Yet another Fitbit / heart rate monitor question

fresh_start59

I am 53, female, very sedentary, very out of shape, with a large percentage of body fat.

My current "workout" involves walking 5,000+ steps a day and doing simple resistance band exercises three times a week.
I plan to increase my walking to include mini 10-, 20-, 30-second bursts of jogging, in an effort to build up my stamina. I also plan to slowly increase my exercise band use as I strive to regain some muscle.

I wear my pedometer from waking to bedtime. It tells me how many steps I took, the distance I traveled (based on my stride), how many of those were "aerobic" steps and how long that aerobic activity lasted, and it even tells me the calories I burned taking those steps. (Only once have I exceeded 300 calories burned with my steps.)

I already know that the Fitbit cannot accurately measure calories burned doing weight or resistance band workouts (neither can a heart rate monitor).

However, I am wondering if I could gain any benefit from either a Fitbit or a heart rate monitor.

So, for someone like me, who may never reach "athletic" performance levels, is the Fitbit a worthwhile tool or just a glorified pedometer? The sleep function sounds cool, but it alone is not worth a $100 upgrade from my pedometer.

Would I fare any better with a heart rate monitor or would my inability to sustain a high heart rate for any length of time make that a useless waste of money as well?

Signed,
Love gadgets but have very little spare cash (aka: Fresh_Start)

Mokey41

If you are that sedentary I wouldn't bother. Set a reasonable calorie budget and stick with it. A minimal amount of calorie burn doesn't require extra calories eaten back.