FitBit or BodyMedia armband?

I love, love, love my body media !! Its awesome !! The best thing ever !!

Fitbits (and UP by Jawbone) are activity trackers. I think BodyMedia FIT is a heart rate monitor. I have an UP and a Fitbit Flex. Fitbit also makes trackers than can be clipped to your bra.

If I had to choose just one, I'd keep the UP because it has a better app. It's way more interactive (it offers insights & challenges you to make healthier choices), and it allows you to interact w/ your teammates.

As for how activity monitors interact w/ MFP, here's a tutorial I wrote in another thread:

When you set up your MFP account, you specified an activity level: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided MFP used your answer, plus your age, sex & height, to estimate how many calories you burn every day (your TDEE). Then you set your weight-loss goal, and MFP subtracted the appropriate deficit to calculate your daily calorie goal.

Once you link an activity tracker to your MFP account (via the "Apps" tab at the top of every page), you start getting calorie adjustments. If your tracker says you burned more calories than MFP estimated, you get a positive adjustment (meaning more calories to eat). If you enable negative calorie adjustments and you burn less than the MFP estimate, you will lose calories. (But negative calorie adjustments will never drop your daily calories below 1,200.)

I wasn't losing much weight when I got my first activity tracker. At first, the adjustments didn't seem very accurate. But they got better, almost as if the system was "learning" my routine. It took a lot of trial & error to find the settings that worked best for me. But then everything clicked. I changed my MFP settings from sedentary to lightly active (even though I have a desk job), and now my adjustments are pretty minimal. And I'm losing!

I find my step goal really motivating. If I get home at night and see I'm thisclose to making goal, I'll walk around the block. A little bit more every day really adds up.

The BodyMedia isn't a heart rate monitor. It measures sweat, skin temp, movement (steps taken), and possibly other things I'm forgetting. It gives you an accurate step count for the day and I believe, an accurate calories burned/day. There is an app and my armband is the LINK, with bluetooth, for synching to the app. If I want to upload my band's info onto the computer, I have to connect via USB.

I think the armband is extremely accurate in giving sleep info. and daily calories burned. I have found the armband is NOT accurate for measuring workout-specific calories burned, esp. if I am working out at less than vigorous levels. For whatever reasons, if I workout at vigorous levels, I trust the armband reading.

The cons of the armband are:
poor workout specific accuracy for moderate and light cardio workouts
required monthly website subscription ( I think I pay about $6/month)
poor food database, not even worth logging foods on the site
has to be worn for most of the day and people may ask questions (although I don't feel it and got used to it pretty quickly)

Pros of armband:
overall accuracy is very good, IMO
battery life is amazingly good (I may charge it once a week, tops)
sleep measurement (total time and efficiency) are very accurate. If I wake up and lie still for 10 min. at 3am, it'll show up when I plug it into the computer

I also have a Fitbit One and like it a lot but honestly, it's a fancy pedometer, not much more, IMO. I have found a big discrepancy between my calories burned on the Fitbit vs. Body Media and I trust the armband more. I"m talking close to a 1000 calorie discrepancy. I also find the sleep measurement inaccurate.

Cons of the Fitbit:
great accuracy of steps taken but poor measurement of anything else
It's so small and lightweight, you will forget it's attached to your bra strap, pant band, etc and possibly run it through the wash or lose it. I worried about Fitbit more than the armband because of its small size.

Pros of the Fitbit:
Great website which is FREE
More interactive in that you can add friends to compare steps taken (that was my favorite thing about the Fitbit). It's fun to compare your activity to others.

Have had my Bodymedia since Sept, wife got her's in March. Both of us love the info.
Friends tried testing the Bodymedia vs the Fitbit type stuff... found times Fitbit/Fuleband didn't pick up the info movement was happening if it was just the lower half of the body. Had some issue with Bodymedia not counting steps in the same type of situation (Pushing a shopping cart while leaning weight on it...both had low step counts compared to the person who was walking beside them), but the Bodymedia still showed that higher calorie burn was happening.

Noticed when i signed into Bodymedia today that they are having a sale, 35% off and 12 month free subscription... so basically $77 for your first 12 months, just subscription after that.

I am looking at the Body Media myself and the upcoming Amiggo (?). Does the interface with MFP work well? I was planning on continuing logging my foods into MFP while using the BM for activity and sleep tracking. Would this work?

I am using the Body Media one since Christmas and love it. I agree with others that the Body Media website food logging is not very good, so I am sticking with MFP for food logging and letting Body Media sync my exercise with MFP. This seems to be working great.

I am not sure about how accurate it is for my bike riding and moderate exercise as someone else noted, but I am testing it and today it seemed to have logged my bike ride pretty much the way Runkeeper did, so I guess it is OK.

I have the Fitbit Force, which is worn on the wrist. I wear it 24/7 except to take a shower. It has been a huge motivator for me to just move more. I take the stairs now so I can see how many floors I have climbed. (26 floors so far today). I will go for a walk in the evening after dinner if I have not reached my 10k steps yet, etc. I give it a lot of credit of the number on the ticker below.

I've used the BMF Link for 2 years and switched to the Fitbit force 2 months ago.

If you only do walking/running, I highly recommend just going with a fitbit. It does a good job for those types of activities. I've personally had better results using the Fitbit than the BMF for walking/running. I find the Fitbit wristband way more comfortable to wear for long periods of time over the BMF armband. It also has the advantage of saving you a monthly cost.

If you are going for more intense cardio and weightlifting, the BMF seems to be way more accurate. In this case, it may be worth paying the monthly for the BMF account. It is not a heart rate monitor, but it is a pedometer on steroids. It has some extra sensors which measure things like the heat change of your skin and etc.

I have had both. I currently wear the Fitbit Force which was an upgrade from the Fitbit one for me. I liked the BodyMedia but there is a monthly fee to use the website which really rubbed me the wrong way. I like them both though.

If your looking at cheaper then the Fitbit is the way to go!!

I have a BMF and love it. If you don't like it showing on your arm, you can stick it in your bra on your side over your rib cage (assuming you're a woman).

You don't have to have a monthly subscription, you can buy an external display device ($15) that shows minute by minute calorie burn, steps taken, and minutes of moderate and vigorous exercise for the current and previous days. It also has a setting where you can see calories burned during a specific workout.

You don't have to have a monthly subscription, you can buy an external display device ($15) that shows minute by minute calorie burn, steps taken, and minutes of moderate and vigorous exercise for the current and previous days.

If you don't subscribe, do you only see what's on the external device, so no online historical charts or analytics?