Results trusting the Fitbit One?

jallforme3
jallforme3 Posts: 38 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hey everyone! First of all, if you are using the Fitbit one in your weight loss/health goals, please add me as a friend! I would love the support of others with this hopefully eye opening little device. :flowerforyou:

Anyways, today was my first full day using the Fitbit One.

I wanted to ask, should I trust put full trust in my tracker and see where it takes me? It makes me nervous to do so, but I have high hopes! I have it set to lose 1.5 pounds a week. I just logged my food as accurately as possible, exercised a bit, and was right on target with my calorie goal (so it says).

So for this thread, please share your fitbit success, and whether or not in your experience the weightloss you experienced was as the fitbit suggested (this is what I am most interested in. Will I really lose about 1.5 pounds a week if I stick to fitbit's calorie allotment.)

Thanks!

Replies

  • Fitness4Paul
    Fitness4Paul Posts: 166 Member
    I find it to be very accurate. You can trust its numbers. Been using fitbit for a couple of years now. :)
  • peterjasper
    peterjasper Posts: 41 Member
    Good luck with your fitbit. Its extremely addictive and fun.
  • joshdann
    joshdann Posts: 618 Member
    I find it to be very accurate. You can trust its numbers. Been using fitbit for a couple of years now. :)
    I agree with this, with one caveat: if anything seems off in their calculation, one should feel free to adjust based on common sense. The Fitbit is great for many things but a pedometer can't account for every potential change in metabolism (hormones, adaptive thermogenesis, etc).

    I love my fitbit One (and my wife loves her Flex). Go check out the Fitbit Users group :)
  • Linda_here
    Linda_here Posts: 2
    Hi. Just joined MFP tonight but have been using Fitbit since mid September. I LOVE my Fitbit Flex and know it has made me much more aware of my general activity level and I'm encouraged each day to make my step goal. (My first day's results were dismal so I started with a 5k daily goal and am increasing the daily goal by 1 or 2k steps weekly.) I think you can count on Fitbit for decent accuracy for tracking steps and "very active minutes" (except for the types of activities you have to enter manually), but not for the calorie burn data. It defaults to a burn rate that I know is wrong for me. I've had my BMR tested and know it's very low so Fitbit shows WAY more calories burned than is correct for me. I haven't found a way to adjust the BMR it uses for its calculations so I ignore the calorie data on their site and depend on Sparkpeople or MFP for that. Good luck with your weight loss journey and with Fitbit. I suspect you'll get addicted to it - which is a good thing!
  • TheRealParisLove
    TheRealParisLove Posts: 1,907 Member
    I find my fitbit flex to be quite accurate. I used a secondary gps tracking method for the first few days, and the mileage was very close (when walking outdoors).
  • emienne
    emienne Posts: 29 Member
    I have had my fitbit One for 5 weeks now. I'm just using it to try to encourage me to be more active and to be more aware of how inactive I am.

    For me, over the past 5 weeks, it has over-estimated my calorie burn by 304 calories per day.

    This is based on calories I've eaten over the last 5 weeks (I weigh and log everything to the gram) plus the calorie equivalent for the pounds I have lost (3500/pound). Then I compared that to what my fitbit says I am burning... it's big difference for me. Sadly my calculations say I'm burning 136 calories a day less than what my sedentary TDEE is supposed to be.

    I love analysing numbers and have a crazy Excel spreadsheet I made to log and track everything...
  • Koldnomore
    Koldnomore Posts: 1,613 Member
    I have had my fitbit One for 5 weeks now. I'm just using it to try to encourage me to be more active and to be more aware of how inactive I am.

    For me, over the past 5 weeks, it has over-estimated my calorie burn by 304 calories per day.

    This is based on calories I've eaten over the last 5 weeks (I weigh and log everything to the gram) plus the calorie equivalent for the pounds I have lost (3500/pound). Then I compared that to what my fitbit says I am burning... it's big difference for me. Sadly my calculations say I'm burning 136 calories a day less than what my sedentary TDEE is supposed to be.

    I love analysing numbers and have a crazy Excel spreadsheet I made to log and track everything...

    You sound like me! I've got numbers on mine for about the last 3 months. I also find that my TDEE is overestimated by around 300-400 calories. I had to drop my goal because I had been stalled for almost 2 months - turns out I was probably eating pretty well at maintenance and not at the deficit that was showing on my fitbit.

    You may want to keep track manually for a while to see if you are getting results and if you are not then it's possible you are in the same boat. My metabolism is a little suppressed just due to having been doing this for a while and losing almost 65 lbs so far.
  • Zoeeee_xx
    Zoeeee_xx Posts: 112 Member
    I trust my fitbit one, I think the calories burned are accurate and its helped me to maintain my weight for a while now. Ive been using it since last Christmas and I would be lost without it! It encourages me to stop being lazy as I don't like when it takes calories away from me when im inactive haha!
  • juliemouse83
    juliemouse83 Posts: 6,663 Member
    I've had my One for a couple of weeks, and it's made me VERY aware of my calories burned during the day, and I've been able to adjust my daily calorie goal based on that. I thought I had been eating TDEE-15% for the last couple of months, but the scale and measuring tape wouldn't budge, and I was bouncing around between the same four pounds through the latter part of the summer. I've lost a couple pounds and half an inch this past two weeks. I don't know if it's because it's made me more aware of how little I actually move during a given work day, given me a better idea of the calories I need to consume to lose those last few pounds, or both, but I am loving it!
  • FrenchMob
    FrenchMob Posts: 1,167 Member
    Unless you do a lot of cycling. Fitbit will not be accurate.
  • UpEarly
    UpEarly Posts: 2,555 Member
    I had a Fitbit Flex. I have to manually log some of my activities to get accurate calorie counts.

    For example, the Flex cannot tell when I'm climbing uphill, so when I hike with a heavy backpack (which is my most common form of exercise), I override their standard reading which is always basic walking/flat surface with 'hiking, carrying a pack of X weight'. I also manually log my circuit training sessions, if I don't the Fitbit gives me about as many calories as I would burn washing the dishes after dinner.

    With this minor adjustments, I find the Fitbit to be generally accurate.
  • Cskinner2
    Cskinner2 Posts: 16 Member
    I have the flitbit flex and I love it. You have to remember this is basically a fancy pedometer so it tracks steps, like walking, running etc very easily. I have found it will not track any weight exercise I do and does not take into consideration hill work etc. I always run a backup program to track these exercises and enter it manually. Use it as a great source of tracking your stepping activity but make sure to take into consideration anything other than walking/running with a back up program.
  • joshdann
    joshdann Posts: 618 Member
    Unless you do a lot of cycling. Fitbit will not be accurate.
    right. it's a pedometer, not a cycling sensor. You can get a cycling sensor if you want one of those.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    If you walk/run a lot for exercise, it's probably pretty accurate. I think mine is underestimating my calories though, I was eating 20% under my TDEE last month and lost 6 lbs total, when I should have lost maybe 4.

    It doesn't take into account some workouts though, so you might have to add them (like bodypump, which burns 300 calories for me, but I don't walk at all while I do it).
  • samammay
    samammay Posts: 468
    Ive found it to be more accurate than MFP. I have them set so that FitBit gives me calories for my daily movement and am currently averaging 2.66 pounds per week lost (I know... too high...)
  • michellechawner
    michellechawner Posts: 892
    I've had my one since June 2013 and i LOVE it. I've been in maintenance for 3 months, and i think overall I've only gained a little (i dropped a little low with a stomach bug, then just decided to go straight into maintenance.) I find it to be accurate.

    I use it for walking and yoga mainly, and I don't have any issues with it - I mainly use it to just make sure i'm staying "in the zone" and am on track for the day, and as a sleep monitor because of medical reasons my doctors like to see the tracking of my sleep hours and restless sleep.
  • IbiH
    IbiH Posts: 250 Member
    I've had mine since January and my life almost ended today as I thought I'd lost it, luckily it was in my car (but it had come lose in the holder) which was having an MOT so I didn't have it for 5 hours........

    As I do a lot of walking/running I find it pretty accurate for what I need it for.
  • PTMama0614
    PTMama0614 Posts: 31 Member
    I find the fitbit to be accurate and very addictive! I try to get my step goals in every day and even surpass them if I know I'm going to have a day that I can't workout or get all my steps in. It helps me to motivate me to move as often as possible.
  • harpere87
    harpere87 Posts: 142 Member
    I'm sure there are more accurate ways to track, but compared to manually choosing exercises in mfp i've lost 15 lbs since the middle of june using nothing but fitbit calories burned and eating at a deficit. the only thing i had changed was the fitbit vs mfp calories burned. my calories hadn't changed so i'd say its relatively accurate...
  • WaterBunnie
    WaterBunnie Posts: 1,371 Member
    You'll never find any system that will be 100% accurate for you but your FB will help you see what you do actually do and give you the incentive to do more!

    I've worn my (Ultra and then) FitBit One for a year and a half now and love it. I know if I have a lazy day I'll lose calories and that's a brilliant incentive to do extra exercise I would otherwise not even think about doing!
  • GeekMeister
    GeekMeister Posts: 41 Member
    Love my Fitbit Flex and I find it to be fairly accurate. Assuming you link your fitbit account to MFP sometimes I get weird calorie subtractions in the morning until I've done some steps...but other than that...it just needs to be close to keep my on my toes. Enjoy your new Fitbit!
  • kjmenser
    kjmenser Posts: 30
    Love my fitbit flex, and is is accurate!
  • PeteWhoLikesToRunAlot
    PeteWhoLikesToRunAlot Posts: 596 Member
    I have a One. I like it. Looking at a low number is incentive to get up and walk the long way around the building for a coffee. That being said - I think it tends to over-estimate calorie burn. So much so that for a good amount of time, i had it unlinked from MFP because I think it gave me far too many "activity" calories.

    I've recently re-linked it after updating my profiles to match exactly on both the Fitbit and MFP site. I still think it over-estimates, so I've set a very low target calorie total of 1210 on here. Having that number lower (from what was ~1500) seems to have helped, I've been able to break through the plateau and am feeling like I may be down more in the past week.
  • I_Will_End_You
    I_Will_End_You Posts: 4,397 Member
    I find that mine underestimates my calorie burn. I eat more than Fitbit says I burn, yet lose weight. And I know it does not take into account calories burned through strength training.
  • rhonderoo
    rhonderoo Posts: 145 Member
    I have a One and use jsut my fitbit calories burned as my exercise calories since they are synced. I always end up with about 300 extra calories to use, than on MFP. That may be because I have MFP set for 1200, even though I eat back exercise calories. I may lower my calories on fitibit, because even though I get 10k a day average, I'm gaining and losing the same 5 - 8 lbs, esp on the weekend. :grumble:

    I love the fitbit, though. It's a reality check for sure. And when I run, I can rack up some steps quickly, which encourages me to do it more. I wear it all day every day, even to sleep.
  • SleeplessinBerlin
    SleeplessinBerlin Posts: 513 Member
    Does it make sense to get a FitBit without owning a smartphone? I've only got a middle-age-cell-phone...

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