Are Activity Trackers worth the money?

I love my fitbit zip! Since I primarily run and walk for exercise, it seems to be a much more accurate reflection of how much I should be eating that day. I think it was closer to $50. Just my 2 cents!

Totally love it! I've got the Jawbone UP. I like the sleep track feature so it is on my wrist 24/7 until I need to charge it for the hour or two and showers (of course). This one gives you information when you sync up and totals your weeks steps, etc. I am competitive with myself only, but I know that if you are competitive, there is a Fitbit that has challenges among your friends, etc.

It is all just a little bit more motivation. I will play lazy on a weekend day and then feel so guilty that the next day I'll work out extra hard to make up for it. Just one less excuse and there is visual proof every time you sync up. I also don't like the calorie count in MFP so I only rely on the Sync up to my Jawbone to count how many extra calories a day I get to eat.

yes and no. I think it pays to have a tremendous dose of common sense when buying a fitness tracker tool. It's also good to know how to measure the data on your own, such as #steps or distance per minute, or # heartbeats per minute. I'll start with the realities of these tools, and finish on the motivators to get good tools.

Sadly most of the fitness trackers are actually estimating your distance and other bio-data, based on what you input of your age and time spent exercising, etc, and are not really measuring it (you would need a real GPS in the tool to measure real distance and up/down during sleeping; you would need a real HRM to measure heart rate and calorie burn). I've verified this with vendors too.

only the ones with a real heart rate monitor (HRM) or GPS are worth it (HRM = polar and garmin; GPS = garmin).

Most tools do not have GPS nor HRM capability even when they claim measuring heart activity. watch out for fuzzy wording like 'realtime biometric data calculations', 'realtime sleep monitor calculations'. I forget all the other fuzzy fluff wording, but I even verified this with the manufacturers of the most popular fitness trackers these days, and they did confirm privately that the tool does not have a real HRM or does not have a real GPS (for up/down measure during sleeping, or distance measures) but calculates based on your input. There are some swim and cycling monitors with GPS for distance, but that's just one sport tracked, and I'm a multi-activity gal.


Motivators for good tools:
My top purchase criteria was an HRM, a bonus to get pedometer and sleep monitor, and more crackerjack prizes for other features in the box.

1. HRM: Why is HRM important? HRM is important so you can stay within the right range for fat burning or cardio or cooling down for the right amount of time. You can also capture how many exact minutes you were in various zones (fat burning or cardio). Time in fat-burning zone is critical to lose weight, and minimum zone to achieve good health. Time in cardio is critical for competitive athletes seeking performance gains. gym machines are often out of calibration or don't work, and generalize your whole workout. I needed a reliable tool to help me get into the right zone more frequently for the right amount of time (I don't sweat at all, so sweat is not an indicator). I need it for health reasons too, to help me regain health and measure my HR during fitness and during sleep. You can usually tell when you're in the right workout zone, but not true when you've lost fitness ability.

2. A pedometer can be a great motivator to get minimum # steps in daily, it's worth it even a cheap one! they're not accurate but that's ok as it still gets you moving. 10k steps a day is a lot of miles!

3. Distance/speed monitors are great motivators to challenge yourself more! Need the GPS!

4. Sleep monitors: very valuable to know if you are really sleeping well during nights. if not, it could be an indicator of illness or major stress amping up that will cause disease. Lack of deep sleep will not allow you to recover well which could lead to injury and disease. Need to have a real GPS to know real latitude to get real measures of up/down activity during sleep. An HRM to measure if you are having unusual heart rate activity during sleep.

5. Online tools: And I personally love something about my Garmin Vivofit that was only a bonus item I never considered for purchase intent: automated 'fitness challenge team' assignments. we get grouped with 15 others of similar exercising ability and can see eachothers progress (anonymous screennames), and sometimes we get competitive to beat eachother and other times it's like there's only 300 steps between me and that other guy so I want to get ahead of him and spend 3 minutes more exercising! It's really fun! And clearly motivates one to push just a little bit more! And it's dynamic, moves you up/down in groupings based on your activities and successes. Plus we can connect to support eachother through a web community portal just like this one in MFP.

6. Did you know that having an exercise buddy or team is known to increase fitness gains and weight loss by over 30%? These online community tools do just that, pair you up with fitness buddies. That has been valuable to me because everyone I know seems to quit exercising or whatever, and that's okay... there's a world of active people to meet that have similar self improvement goals!

I went with a HR monitor that tells me number of cals burned and time of the activity. it keeps logs of my activity as well. For measuring steps I picked up a cheap pedometer from Wal-mart. Between the two of them I spent 72 dollars. I find it really does help me. I have my goal and I like reaching my goals.