Fit Bit

RPNKA

Hey quick question I was looking into getting a fitbit, I was wondering if anyone here uses it with myfitnesspal and to give me user feedback on the product before I purchase it. Thanks

contingencyplan

The site is full of people who use it. But before you purchase it you need to understand what it's not. It's not a heart rate monitor and it has no real method of collecting your vitals. It's based on a pedometer-style "bump" scanner so if you plan on using it to monitor your workouts the only kind you'll be able to use it for involve walking, running, or stairclimbing. If you do ANY other form of exercise and are looking for something that monitors your calorie burn for them, you'll NEED a heart rate monitor instead. Also, because it's based on a pedometer, it can be thrown off by anything that gives it a sudden jolt or causes it to shift suddenly, such as bumping into a counter or other such things. This will lead to incorrect calorie counts.

Beyond that I hear good things about them.

AnvilHead

...Also, because it's based on a pedometer, it can be thrown off by anything that gives it a sudden jolt or causes it to shift suddenly, such as bumping into a counter or other such things. This will lead to incorrect calorie counts...

Driving makes my Fitbit go nuts, too....especially on bumpy roads. I've had it register well over 1,000 extra steps and 20+ floors of climbing when driving my pickup truck on dirt roads. I now enter the driving as activity every time to counteract it, but that gets to be a bit tedious on days when I do a lot of driving.

As contingencyplan said, it's great if your planned usage is basically as a pedometer - it motivates you to get up off your butt and move more throughout the day which is a good thing. It will give you a decently in the ballpark figure of how many calories you're burning per day, it's interesting to look at the online graphs to see when you were most/least active, etc. and the sleep tracker is a novel/somewhat useful feature. For somebody who spends a lot of time on their feet and doesn't do a lot of actual training, I could see where the Fitbit would be more useful than a heart rate monitor - I think it does a better job tracking NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis), which most HRMs are not designed for. With that said, I own both a Fitbit and a Polar FT7 HRM and if I had to choose between them, the HRM would get the nod.