Fitbit vs Heart Rate Monitor

twilighttabby

Ok. I am wanting to get one of these but I don't know which one to get. From everything that I have be told, the HRM is best to know how many calories you have burned for the day. Because when you HR is up you burn more. The Fitbit tracks your steps which is a good thing to know too but it doesn't do HR. So my questions Which one is better to know. Calories burned from your HR or calories burned by how many steps you took????:explode:

twilighttabby

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kentonplant

Well so far I love my Fitbit ultra. I track my own heart rate during the workout and in a rested state. I've personally found that the Fitbit program sets a lot of mini goals for each day and each week to help us achieve our goals and have fun doing do. I bought the ultra version and I like it better. For instance I've been taking the stairs at work only to hit my achievement goal of climbing 10 floors, small things like that. I'd love to hear from other who use Fitbit to see what they think about it. It has a lot of bells and whistles but if you only want to track your heart rate then there's plenty of products out there but I'm more concerned with an overall experience so it depends on what you want. IMO

-Kenton

2fit4fat

I had this same dilemma just a few weeks ago. Ultimately I decided for me I'd rather know how many calories im burning with a hr monitor. For me this was good since mfp was WAY overestimating my calories burned. I dont regret it one bit. Seeing those cals burn and knowing its based more on ME makes me push. Just the other day I was going to workout for 15-20 minutes but ended up doing 40 and more than doubling my calories burned cause seeing that number going up got addicting :-)

jlfred

I don't have a Fitbit, but I do have a BodyMedia Fit, which is similar. There are definitely pros and cons to each, but I like having the ability to track all of my calories burned all day, rather than just the times my heartrate is increased. The graphs available that show exactly how many calories I'm burning per minute during the day really make me more aware of just how sedentary I am at work, which in turn causes me to be sure to move around a lot more. Plus, I love being able to track my sleep. Again, it's really about the awareness -- when I see that I'm only sleeping 5 hours it makes me be more conscientious about getting to bed earlier, not taking in caffeine right before bed, etc. (My understanding of the Fitbit is that it, too, has the sleep assessment function).

mycrazyturtles

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twilighttabby

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Kimsied

I have and use both. They both have their strengths/weaknesses. And all devices estimate calorie burn not directly measure it. But for many workouts my hrm and fitbit give me the same or a similar estimate.

A heart rate monitor may be better is what you really want is a way to estimate calories from cardio exercise. While some exercise measures similar on both for me, there are some activities that fitbit isn't very good at tracking such as swimming (it isn't water proof), resistance training, maybe cycling, yoga, etc. A heart rate monitor also is a good way to notice improvements and changes in fitness and well, if you want to do some heart rate training (i.e. preparing for a race, etc). I used a heart rate monitor for years, and like it.

I really started seeing improvements after adding a fitbit. I think the fitbit is really better for tracking, measuring and improving on overall daily activity throughout the day in addition to exercise. I've had mine over a year and it has really helped me improve my overall activity level, lose weight, and get into tracking data. I feel like I know my body a lot more, have a good idea how much I sleep, an idea of how active I am and a rough idea how many calories I burn throughout the day. There are other trackers in the account (stuff the fitbit doesn't actually track), so I have a handy place to log body fat percentage, heart rate data, blood pressure, when I feel ill, measurements and other stuff and enjoy keeping many different health/fitness measures in one place.

I think it depends what you are looking for.