Fitbit Charge HR and enlarged heart

SIMAKRA

Hi,
I have an enlarged heart (was born with it), would the Firbit charge HR show a higher calorie burn, due to my pulse going up quiker (than in comparison to "normal"people).
Currently I have only the fitbit charge, but was thinking about getting the HR.

Thanks

editorgrrl

The only way to gauge the accuracy of any Fitbit is to trust it for several weeks, reevaluate your progress, and adjust accordingly.

The Charge HR has a real buckle, rather than the Charge's clasp—which to me makes it worth the extra money.

maggiekat7

I'll throw in my 2C here. I wear a fitbit charge, and use a mio link heartrate monitor during my workouts. The math used to determine calorie burn relies on average hr for the exercise period, so I would think your numbers should be OK.

As editor grrrr mentioned, you'll have to use it for a while to find out for sure.

heybales

It should be inaccurate, to what degree depends on your workouts and how far off average you are.

To get calories from HR several assumptions are made.

That your HRmax is really 120 - age. Especially for women, this is a hug bell curve, and more chance of being 10 bpm outside that value then in.

That your VO2max matches up to your BMI weight rating. Bad BMI (height/weight) is assumed to mean bad fitness level (age/gender) for you, and given lower VO2max.

I'd think your medical condition as going to throw off that potential accuracy even more than normal.
Because you don't have the normal increases to HR for exercise purely for the reason of providing more oxygen for oxidizing fuel for the effort being required.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/459580-polar-hrm-calorie-burn-estimate-accuracy-study

You can always test it and see if it's within range of 5%.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/774337/how-to-test-hrm-for-how-accurate-calorie-burn-is/p1

Then again - if there isn't much exercise, then it really doesn't add up to that much anyway, and daily activity below exercise is based on steps for calorie burn.

SIMAKRA

Thank you all for your comments

Thanks heybales, that's what I thought

for the time being I think just counting steps will do for me, as I do mainly walking and just a bit strength training

heybales

There ya go - strength training should be manually logged anyway as Weights on Fitbit.

HRM-based calorie burn is inflated for that.
Great for walking though, and that is low level intensity (if not now it will be) - probably good enough too.

DaveAkeman

heybales wrote: »

that is low level intensity (if not now it will be)

I love the way you put that!

SIMAKRA

well,

he is right, however I do walk fast, got the green bar several times :-)
But when starting after 2 years of lousy living, walking is the best!