Activity Tracker

kuroi19
kuroi19 Posts: 45
in Fitness and Exercise
I was thinking of using one of these, atm I am eyeing up the fitbit flex. My idea is that I could get to see how many calories I burn a day/a week, I mostly do walking and weights and my question is, will this tracker give me any credit for doing these? I would actually like to see a difference in stats from days where I sit on the couch all day or go around and days where I do some walking for an hour, running or weights in the evening. It would motivate me, but if it doesn't do a good job tracking those then not really.

I know a Heart Rate Monitor would do a better job but I couldn't find any reasonable one that would both measure the activity and store the data. I think Basis B1 looks something like that but it's way too chunky and I feel I wouldn't wear it, also the price on that is over double that of the flex.

Replies

  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    I think a Fitbit would be ideal. It's not going to give you an accurate burn for the minutes you're lifting the weights because it's going to assume you're just walking around then but if you don't spend a lot of time/effort on weights, it's not that much it'll short you. And you can always manually log your weights sessions and then it IS all counted. It will count all your walking and such.

    It'll be an eye opener how much more you can burn just by not spending the day on the couch. You don't have to hit a treadmill or gym all the time, you can just move more-- clean the house, park further, etc.-- it all really adds up and just wearing a tracker is motivating. Something about knowing a device is going to show you your results later.
  • kuroi19
    kuroi19 Posts: 45
    Yeah that's how MFP works for me, it's an eye opener and makes me be more conscious of my calorie intake.
    I was hoping the tracker will do the same but with calorie usage.

    I don't really care how accurate it is, so long as say I have day 1 normal and day 2 with activity, I'd like to actually see the tracker report something along the lines of "200 calories burned in day 1 and 1000 calories burned in day 2" that itself would be motivating, even if the actual figures are 300/700 or whatever. But will the tracker really do at least a measly job at counting stuff other than steps? Pedometers cost 1 euro at my local stores, I hope to get a bit more out of this device.
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    For me, they are worth it. In all truth, a better pedometer ($20 or so) will do much of the same thing but you won't get the nice features like it synching wirelessly to your computer, web graphics and such. If cost is a big factor, look into pedometers like the Omron brand that use accelerometers. They do about the same thing with no bells & whistles. Also there is a Fitbit called the Zip that does nearly everything the other models do but for almost half the price ($60). I'm guessing you can translate those prices to euros.

    They will all show you the calorie burn estimate of a sedentary day versus a more active one.

    By the way, the data won't be like '200 for sedentary day, 1000 for more active day'. For me, it's more like 1700 for sedentary, 2000 for more active. The vast majority of our calories come from BMR, not activity. So we can definitely bump up our burn but usually not like double it.
  • kuroi19
    kuroi19 Posts: 45
    Thanks ;) That's very useful. I tried looking for this info around but most people seem to just bash on the inaccuracy as compared to actual data and heart rate monitors... Totally not what I cared about. The cost isn't that big of an issue, so long as I keep it outside those very fancy $200-400 ones I've seen around, and really while I'm sure they are feature packed, with display and accurate, they all seem rather chunky and ugly.

    Anyways I will go for the flex then. It should do the simple task of sitting on my arm and giving me some rough data for motivation. Seeing actual progress or some effect of your work really helps. Even when it's just numbers given by a little band ;)
  • mcgeorge5
    mcgeorge5 Posts: 92 Member
    I just want to second the motivational value of an activity tracker. And the Fitbit One is what I have and I love it. It has motivated me in so many ways.

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