-10 bpm - then exercise was good candidate for getting decent calorie burn estimate from HR.

Who knows why it's calories burn - had to be hubby's stats for one thing, big difference.

But how elevated was HR - did you stop and do 6 sec count right after a hard segment to confirm about where it's at?

mgonyer123

My husbands watch had my stats. With his smart watch you can only log walking, running, and cycling. Which 30DS isn't any of these of course. He told me to just choose running. I'm assuming that's why it only said I burned 78 calories.

Fitbit is different right? I mean aerobics can be logged too?

heybales

If it was using HR-based calorie burn - the exact activity shouldn't have mattered at all.
Perhaps it wasn't. And that's almost sleeping level calorie burn if it was close to 60 min, so way off.
Did you actually view their HR graph from your workout - does it actually show a increased HR the whole time?

Just like the Charge HR and Surge. Even when you do select an activity record name to use, it doesn't change the HRM-based calorie burn between the choices.

For Fitbit you'd start an activity with a button, end with a button, and then you could view those stats later, they are already logged, the button starts per second logging too of HR.
Compare down the road too based on that name - or manually rename it for easier compare later.

mgonyer123

Yes it showed my heart rate in the target zone or a little above the entire time (except for part of warm up). I think it was counting steps?

I'm not sure.

So with the fitbit do you have to choose an activity to do when you push the activity button or is it a general "I'm starting to purposefully exercise"?

6502programmer

mgonyer123 wrote: »

So with the fitbit do you have to choose an activity to do when you push the activity button or is it a general "I'm starting to purposefully exercise"?

B. You can then go back and assign an activity classification in the fitbit application. The application estimates calorie burn rate based on heart rate, height, weight, and gender. It doesn't matter whether you're giving a kid a piggyback ride or you're hiking a thirty degree incline--If your body is consuming the same oxygen (ie, same pulse==same oxygen usage), then you're consuming roughly the same number of calories.

editorgrrl

mgonyer123 wrote: »

So with the fitbit do you have to choose an activity to do when you push the activity button or is it a general "I'm starting to purposefully exercise"?

It'll take trial & error to find what you prefer. When I want to see a map &/or stats for a particular walk/run/hike, I track it. In the app, go to Track Exercise, then the stopwatch at top right, then Track.

After I finish non-step exercise, I log it. In the app, go to Track Exercise, then the stopwatch at top right, then Log.

Here's how to use exercise mode: http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/How-do-I-log-or-record-exercise-automatically