Polar or fitbit force/flex?

MalindaLeigh714

I'm wanting to get some sort of calorie counting device but don't know what to choose! What's you experience with these or any other device similar?

MYRABUTLER89

I have a Polar FT4 and I LOVE it. I've had it for 8 months now and it still works great.

missyjharding

I have a polar FT4 Heart rate monitor as well and love it. I think it’s great for calculating the calories I burn during a workout. The heart monitor is also handy when exercising at the gym because it’s compatible with most fitness equipment. My heart rate and calories burnt will appear on the equipment, preventing the need to look at the watch to keep an eye on it. Not a big problem but there is no standalone polar app to record your exercise, so I do need to manually input all work outs in mfp.

I have been thinking about getting a fitbit flex recently but have decided to just hold off for now. I just want to see if anything new gets released.

jigsaw_me

Also interested in the answers here, please keep them coming.

jaz050465

Apples and oranges!!! Polar is for exercise and Fitbit is a pedometer to measure all day stepping activity. Lots of people have both.

BlakeHorton

Since I've spent so much time reading different reviews and doing research recently, I'll share the best of what I've found.

A Fitbit is more of a device to keep you motivated and on track, rather than an accurate calorie counter. The newly released Fitbit Force is supposedly much more accurate than the Flex when it comes to monitoring movement, but that's just what they do. They count your steps and monitor movement to estimate your calorie burn http://bit.ly/1gggOwn They don't measure your heart rate, which means there are some activities in which the measurement will be totally inaccurate; ie cycling. With your hands being stationary on the handlebars, these devices will not be able to accurately track your cadence and may have no idea how hard you're working. That being said, if you're still looking for a wearable, you may want to look at something like the Basis Smartwatch http://bit.ly/18IrvPy It has a HRM, but there still aren't any HRM's which you can wear on your wrist which will accurately measure high intensity activity. The technology isn't there yet. It doesn't sync with MFP yet though which may be a deal breaker for you.

If you don't need a wearable to keep you motivated, then simply figuring out your average BMR through trial and error should be enough for your living/resting energy expenditure and a real HRM like a polar would be the way to go to measure actual workouts. I recently purchased a Polar FT7 which I've found to be accurate.

Keep in mind, when using a HRM for workouts, if you want your log to be very accurate, you need to subtract your living calories before you log your workout expenditure. For example, let's say your BMR is 2000 and you weigh 100 pounds. To calculate your sleeping BMR, use a number like .4 calories per pound per hour of sleep. If you sleep 5 hours on average, .4 x 100 lbs = 40 cal per hr x 5 hrs sleep = 200 cals. Then take the remaing 1800 cals and divide them over the 19 hours you usually spend awake. Call it 95 cal per hr. If you do an hour workout, subtract 95 cal from your HRM #. Why? If you didn't workout at all, you would have burned about 95 cal anyway and that's already factored into your MFP BMR. Of course there's no perfect science for calorie counting, but this is as close as you can get.

Nasstasia

I have the Polar FT7 and I love it - and it's nicer than the FT4 as you can transfer your data onto their website and compare all of your workouts that way.

I had a fitbug but found that pretty useless for myself once I got myself the Polar, as the calories I burn working out are more important to me than the amount of steps I take etc.

MalindaLeigh714

Bump