Fitbit users - does it help you lose weight?

Elle_Marie_Fit

I didn't love my fitbit, but it's a tool that works well for some people.

lorrpb

I use fitbit mainly as a steps and floors counter. To keep moving, i.e. more steps in an otherwise sedentary job, increases my NEAT/TDEE. The floor counter motivated me with certain fitness goals.

Angierae75

sorchaedwards1991 wrote: »

Do I still need to turn on negative calorie adjustment if I've set my activity level to sedentary? Also, I've always wondered....MFP still counts you for doing steps even if you're set as sedentary, so I'm wondering why my fitbit starts adding calories burned from 1000 steps onwards? It doesn't add a lot, but it adds none the less. I would have thought it would only start adding calories burned after 5000 steps as that's what's considered above sedentary.

Because the fitbit assumes that you will continue moving at the rate you're moving at for the rest of the day. If you get to 2000 steps by 10am, it assumes that you'll continue to move at that 'pace'. I'm at 2400 steps right now and it's added a small amount of calories (40, I think), but it assumes I'll continue that "level" of activity for the rest of the day. (It's wrong - I'll hit 7k-10k by the end of the day, and it will add even more.) The problem comes if you get to say, 5k steps by noon, and then sit the rest of the day, it'll start taking those calories back. So if you know you're done moving for the day, you have to be careful.

I'm never done moving until after my last food of the day, so it hasn't been a problem for me.

Roadie2000

Somehow just having it on my wrist makes me think about being more healthy and exercising a little bit more than I normally would. And I like how it easily keeps track of my weight and how much I move around but that's about it. It's great for steps, but I don't track my calories. For those that do it could probably be more useful.

I don't wear it when I sleep, since I haven't found it to be very accurate. I can lie in bed awake for hours but it still thinks I'm sleeping. I usually just charge it overnight now.

I also got one with a heart rate monitor, but it is completely useless. It is horribly inaccurate and all it does is just drain the battery.

simcon1

I really like mine, and it's taken lots of the guesswork out of figuring expended calories for me. Mine is a blaze, set to active with negative calories enabled, and I've been steadily losing since Thanksgiving (16 or so lbs so far). I mostly eat back exercise calories and just find it helpful as a check in tool so I don't have to think about food & movement all day long.

MsMaeFlowers

I love my fitbit. The calorie burn numbers are super helpful for me, as depending on the day, I burn anywhere from 1500-2500 cals, so I like knowing how much I need to eat (or not eat) to maintain.

I also love the HR tracking, as it actually showed up a medical problem about a month ago before I had any symptoms. I ended up with a tooth infection, and my resting HR jumped up from around 63 bpm to 75. I hadn't been checking my resting HR, but after the tooth pain started and I got on antibiotics, I saw the HR spike and was kind of amazed at it.

The sleep tracker is nice too. Lets me know if I'm feeling tired because I missed out on sleep, or if there is some other reason I need to look into. Also tracks how many times a night I have to get up and let my dog out for a pee (4 times last night), so I can keep an eye out for any changes in his routine that way too hah.

Competing against other people is also motivating to get moving more.

hesn92

Yes I trusted the calories it gave me and I lost weight. It was really handy and encouraged me to move more. I haven’t used it in a long time though. I just got tired of wearing it.

ETA- I will say that I wasn’t a fan of how it assumed your calorie burns for the rest of the day though. (For example if I was really active in the morning, mfp would assume I was going continue being active all day and give me a ton of extra calories, and then take them back as the day went on. I wish it would strictly give exercise calories once you exceeded the calories you have your goal set to.

PAV8888

Fitbit TDEE as compared to MFP logging and trending weight results via trendweight.com FOR ME has been accurate to within 0.5% underestimate of TDEE to 5.5% overestimate of TDEE (and various points in between) over 3+ years of losing and maintaining, and two Fitbit models (charge HR and Charge 2).

Days of higher than normal heart rate for non exercise reasons and travel days with time zone changes produce outlier results.

Whether knowing your TDEE with relative certainty helps you lose weight is another story and will mostly depend on how you eat as compared to your expenditure.

Whether you find that having a gadget that encourages you to move more is a positive or negative experience is also up to your individual make-up. Some people embrace and some people resent the experience.

Per minute of inactivity till midnight your exercise adjustment decreases by BMR / 1440 * F

BMR is http://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculator

F is 0.25 or 0.4 or 0.6 or 0.8 depending on your pre-selected MFP activity setting (sedentary to very active)

My personal opinion should be obvious since I grabbed a Charge 2 once I run through 3 warranty replacements and a hand me down glued together Charge HR.

Charge 2 is going strong at the 7 month mark!!!

Christine_72

My Fitbit definitely motivates me to move more!

When i first got it 3 years ago, i had my goal set to 25,000 steps a day, i then changed it to 20k, and have reduced it by 5,000 steps at a time, and now my goal is a minimum of 10k a day.

Ironically since i started walking less, my weight loss has picked up. The more i exercised the hungrier i got, and as they say "you cant out exercise a bad diet", or in my case an increased appetite due to massive amounts of exercise.

jerms9

I've had mine for only two months but am loving more than I thought I would. I like that I can look up calorie burn and intake for weeks at a time. I have this odd tendency to either think "oh I overate/under ate a few weeks ago" -- or thinking I"ve exercised more/less than I have. Now I can just look with a couple button pushes. Also as others have mentioned, seeing the difference in sedentary vs. meeting step goal and the difference in cal burn has been eye opening and motivating.

I'm also a big data and finding trends with data nerd so the data it generates makes me extra happy (I'm not necessarily normal in that regard)