Steps when pushing trolley
kpkitten
Posts: 164 Member
Hi
I've had my Flex for a couple of weeks and I love it, but I think it's (hugely) underestimating my steps at work. I work as a picker for a supermarket, so I'm walking quickly around a store, pushing a trolley that's often quite heavy, as well as lifting things.
I know Fitbit won't track things like lifting heavy items, and I don't want it to, but I don't think it picks up all my steps when I'm pushing the trolley around, because it says that I'm doing 200-350 steps every 15 minutes whilst at work, whereas walking my very old and quite slow dog is over 1500 steps in 15 minutes. I know I stop to pick things up and bag them and whatever in my job, but I'm sure I must be doing more steps than the Fitbit recognises.
I wonder if anyone has a solution for this? I don't have another pedometer, or I'd do an average step count over 5 shifts and enter that manually into Fitbit to get a better calorie estimate, but since I work 4 days a week, and on those days most of my activity is at work, I'd really like to think of a way to solve this. I can't do an accuracy test with the trolley because I can't use my laptop or phone at work to check the stats.
Using a few online calculators, if I estimate that I'm burning something like a slow walk or pushing a wheelchair, then I should be burning about 300-450 calories per hour in my job, which is a pretty significant amount for Fitbit to get getting wrong (and for me to under-eat or over-eat if I compensate!)
I've had my Flex for a couple of weeks and I love it, but I think it's (hugely) underestimating my steps at work. I work as a picker for a supermarket, so I'm walking quickly around a store, pushing a trolley that's often quite heavy, as well as lifting things.
I know Fitbit won't track things like lifting heavy items, and I don't want it to, but I don't think it picks up all my steps when I'm pushing the trolley around, because it says that I'm doing 200-350 steps every 15 minutes whilst at work, whereas walking my very old and quite slow dog is over 1500 steps in 15 minutes. I know I stop to pick things up and bag them and whatever in my job, but I'm sure I must be doing more steps than the Fitbit recognises.
I wonder if anyone has a solution for this? I don't have another pedometer, or I'd do an average step count over 5 shifts and enter that manually into Fitbit to get a better calorie estimate, but since I work 4 days a week, and on those days most of my activity is at work, I'd really like to think of a way to solve this. I can't do an accuracy test with the trolley because I can't use my laptop or phone at work to check the stats.
Using a few online calculators, if I estimate that I'm burning something like a slow walk or pushing a wheelchair, then I should be burning about 300-450 calories per hour in my job, which is a pretty significant amount for Fitbit to get getting wrong (and for me to under-eat or over-eat if I compensate!)
0
Replies
-
I know the flex is supposed to be worn on your wrist, but what if you tried carrying it in your pocket for a shift or two just to see if it differs?0
-
-
Do you have an apron or belt that you wear? If you do, you can put it in your apron pocket or slide it onto your belt. Either way would probably be more accurate than wearing it on your wrist.0 -
Yes, that's a known thing. It's one of the biggest reasons I hem and haw over replacing my One with a wristband Fitbit, because I get a LOT of my non-dedicated-exercise steps while pushing a shopping cart or a stroller. My husband has a Force, and one day just to test it out I wore it at the same time as my One while running a bunch of errands (mostly cart-pushing), and over an afternoon the Force showed about 1000 steps less than the One (about a 25% difference, and I wasn't pushing a cart the entire time). I usually just put my One in my pocket if I have one, but you can also clip it to a bra or a waistband.
Honestly, especially if you've only had it for a few weeks, if you think a One would work better for you due to your normal types of activity, I would email Fitbit customer service and explain the issue. They have historically had EXCELLENT customer service (hopefully that's not declining with what seems to me as a somewhat recent popularity explosion), and I would bet any money that they'll let you exchange it, easy peasy.0 -
You are correct, the device can't tell if you are doing incline and burning more calories, or carrying more weight than your stats say, or pushing a weight.
All those take more effort, and are going to be underestimated, and depending on the time of them and difference in effort, badly underestimated - as I'll bet it is in your case.
So it really doesn't matter if it sees the number of steps correctly or not, the formula for calorie burn is based on level (mostly) walking / running level of effort. Those are the most accurate formulas for pace and mass moved and calorie burn.
Incline is accurate too, but device has no way of estimating incline, though it can tell harder impacts going down a hill, and lighter impacts going up.
But that just appears to be a change in stride length then causing that effect, so shorter stride leads to less calorie burn when going up hills, and longer stride leads to more calorie burn when going down a hill.
And yes, I've tested that, because I was curious if they got complex on their calcs or not.
The chipset I think they use does allow that, if the people using it choose to write code for it to work right. Fitbit did not.
And it usually won't matter, you'd have to be doing a bunch of incline for it to make a big enough difference.
But pushing is even worse, shorter strides, not harder impacts usually, but much more effort. Even lower calorie burn given for what appears a slow pace.
I'd almost suggest you just set MFP up for maintenance, no weight loss goal.
Fitbit will report a badly underestimated daily burn on your work days. There's your deficit. Not exactly known, but after a month, results will tell you what it is.
On non-work days - leave 250-500 calories green to your eating goal. That should be easy enough math as the day goes on.0 -
You can easily check if it counts the steps when you push the trolley by counting the steps taken in your head and then syncing with the phone app and comparing the results. I have been wondering recently if it would count steps if I keep my hands in the pocket and when I carry something in my hand that prevents me from swinging it, and it definitely counts all steps just about 100% correctly.
I also noticed it doesn't count steps when I do squats, but counts steps when I do bench presses.0 -
From: http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/How-accurate-is-my-Flex/?l=en_US&c=Topics:Accuracy&p=flex&fs=Search&pn=1
WILL FLEX COUNT STEPS WHEN I’M PUSHING A STROLLER OR A SHOPPING CART?
Flex will count your steps when you are pushing a stroller or a shopping cart as we do want to give you credit for this activity. That said, because your hands are not moving, your step count may be a bit lower during this activity.0 -
I had the same problem. So I my flex in my sock. I had my 10000 steps by 6 1/2 into my work day. I am looking to buy a shoe pouch. Mayb you could look into one too. Also they have socks with pockets in them.0
-
Thanks for all the responses everyone
I've been putting my flex in my pocket for the last week or so and my steps at work have more than doubled!
When I did a 100 step walk test at home, the flex only picked up 88 of my steps from being in my pocket in my work trousers, but that's better than the 0 it picked up when I pretended to push a trolley!!
Because I'm feeling fine about the amount I'm eating (not too tired or weak or anything) I don't think I'm going to adjust at all for the remaining calories from the additional effort of pushing, and the likely underestimation of my steps still, and I'm easily hitting my 10k on a day where I work, even if it's just a half-day shift! However, I am going to be less strict about whether or not I eat back my remaining 50 calories on a day when I've been at work!0
