Fitbit or HRM Watch?

L_Stradford

I loves my FitBit. I have a HRM and it bugs the crap out of me so I never wear it. Plus, I wore both once and found that my FitBit is pretty accurate as far as calories burned. I do a lot of cardio so they both give me the same amount of calories burned most of the time.

I say get a FitBit if you walk, jog, run more than lift weights, swim, etc...

stevenleagle

I invested in a high end HRM first (Polar FT80) and then picked up a Fitbit a little while ago. Love having the two of them together! The HRM handles all of my workouts (cardio and lifting) and the Fitbit picks up my general activity level. I love the Fitbit feature that allows you to set it to know you are working out so it does not double count the calories burned.

I did the same thing. The Polar FT80 is awesome in calculating calories expended in strength sessions too. The fitbit is great in measuring incidental activity.

If I was forced to choose between a HRM and fitbit I would go fitbit if I was sedentary and didn't exercise a lot - as walking is an awesome form of incidental exercise and fitbit spurs you to take more steps. But if you are more advanced and do a lot of workouts and/or non walking/running related exercise I would recommend a good HRM. However as others have said - including this post- they do complement eachother

melw2910

I have both. I wear my fitbit pretty much constantly and in 8 weeks my weekly step count has gone from 52,000 to 96,000 and I don't know I'm wearing it.
I use my HRM when doing exercise sessions and log the time, activity & cals burned on my fitbit dashboard, this over writes the figures given during that period by the fitbit.
The best advice I can give is to log all food on MFP and all activity on the Fitbit Dash (if you buy one), it syncs with MFP so gives you a good idea of your calorie burn for the day.

jasonheyd

do you take the fit bit off while you exercise

No, you can keep the Fitbit on. To avoid duplication of the calorie burn estimation, just enter the activity manually on the Fitbit web-site.

Depending on your HRM, you might be able to sync the data to Fitbit's web-site automatically. For example, I record my HRM data using Digifit, which syncs to Fitbit. So my HRM activity gets recorded on the Fitbit site & I don't get double credit for that exercise.

With any tool, you have to take the calorie burn report with a grain of salt. I ignore them.

Correct. All of this is an estimation game... You're estimating calories in food, you're estimating calories burned by exercise, you're almost certainly estimating things like BMR. With that said, a good HRM with good algorithms behind it should give you a close estimation.

I've used the Compendium of Physical Activities as a benchmark for a while now, which shows research-based statistical norms for calorie burns. It assumes a generally healthy individual, and it's gender-specific. Using that as a benchmark, Polar seems to be pretty good, Digifit seems to be really good, Timex Ironman seems to be really bad.

The Polar FT80 is awesome in calculating calories expended in strength sessions too.

I've heard good things, but haven't tried that one... I usually use the HRM to target heart zones for circuit training & then use the Compendium to estimate my calorie burn. My HRM is always a little generous compared to the Compendium.

I use my HRM when doing exercise sessions and log the time, activity & cals burned on my fitbit dashboard, this over writes the figures given during that period by the fitbit.
The best advice I can give is to log all food on MFP and all activity on the Fitbit Dash (if you buy one), it syncs with MFP so gives you a good idea of your calorie burn for the day.

^^^ This sums it up pretty well.

MadisonLeo

Everyone has pretty much summed it up. I have a Mio Drive Petite HRM and I love it. I exercise a lot so it helps me keep track of how many calories I burn and also allows me to change up my routines and difficulty levels when I see that I am not burning as much calories as I used too. For me, anything else I burn while walking around or doing my day to day is icing on the cake!

Koldnomore

This....I don't have a HRM though so I time workouts and log the time through MFP which will then override the timed activity on the fitbit site (you don't have to touch that, they work with each other...other than your initial log of exercise on MFP). I do this because fitbit won't catch the burn quotient by itself (eg for weights) but having said that, sometimes I am surprised how close the MFP data is on exercise to what fitbit has given me before I override it.

Ive just realised I don't have to eat the all the activity that fitbit gives me only the exercise if I want to. Do other users do this?

Actually I eat back just about every calorie the FitBit gives me and have been since I got it. Assuming you have your MFP and FitBit synced and have your MFP set to sedentary you should be eating at least 'some' of it. When you sync them the adjustment is already calculated. The FitBit is basically 'exercise' and my MFP does not start adding calories until I have hit my "base" In my case I am set to 1307 as a net from a sedentary TDEE. Thus the fitbit will not add calories until it sees that I have burned at least that - and actually I think yesterday I burned about 2300 according to my FitBit and it gave me only 1800 to eat so it even knocks another 500 off the top. Thus you really need to eat some of it back or your cut will be too much.

mfpcopine

This....I don't have a HRM though so I time workouts and log the time through MFP which will then override the timed activity on the fitbit site (you don't have to touch that, they work with each other...other than your initial log of exercise on MFP). I do this because fitbit won't catch the burn quotient by itself (eg for weights) but having said that, sometimes I am surprised how close the MFP data is on exercise to what fitbit has given me before I override it.

Ive just realised I don't have to eat the all the activity that fitbit gives me only the exercise if I want to. Do other users do this?

Actually I eat back just about every calorie the FitBit gives me and have been since I got it. Assuming you have your MFP and FitBit synced and have your MFP set to sedentary you should be eating at least 'some' of it. When you sync them the adjustment is already calculated. The FitBit is basically 'exercise' and my MFP does not start adding calories until I have hit my "base" In my case I am set to 1307 as a net from a sedentary TDEE. Thus the fitbit will not add calories until it sees that I have burned at least that - and actually I think yesterday I burned about 2300 according to my FitBit and it gave me only 1800 to eat so it even knocks another 500 off the top. Thus you really need to eat some of it back or your cut will be too much.

I never eat back calories based simply on what Fitbit or MFP suggest. I'm concerned about underestimating calories consumed and overestimating calories burned through exercise. I try to generally stick to my calorie max (I exceed it fairly often), get in whatever activity I can, and I weigh myself frequently to keep track.