Any advice on wearables and trackers

I recently purchased the Fitbit Alta — waiting for it to arrive in the mail. I will post updates. I am skeptical of its accuracy, but am very curious to see the numbers it will record, and compare the results to those of my treadmill (I already compare/contrast my own treadmill's stats with MyFitnessPal's database stats). What made me want the Alta also is like you said — stylish! And I'm looking forward to hooking it up with MyFitnessPal.

One of my coworkers wears a Fitbit, as does her husband (his is the Charge 2), and they love ’em. She mentioned that theirs measure distance/elevation, so for example it can tell when they are driving up a hill.

I did a tiny bit of research and found that the Fitbit Surge has a bike tracking feature: https://blog.fitbit.com/bike-tracking-now-available-on-fitbit-surge/

And here's something in their FAQ about Fitbit and bicycle usage: https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1136#bike

Hope it helps. Good luck.

I use a fitbit Charge HR. I agree there's no way to reliably tell how accurate it is for calories burned, but mine seems to be fairly consistent so I can use it as a relative measure effort. If it tells me I burned more calories one day and fewer the next I'm pretty confident that adjusting my calorie intake based on those numbers will yield consistent results.

Following this. I want a FitBit Charge 2 as of now. Amazon sells waterproofed ones.

I have had a Fitbit Flex for @ 2 years, and I'm asking for an Alta for Christmas. I have no idea how accurate it is, though my numbers always seem to work out so I suppose it is.

Having it on my wrist every day, and tracking my progress with the app has completely changed how I go through the day. Seeing it there gets me up and moving, and staying active is always at the front of my mind because of it. When I first got it, it told me I was only taking @ 3000 steps. I have been steadily increasing my goal and can now hit 8000 steps most days. While I don't know if those #s are accurate or not, they for sure show a big improvement, and for that I think they were totally worth it They are also a great conversation starter, and the challenges are fun!

I love my Apple Watch.

Shanairah1991 wrote: »

I used the Fitbit Charge HR. It would track your biking. I hear people say all the time how it isn't accurate but paired with counting calories here I lost 70lbs and I used the Fitbits calorie burn. I loved it! (Gave it to a family member last spring.)

I have to agree it's so easy, I love it. I only had it a short time but I use the food intake in it as well I think I I like it get them MFP both food and exercise.. I actually am doing the work outs. Good luck.

I have the Fitbit charge HR and it's great for tracking steps, general heart rate, elevation, sleep etc but I don't use it for high intensity workouts because it just can't keep up with the heart rate changes.

So I put on my polar watch and chest strap for workouts and manually enter the details into MFP, then it sincs over to the Fitbit app.

I really love the Fitbit app and all the motivating badges you earn as well as the challenges you can join with friends.

I like my Garmin Vivifit 3. It's waterproof, has cute interchangeable bands, a battery that lasts a year, and it can distinguish different exercises.

I too use the Charge HR. I think the calories burned it gives me on MyFitnessPal is ridiculously high, so I kind of ignore them unless I used the feature where I tell it I'm actually doing a workout. It's probably because MFP is set to sedentary, (little to no activity) which is pretty correct since I'm sitting at a desk alot, but I don't think I should get 100 calories burnt just for taking a quick dog walk of 200 yards. It also flips out when currying and brushing a horse because of all the arm movement, so I largely ignore the activity calories unless I know I really DID something.

On the other hand, with MFP set for a wishful 2lbs a week (that gives me 1200 calories and really 1.5 a week), the fitbit gives me a more realistic 1000 calories or so for my 2lb a week loss goal. (Note I haven't ever hit that and have been losing more of the 1.5 to 1.8, or less this past week). I eat between 1000 and 1200 calories a day and maybe a tiny more if I did a significant amount of walking/activity or ran up and down the stairs multiple times at the office).

I found the Charge HR extremely accurate for biking. Extremely. It can detect the motion on its own and correctly interpret it as biking, or you can just put it in workout mode when you begin. And the heart rate monitoring showed me that I need to slow down sometimes, I can overdo it for my fitness level with enthusiasm sometimes (or when biking against the wind), for an hour and 10 miles it would give me about 380 calories (mostly flat sidewalk terrain on a one speed bike). The same with strength training, I would set it to workout mode and it would give me 60-80 calories for that workout.

I like my Garmin Forerunner 230 (235 has optical heart rate but i didn't need that).

I like it because of it's functionalities and most importantly; it's aesthetics.

hello. I got a fitbit flex to track an average calories burned each day. It helped me learn my TDEE and in turn I am not able to eat the appropriate amount of calories using the TDEE method. It doesn't do much else. I have a HRM for if I want to track calories burned during an exercise. That also is very helpful b/c I know when my heart rate is too low or too high during training. hope this helps too

jacobsailors wrote: »

I would have to say Garmin if your looking to track any kind of activity like cycling. I have the Garmin Fenix 3 and love it. I have beat the living shi** out of it and haven't had one problem. Garmin has two ANT+ senors made for cycling ( they are attached to your bike, but if you only use indoor bike then you can only attach one sensor) The Fenix is a large watch so if your looking for something slender and stylish then probably wont make your list but they do have other fitness trackers that meet the stylish check box. I have used a couple of different fitness trackers and researched Garmin alot before purchasing and can say I am totally happy with money spent.

my boyfriend has the fenix 3 and loves it. I have to say i love my garmin watch and think the size looks a little more reasonable on a small feminine wrist. The fenix 3 is just a TAD too big for me.