Gained weight using Charge HR
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Even though the charge HR seems to overinflate calories burned, it's still nice to have some way of accounting for intensity. What I do this just adjust my target calorie deficit in my fitness pal to more than I want in real life. That way I still have something that accounts for intensity, and I'm still meeting my calorie goals.0
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Yeah, I've lowered my calorie target as well, and I'll probably lower it further. If they allowed custom zones instead of one zone, I might be able to go that route... I may try a single custom zone and see how it affects calorie burn estimates (I suspect it won't, and Fitbit will still use the default zones for estimating calorie burn).0
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The zones aren't going to be used to calculate calories. HR is. The zone is merely an estimate of what level that HR happens to be at for exercising different ways, based on big assumption of HRmax.
You aren't going to get around the fact that for estimating calorie burns - HR isn't going to work for you at all.
You can indeed still use it for what HRM's were originally designed for - monitoring your heart rate and allowing you to train better for something that required it.0 -
I get what you're saying but my point was that, if they allowed customization of the HR zones *and* adjusted the calorie burn estimates to correlate to the zones rather than to pure BPM, then it might make a difference.
My aforementioned suspicion (above) was an acknowledgement that they probably don't calibrate calorie burn estimates based on zone thresholds although, frankly, they should... Those zones are based on percentage of maximum, and calorie burn is also at least loosely tied to percentage of maximum in as much as there's a correlation to VO2 max.
In any case, I've actually gotten around it, for now at least, by lowering my daily calorie target to 800-1000 calories. I'll need to see how things go for a few weeks to see where that settles.0 -
Well, they actually do base the calculations on the % of HRmax and relationship to VO2max, without the need for zones to have anything to do with it.
So the same formula for calorie burn based on HR is happening no matter where you put those HR zones - that is purely for personal training purposes.
Because as they would rightly expect - hardly anyone is going to have a clue what zone truly relates to aerobic or fat burning or anaerobic for themselves, as vast majority using the device would never pay for a VO2max test and then personalize these zones to correctly match the findings.
I would love to see someone test a set time and HR walk at decent HR when first getting the unit, and then after the first nights sleep where resting HR is seen, and then a week later after some exercise time is done.
Because better calculation of VO2max involves HRmax and resting HR actually, it's a public study that even Polar uses. But there is also a self-selected activity level for exercise.
But Fitbit could gather that from weekly exercise records, and keep making adjustments.
Because I doubt they are going to share their proprietary formula, even if it is based on public research.0 -
I'm one of the minority in that regard, I readily admit.
Even in my case, the data that I have is dated, so who knows whether it's all that valuable or accurate now.
In any case, really, what I'd like is for them to let me customize resting/max HR. Many of the apps & services out there let you do that and allow customization of the zones -- check out https://my.digifit.com/site/heartzones for example -- but just setting Max and going with the default percentages would be better than what Fitbit provides now.
I've also been playing around with Azumio Instant Heartrate today to do some measurement comparisons. While the Charge HR seems to measure my resting / at east HR within a few BPM of Azumio, my "casual walking" HR is pretty consistently 10-20 BPM higher with the Charge as compared to Azumio. I'll run some comparisons with my chest strap HRM this weekend.
ETA: I've also seen some folks report that the Charge HR calorie burn estimates seem to settle in after a week or few of using it... It'll be interesting to see if mine changes, although I'm a couple of weeks in now already.
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I agree - for all the claims of this is the unit if you want to be semi-serious about workouts, that inability to change HRmax to a better value is odd.
And display recent average of resting HR would be good.
And not giving the ability to adjust all your zones, that's just crazy.
VO2max can change easily every 6 months, unless you were at upper reaches of fitness level and have maintained it. While easy to lose it of course, it's much harder to improve it when already high, so it tends to stay about level.
Of course if you lost weight, it automatically went up even if fitness level didn't change.
Your is first comment about HR being higher with Charge, though I'd trust a specifically designed light for HR more than using smartphone camera. HRM with strap should be interesting test of both.
I think most with the unit have no HRM to compare too, and 6 second count when you stop is pretty fraught with inaccuracy and potential for Fitbit to get accurate at that point.
I'll have to start paying more attention to the Charge HR and Surge topics for folks getting or just ordered it - see if anyone is up to an experiment.
That's how I found out I wasn't alone with the BodyMedia sensors not being accurate with not only me, but about 50% of those that responded to the topic asking for details.0 -
I wondered the same thing about the various smart-phone HRM apps' accuracy, but from all of my own testing & from what I've seen in various reviews, it seems to be pretty solid.
I've run a few serial tests with the Azumio and there's relatively little difference between the reads. It's also got a "stand up" test that takes a longer than 6 second read, and that seems to match up with the 6-second tests. Although I haven't checked recently, it's also been pretty accurate relative to my chest-strap HRM, and even "manual" pulse checks have always dovetailed with Azumio's readings.
And no... I wasn't at what I'd call "the upper reaches of fitness" ... even after losing a good bit of weight. ;-)0 -
Haven't had a chance to compare the chest-strap HRM yet, but I've found that tightening the band on the Charge HR seems to have brought the BPM measurements of the Charge HR back in line with Azumio.
I'll keep an eye on it this week, but it looks like wearing the band too loosely may result in artificially high readings. My "casual walking" and even "light yardwork" readings yesterday & today were capping out 20 BPM below what I was getting with "casual walking" while wearing the band a notch or two more loosely.0 -
princessofredrock wrote: »My own realization with the charge HR was not to log my exercise. I just put a post on my page for what I have done and let the fitbit adjust my cals. I was maintaining and then gaining! I figured out why! It was doubling my burnt cals between the fitbit and mfp. I am now losing again! Love my fibit!
Hi I have had my fitbit for a few weeks. I was to see how many calories I'm burnig during workouts. Is it okay to press the timer to capture those workout sessions? I wont enter exercise on mfp. Just not sure it the calries will be messed up leaving me more calories left over to eat than I need.0 -
cherryjubilee23 wrote: »princessofredrock wrote: »My own realization with the charge HR was not to log my exercise. I just put a post on my page for what I have done and let the fitbit adjust my cals. I was maintaining and then gaining! I figured out why! It was doubling my burnt cals between the fitbit and mfp. I am now losing again! Love my fibit!
Hi I have had my fitbit for a few weeks. I was to see how many calories I'm burnig during workouts. Is it okay to press the timer to capture those workout sessions? I wont enter exercise on mfp. Just not sure it the calries will be messed up leaving me more calories left over to eat than I need.
Pressing the button won't affect logged calories at all.
Lots of people worry about double logging exercise calories, but very few people actually have it happen.0 -
cherryjubilee23 wrote: »princessofredrock wrote: »My own realization with the charge HR was not to log my exercise. I just put a post on my page for what I have done and let the fitbit adjust my cals. I was maintaining and then gaining! I figured out why! It was doubling my burnt cals between the fitbit and mfp. I am now losing again! Love my fibit!
Hi I have had my fitbit for a few weeks. I was to see how many calories I'm burnig during workouts. Is it okay to press the timer to capture those workout sessions? I wont enter exercise on mfp. Just not sure it the calries will be messed up leaving me more calories left over to eat than I need.
That button press on the device merely takes a snapshot of the stats for that block of time - rather than buried in with the daily stats. It doesn't change any stats.
That way you can review workouts later. You can add notes to them too for that later review.0 -
Like heybales and NancyN795 said, the button just marks the time of the activity so that you can see the details of that activity period, rather than having it blend into the day.
With that said -- and it's been a while since I've messed around with the particulars of this -- an activity recorded on Fitbit will sync over to MFP as a distinct exercise event, so you don't want to add a separate activity on MFP as well, because that could cause some duplication.
I think that might be what princessofredrock was referring to; however, entering activity on MFP should over-ride any activity recorded by Fitbit during the same period so, as long as the start/stop times match up, duplication shouldn't be an issue even there.
... someone else may be able to confirm/clarify the details here -- like I said, been a while since I've tinkered with that piece of the sync functionality. 0 -
No, an activity recorded on Fitbit won't show on MFP as a distinct exercise event. It will just be included in the information Fitbit normally sends - total steps and calories burned for the day.
However, it is correct that an activity recorded in MFP will overwrite the data recorded by Fitbit for the same period.0 -
Thanks! Wasn't sure on that one... Usually I'm syncing activities in from other apps like Endomondo, and I couldn't recall what adding an exercise into Fitbit.com manually would do.
Re: my other posts, above, after a pretty typical work-day wearing the Charge HR a bit more tightly, my HR measurements have been more like what I'd expect (50-85 BPM, rather than 50-120 BPM), and the spot checks that I've done with Azumio are matching up. The calorie burn estimates that are syncing over to MFP are now about on par with what I was getting from the Flex as well.0 -
Re: my other posts, above, after a pretty typical work-day wearing the Charge HR a bit more tightly, my HR measurements have been more like what I'd expect (50-85 BPM, rather than 50-120 BPM), and the spot checks that I've done with Azumio are matching up. The calorie burn estimates that are syncing over to MFP are now about on par with what I was getting from the Flex as well.
I love having the HR data, but after about 4 months I'm starting to understand the drawbacks. I've also had it give me readings that were too high when I wasn't wearing it in a "regulation" fashion, resulting in calorie burns that were also too high. I think it was harder to confuse my old One (although it registered some unexpected "very active" minutes when I accidentally left in a pocket and put it in the wash).0 -
Now that I seem to have the HR measurements dialed in as far as the band tightness goes, it's been pretty consistent for me.
With that said, I do think Fitbit's calorie adjustments based on HR could use some adjustment. It's not clear to me that they're appropriately cross-referencing HR with activity intensity... An elevated HR alone is not going to increase calorie burn as much as elevated HR combined with more intense movement, and I don't see much difference between calorie burn estimates for those two scenarios on my dashbaord.0 -
Looking at daily 5 min graph of calorie burn - you actually see increased calorie burn during times of minor increased HR but no increased steps?
I had others, awhile back now so perhaps it changed, confirm that it appears step-based calorie burn was used up until a certain point, and then HR-based was used.
Some people hyper-ventilated for me and got a HR increase while standing still - calorie burn was normal BMR level as sleeping or sitting.
Feel like passing out? ;-)0 -
Honestly, it's a little hard for me to tell because of the crappy way Fitbit presents the data. Different charts and different implementations of the charts, depending on wich tile I'm looking at on the dashboard or which screen on the iPhone, and they don't let me export detailed HRM data.
But, when I mouse over the HR data points on the dashboard tile, those at a higher HR tend to show a higher per-minute calorie burn, even during periods that I know I was relatively less active.
Certainly not a scientific cross-reference but, until Fitbit grants me partner access to the API, I can't really pull the incremental data points to do a better analysis.0 -
Honestly, it's a little hard for me to tell because of the crappy way Fitbit presents the data. Different charts and different implementations of the charts, depending on wich tile I'm looking at on the dashboard or which screen on the iPhone, and they don't let me export detailed HRM data.
But, when I mouse over the HR data points on the dashboard tile, those at a higher HR tend to show a higher per-minute calorie burn, even during periods that I know I was relatively less active.
Certainly not a scientific cross-reference but, until Fitbit grants me partner access to the API, I can't really pull the incremental data points to do a better analysis.
Did you try going under Settings, data export, and selecting body for the time frame you want? Or are you after something more detailed?
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