Fitbit charge HR - worth it or not?

misschellechelle

I am considering getting a Fitbit Charge HR so I can better track my calories burned during my workouts and my general day to day. I have read mixed reviews. I was curious to find out if people have positive or negative experiences with them?

Please share!

amyn73

I had it and it was great. Then i saw rhe Blaze and it was all over. I love rhe Blaze. But honestly if you dont run, the HR is great.

firephoenix8

I love it. I read in the fitbit forum on here several times that you should enable negative calories. I really didn't want to do it, but i did about a couple months ago and it's helped a lot.

For me, I really only have time to add a longer walk between class and work, take the stairs, and use breaks to walk around instead of standing. Fitbit is great for measuring all the little bits and helping you figure out if you're putting it together into enough extra movement to satisfy your goals. If you already feel comfortable in your knowledge of how much you are exercising, or do more discrete workout and less trying to add movement throughout the day, you may find it less of a benefit - though it can still help motivate you to move more and all of it counts.

I've also learned some things about burning. It feels intuitively like a day when I specifically set aside time to take a two mile walk should be a good exercise day - but a day I work and go to school, up moving every few minutes all day, even though I'm at a computer from 7:30 am to 10 pm is actually usually a higher calorie burn day just because of how my body and my life works. It's made me value the little errands around the office more.

misschellechelle

firephoenix8 wrote: »

I love it. I read in the fitbit forum on here several times that you should enable negative calories. I really didn't want to do it, but i did about a couple months ago and it's helped a lot.

Forgive me, but I'm new to Fitbit. How do you enable negative calories? Also, is there a way to flow all of your data from your fitbit to MFP for tracking? Thanks!

becbo22

I have the fitbit charge HR and I've lost 26 pounds since I started using it in November out of 65 overall. I LOVE it! I think if I ever get the money I may upgrade to the blaze, but the charge hr works just great!

misschellechelle

amyn73 wrote: »

I had it and it was great. Then i saw rhe Blaze and it was all over. I love rhe Blaze. But honestly if you dont run, the HR is great.

What is the difference in the blaze vs. charge? I am not a runner, but I walk, do PiYo/bodypump, and weight lifting it it matters...

misschellechelle

becbo22 wrote: »

I have the fitbit charge HR and I've lost 26 pounds since I started using it in November out of 65 overall. I LOVE it! I think if I ever get the money I may upgrade to the blaze, but the charge hr works just great!

Thanks for the feedback! It seems like the charge would be a great motivational tool!

firephoenix8

misschellechelle wrote: »

firephoenix8 wrote: »

I love it. I read in the fitbit forum on here several times that you should enable negative calories. I really didn't want to do it, but i did about a couple months ago and it's helped a lot.

Forgive me, but I'm new to Fitbit. How do you enable negative calories? Also, is there a way to flow all of your data from your fitbit to MFP for tracking? Thanks!

Oh, ok. Well you can hook up your fitbit to MFP like a lot of other fitness apps. You'd download the fitbit app on your phone (or at the very least create a profile on the website), and then go to the Apps section of the MFP website or mobile app. It's pretty simple to link the two - you just have to have a FitBit profile first so you can log into it to give them permission to link.

Enabling negative calories is a setting on MFP, that can be toggled for all fitness apps that you are using. You have to be on the website to do this, though I've done it on my phone in the browser. For that, on the MFP website, you go to Food>Settings, scroll down to calorie adjustments, and check the box to "enable negative adjustments", and then click save changes. This will cause MFP to deduct calories from your daily goal if you don't exercise enough based on your activity setting. So I'm set as "lightly active", and if I don't get between 4-6000 steps in a day I will have calories deducted from my goal. Where you have exercise calories, it will be like "-126" instead of "+140" or whatever.

The amount of calories deducted is not precisely based on how many steps, so you can't go "oh I walked 4,236 steps so I shouldn't be negative"; instead, it's based on FitBit telling MFP how many calories you've burned, and MFP comparing that to what it guessed you would burn based on your activity setting, and then making an adjustment. So I find that if I am up and down and moving a little bit many times on a day, I burn more calories with fewer steps than a day when I sit still allllll day doing homework and then just get up once and do some walking, because FitBit measures heartrate and intensity and stairs and resting heart rate and all kinds of things.

MeanderingMammal

Always on HR is a waste of time for most people in mosst circumstances, but a step tracker can be useful.

Specifically for the training you mention an HRM is meaningless.

jazzypdx

I am not a techie person but decided I wanted to track my HR, daily steps (phone pedometer worked great but I don't always carry my phone) and get a better idea about my sleep patterns (insomnia, argh!). I really wanted a jawbone but my carrier didn't have them yet and they had a "deal" on the HR. I am really happy with it, I don't run so the blaze was more than I needed. For tracking my daily grind at work, little gym stuff and walking, yoga, swimming and rollerskating the HR is giving me the insights I wanted - to stay in the zone for fat burn and not go anaerobic. The sleep pattern is very helpful too.

aaronlwevans

I've had one for three days and i do like the stats, but i worry about inaccuracy, prior to having it i used my iphone to count steps the fitbit is usually 5-10% over that number (may make sense it's always on my wrist). but the calories burned I am very skeptical of, for instance I walked 10 miles yesterday just wandering around London, and I apparently burned over 2200 calories..

MeanderingMammal

aaronlwevans wrote: »

I.... for instance I walked 10 miles yesterday just wandering around London, and I apparently burned over 2200 calories..

Net or gross?

amusedmonkey

I have it because I was given one as a gift. I love it, but in all honesty I wouldn't have bought it for myself. The heart rate function is wonky if you sweat, and even if you don't, a good old chest strap heart rate monitor is more accurate and you only need to use it while exercising. I would highly recommend the "One" instead. The battery lasts a whole week (twice the HR) and it's not affected by and movements.

It does have some nice functions though, like automatic detection of exercise (not always accurate), silent alarm, the ability to monitor the changes in your resting heart rate, the ability to use it as a watch (I have it set up to show time when you bring your wrist up as if you are looking at a watch, it turns on automatically).

Bottom line: it's really nice, feels more substantial and "more gadgety" if you like gadgets, reasonably accurate step count, more firmware updates than the One, allows you to monitor high stress days to take action and do something relaxing, and has a slew of bells and whistles. Is it worth the price though? For me, it isn't. It may be worth it for you.

JinxedyJinx

I've been very disappointed with the heart rate monitor part of my HR. If you're sweaty or engaged in any kind of motion oriented exercise (kickboxing, exercise DVDs) it gives an inaccurate or blank heart rate reading. Works good for running and walking only. I think it's basically a really expensive pedometer. Although I do continue to use/wear mine.