FitBit - pros & cons

They are not exactly for cardio. Unless your cardio consists of walking/running and you are trying to work on your cadence. They are more for gauging your daily non-exercise activity and to motivate you to move more. Understanding your average daily activity in conjunction with accurately calculated food intake can help you calculate your true maintenance for calorie eat-back purposes.

I used a few months of data accurately logging my food, accurately recording the calories burned my fitbit gave me and accurately weighing myself every day to establish a weight trend to arrive at my true maintenance and personal accurately predictive weight loss formula. Basically, it's a nice toy for those who want to be motivated and those who like to play with numbers and charts.

I got my Charge HR for Xmas and I love it. With the free app, I can geek-out on sleeping matrix. Try to see patterns in what I've eaten, had to drink, and how late I did those things compared to my sleep habits. I also like to see my heart rate pattern during and after workouts.

successgal1 wrote: »

I have the charge HR, it helps to DEmotivate myself during cardio, as I have a tendency to push it so much that my HR can get higher than is safe for an overweight person...also to watch as I lose weight and get more fit my resting heart rate goes down.

I do use it during cardio, it gives me a lower calorie burn than just punching the numbers into MFP, and I still eat back only partial of those, instead of partial of what MFP tells me.

It does monitor my daily activity, if any, I kind of ignore that unless it was something particular I was doing that day, like traipsing around theme parks or doing heavy yard work, thats outside my norm, then it helps me make wiser fueling decisions, just having it recorded on its own and deciding what to eat.

And sleep, sleep is so important and I rarely get enough. After 3 nights 5-6 hours and one sad night at the pet emergency I was feeling fat, swollen, exhausted and it reflects on the scale. I finally was able to obtain some real recovery sleep at 9 hours last night, thanks to fitbit tracking it for me, and woke up 3 pounds lighter and at a new low. Stressful nights I might be 8 hours in bed, but my fitbit tells the story of only 5 hours in sleep and 14 -19 times restless. Monitoring my sleep also keeps me from overdoing it, or at least feeling justified in taking rest for me, something women like me always struggle with because of all the demands on us. For me its like I prescribe sleep for myself.

This, me too...I've found the sleep feature to be my favorite feature, and it's changed the quality of my days completely, not to mention helped me to get moving my body more, all day long! Not for everyone, but I'd never go without mine again.

I think it depends on what your goals are, what kind of stuff you like doing, if you're someone who likes stats and also what type of Fitbit you're after.

There was a time in my life when I was hugely active and needed virtually professional data to support my training (long distance triathlons). If I was still into that kind of thing I would probably invest in a multi-sport Garmin, not an activity tracker.

However, I also know what it's like being virtually sedentary for 3 years and trying to return to fitness in an unpressured and fun way, and Fitbits can do that. My old Flex got me off the sofa, "compete" gently with some friends in going on longer dog walks and such stuff. I started to enjoy the information, going further etc. There were also other helpful aspects, for instance the sleep function and ensuring I was getting 8 hours a night etc, which had a huge impact on my wellbeing at the time.

I recently upgraded to a Blaze, as it can accommodate my running, cycling and gym stuff -- but it's not as "full on" as a multi-sport Garmin would be (I'm not really that serious anymore).

So it kind of depends.

I use my Fitbit as a step counter with connectivity. I don't need a HRM or sleep tracking or any of that, but I did want the app and website, so I got a Zip and I love it. It's better at estimating what I've burned than MFP, so I can eat exercise calories without worrying about accuracy. After starting to walk way more I've gotten into running, and at least a small percentage of that comes from the Fitbit since I now know exactly how much I really move a day and want to do more.

Also, the point for me isn't necessarily getting all of the steps in. Getting the steps is how I burn enough calories to eat enough that I'm not ravenous but still able to have a 1k calorie deficit. I do my best to hit the step goal every day, not because it's some arbitrary number I'm a slave to, but because by getting 10k steps I burn enough throughout the day to eat way more than the 1200 MFP gives me. Of course I can walk and run without a Fitbit and log it, but it's not nearly as accurate as it is with the Fitbit, and it makes it so much easier.

TLDR; It's accurate. It's motivating (for me, at least). It makes it much easier to estimate your daily calorie goals.

Cons: The clip/case of the Zip gets hard to put on after a while. I've had it for over a year, maybe close to two, so maybe it's just time for a new one (case, not Zip. Zip's still going strong). The cover for the battery is hard to get off, but on the other hand there's no charging to worry about. MFP and Fitbit don't seem to agree on calories any more. MFP always gives me way too many, even though they're linked. I've taken to ignoring my calorie goal on MFP since I already know how much I can eat as long as I hit my step goal.

I love my Charge HR. I just dropped from another food diary and joined MFP so it would automatically sync with my food diary. I love the challenge option in the fitbit and it helps motivate me. I also like the HR option and the sleep function. Those are both important to me as a tool for a healthy lifestyle.