Are fitness/activity trackers worth it?

AMC110

If you use or have used a fitness tracker, what has your experience been like? Would you recommend them?

xhunter561

depending on why your getting one and getting one that has what you need and not everything plus the kitchen sink. for me the charger 2 from fitbit has what i need (distance, mainly heart rate tracker, and activity tracker to a certain extent, plus a watch.) But i kinda discourage people from it given that it is very hard to get it to log with the fitbit app and takes a lot of effort to get it to log with the app to get details. In truth it's good for in the moment thing but not logging a history with the app so you have to make mental notes of what your states are or were. But in general most trackers have problems over time after the companies update their stuff making you buy another newer version from anywhere from 100$ to 500$ and for the price it's not overly worth the trouble unless your needing to track heart rate, sleep, ect. If you don't want to spend the money for one invest in something like mapmywalk and another activity app that tracks, understand though most want to use a GPS feature if your tracking walks or runs.

GottaBurnEmAll

I have had both a Fitbit Flex and now a Fitbit Charge 2. I've loved them.

It's been my experience that they are fairly accurate, though with a closer look and detailed accounting (I just sort of eyeballed and did mental math), I've found that Fitbit underestimates my burns by a bit.

Once I can zero in, though a few more weeks data, on a relatively constant percentage of difference, I'll maybe try playing around with settings in my Fitbit to see if I can rectify this. I might have to suddenly become younger or taller or something odd like that

I'm not overly concerned about the features like tracking my sleep or HR, and the Fitbit web site keeps randomly losing history so it's hard to go back over data. I have to rely on MFP to go back and go over my data history.

Still, I've been able to rely on my Fitbits to calculate my TDEE since I've had them. That's no small thing as far as I'm concerned.

pamfgil

Depends on the individual I love my Garmin hr, but I like numbers, enjoy keeping track of my energy expenditure and tend to be of the "if it' s not tracked I haven't done it"mindset

NorthCascades

I have a Garmin watch. It gives me advanced power analysis on the bike, and wakes me up in the morning.

middlehaitch

I used one for a month, just a basic Fitbit. I didn't find it useful.

NB: I am about as far from a numbers geek as you can get, so extra graphs and spreadsheets hold no interest.

Cheers, h.

796fra

I love my Garmin vivosmart hr+. Love data and graphs but also maps.

BruinsGal_91

I have a Fitbit One which is great for reminding me to keep moving during the day when I'm at work. But when I started taking my running a lot more seriously, I treated myself to a Garmin FR25. As a numbers nerd I love the data and graphs, and also like seeing my running routes all mapped out.

KarenSmith2018

I enjoy my Garmin. It has helped me keep track of how active i am on a daily basis and how well i sleep. Plus it keeps a log of my exercise. It's useful to see how much i burn during the day. It has also helped push me during my runs and overall positively impacted how quickly i run.

H_Ock12

I have a Tom Tom Spark 3+. Its primary use for me is being able to see my runs (elevation, distance, map, etc...) and compare to previous runs. It's an easy way to track my progress. I do also find that it's a reminder to get up off my tush at work so I meet my step goal for the day.

Bekahmardis

I have had a FitBit of one form or another since the Flex came out and it's always been connected to the MFP app. I link them so I can see how many additional calories I can eat! I am now using a FitBit Charge + HR and it's still working great for me.

Recently, I purchase a Motiv Activity Ring. Yes, it's a ring with a heart-rate tracker, step tracker, activity tracker. In the first month of Motiv's existence, it didn't do that great, but they have since had two firmware updates and a few app updates and it is now going just as strong as my FitBit Charge does - they are neck and neck for sleep tracking, activity tracking, and step counting, as well as heart rate. However, the Motiv does not yet connect to MFP (it is coming, just not here yet), so until that happens, I will wear both.

Long story short: without my fitness tracker and MFP, I would be back up to the 15 pounds overweight that I was before I started using them. Now, I am maintaining happily!

tinkerbellang83

I love my Garmin Vivoactive HR, when I first started using it and realised how much more active I was than I thought it spurred me to become more active still.

I have never been interested in running and if someone told me this time last year that I would be voluntarily heading out into 3 degree weather, whilst on my period (sorry if that's TMI) and running the majority of a 3km route, I would have just been rolling around on the floor laughing at them or asking them if they'd had any funny tasting brownies. However, the truth is once I realised just how much I was walking, I thought to myself "If I can walk 25km for fun, surely I can run 1km" and thus I downloaded C25K in May and I had gone from unable to run for a bus, to being able to jog for 20 mins without stopping.

Now that wasn't entirely down to the tracker, but it helped me come to the realisation that I was more capable than I thought I was.

It has also spurred me on through my weight loss when the scale hasn't moved much with Non-Scale Victories like:

• Resting Heart Rate improving vastly, when I first got it back in Feb my RHR was round 78 which is just edging into below average territory, now I am dotting around 58-64 which is pretty awesome considering I am still in the Obese range on BMI.
• New personal bests for speed and distance
• Competitive step challenges
• Improving my sleep

Other selling points for me were that I work in a fairly sedentary job and the buzz to remind me to get up once in a while has been great for not only fitness but from a productivity point of view, especially when you're staring at a spreadsheet all day. I'm also a data geek and seeing all the information the app provides me with makes me all happy lol

sgt1372

Bekahrogers wrote: »

Recently, I purchase a Motiv Activity Ring. Yes, it's a ring with a heart-rate tracker, step tracker, activity tracker. In the first month of Motiv's existence, it didn't do that great, but they have since had two firmware updates and a few app updates and it is now going just as strong as my FitBit Charge does - they are neck and neck for sleep tracking, activity tracking, and step counting, as well as heart rate. However, the Motiv does not yet connect to MFP (it is coming, just not here yet), so until that happens, I will wear both.

Thanks for the tip about the Motiv ring.

Much more convenient and cumbersome than a chest strap or a watch.

A little pricey and they don't have one for Android yet but I'll probably get one when they do.

MegaMooseEsq

middlehaitch wrote: »

I used one for a month, just a basic Fitbit. I didn't find it useful.

NB: I am about as far from a numbers geek as you can get, so extra graphs and spreadsheets hold no interest.

Cheers, h.

I think how one feels about spreadsheets is probably a great gauge of whether or not they'd like a fitness tracker. If you love spreadsheets, you will probably love the tracker. If you are meh or dislike spreadsheets, they probably aren't for you. Either way, it's important to be cautious when combining exercise with weight loss. Even people who use trackers and spreadsheets can fall prey to the traps of (1) using exercise as an excuse to eat more food, (2) doing so much exercise that you have difficulty controlling your appetite (see: runger), or (3) overestimating the number of calories you burn and accidentally wiping out your deficit eating those back. As with everything, keep track of your weight over time, and if it's been a few weeks and your weight isn't trending down, you are almost certainly eating too much and need to adjust something.

cwolfman13

I've never used a general activity tracker...I don't think I'd find the data provided to be particularly useful. I do have a bike computer that gives me a plethora of valuable information for my rides...I'd really like to get a power meter, but I had to use my birthday money on a new grill instead.

lorrpb

I use a Fitbit One to track steps and floors. It is a great motivator to keep me accountable for daily movement, given that I have a sedentary lifestyle and work from home. It is easy to think I've been more active than I have in a day. It gives me some simple milestone accomplishments. When it died, I felt lost for days until I received the replacement. It was a critical little reminder in my 150 lb weight loss and now 1+ year of successful maintenance. It's not the only tool I use for motivation and progress tracking, but it is an important one.

I am closing in on 10 MILLION steps and 20,000 floors by the end of this year. How cool is that?

Bry_Fitness70

I have a Garmin Fenix 3 HR and love it. It has a continuous HRM and calculates calories burned 24 hours per day and calculates performance metrics, counts steps and stairs ascended, has GPS, tracks sleep, has an altimeter, barometer, and temp sensor, is waterproof to 100m so you can track swims, integrates with your phone through Bluetooth, and a lot of other functions. It has a long battery life and the associated phone app is easy to use. It also has customizable watch faces and you can change watch bands so it can coordinate with pretty much anything you wear (at work, social events, etc.)

I think that exercise data keeps fitness interesting, I love seeing my stats after a workout, and yeah, if I didn't measure it digitally than it never happened...

DX2JX2

My Garmin is worth it to me because I run and like to track my progression. If I didn't need it for this specific purpose, I probably wouldn't have gotten it.

Given that I maintain a fairly rigorous workout schedule I'm not too worried about non-exercise steps or stair counts. Similarly, sleep/stress tracking and 24 hour HRM isn't very actionable.

J72FIT

AMC110 wrote: »

If you use or have used a fitness tracker, what has your experience been like? Would you recommend them?

I think they are worth it in the sense that they can be a motivating factor...

lilithsrose

I use the Fitbit Flex 2. Personally, I like it because I'm able to see data. I think fitness trackers are great as a motivational tool. Of course, it depends on the person.

I have my Flex 2 setup to vibrate to remind me to move every hour (between 7am and 7pm). If I haven't taken at least 250 steps during those hours, it lets me know. Its a simple little thing, but it helps. The Flex 2 is also nice because its waterproof. It also has a feature that alerts me of texts and phone calls by blinking and vibrating. The Flex 2 isn't the fanciest piece of equipment, but its affordable and does what I need it to do.

fishgutzy

I finally bought a Garmin Fenix 5X. I'd never but "just a watch" for the price I paid for the Garmin.
I chose this because it is great for swimming and the display is large enough that i can read it without my glasses.
I do not synch it with MFP. I enter my swims as minutes of moderate front crawl instead. MFP number is more conservative.
I dont care about step tracking.
But the Fenix 5X has topographical maps for hiking too.