Is a FitBit worth it?

Babs2Baby
Babs2Baby Posts: 87 Member
edited November 24 in Getting Started
I've been debating ordering a fitbit charge 2 but not sure if this will accurately help track my exercise. It's a lot of money (to me) and I was wondering if anyone else has used on and had success with it.
I want to start counting my steps since my job is mostly sedentary and I also was curious in getting the heart rate feature because I don't think the machines at the gym are accurate.

Replies

  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,966 Member
    edited February 2018
    I feel like it’s not necessary and more so a toy. It was useful and I found it to be accurate in terms of calories burnt though. I stopped using it mostly because I just got tired of wearing the thing.
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
    I had one, so did the wife. It was so inaccurate we tossed it in a drawer and never looked back. I bought a HRM instead just to target heart rate zones when I exercise, and Endomondo works well with HRM's so have not needed the expensive fitbits ever since lol. Some people like them, but honestly I think they are kind of a waste.
  • Enthusiast84
    Enthusiast84 Posts: 171 Member
    As someone who is new to fitness it has been an absolute God send in making me more active. I could not believe how sedentary I was... quite frankly disturbing. It's motivated me to be more active and hit the 10k step target and I love being in competition with myself in stretching my goals. I LOVE it!! :)
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    I've been at this for over 5 years and haven't used one, so it's certainly not necessary. I actually just ordered a charge 2 though...when my kids were younger I was able to spend a lot more time out on my bike and never felt a need and never cared about how many steps I took or anything like that because my cycling volume pretty much trumped everything else.

    This year I'm just not able to ride the miles I used to with the kids (7&5) now bringing home boat loads of homework (well my 2nd grader anyway) and they've both been participating in youth sports and other domestic and work obligations. I figure since I can't get the volume of exercise in that I used to, I might as well try to get in a bit more general activity. I'll be curious as to what it does in regards to tracking my other exercise as well. I'm also just a little curious as to all the hubbub.

    IDK if it'll be worth it or not...but I figure it's not a particularly large out of pocket expenditure for me, so why not check it out...

  • Babs2Baby
    Babs2Baby Posts: 87 Member
    Spliner1969 wrote: »
    I had one, so did the wife. It was so inaccurate we tossed it in a drawer and never looked back. I bought a HRM instead just to target heart rate zones when I exercise, and Endomondo works well with HRM's so have not needed the expensive fitbits ever since lol. Some people like them, but honestly I think they are kind of a waste.

    What was inaccurate about it?
  • Babs2Baby
    Babs2Baby Posts: 87 Member
    Enthusiast84 wrote: »
    As someone who is new to fitness it has been an absolute God send in making me more active. I could not believe how sedentary I was... quite frankly disturbing. It's motivated me to be more active and hit the 10k step target and I love being in competition with myself in stretching my goals. I LOVE it!! :)

    That's where I am at right now. I notice I just sit around all day at my desk and don't move much. I'm hoping to use it more as a motivator but if it doesn't work like it's supposed to Idk.
    I also wanted to use one to help track my sleep as well. I have issues staying asleep.
  • Babs2Baby
    Babs2Baby Posts: 87 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    I've been at this for over 5 years and haven't used one, so it's certainly not necessary. I actually just ordered a charge 2 though...when my kids were younger I was able to spend a lot more time out on my bike and never felt a need and never cared about how many steps I took or anything like that because my cycling volume pretty much trumped everything else.

    This year I'm just not able to ride the miles I used to with the kids (7&5) now bringing home boat loads of homework (well my 2nd grader anyway) and they've both been participating in youth sports and other domestic and work obligations. I figure since I can't get the volume of exercise in that I used to, I might as well try to get in a bit more general activity. I'll be curious as to what it does in regards to tracking my other exercise as well. I'm also just a little curious as to all the hubbub.

    IDK if it'll be worth it or not...but I figure it's not a particularly large out of pocket expenditure for me, so why not check it out...

    Yeah I can see how like if you are already pretty active it's kind of a unnecessary. Let me know how yours goes.
  • Enthusiast84
    Enthusiast84 Posts: 171 Member
    Babs2Baby wrote: »
    Enthusiast84 wrote: »
    As someone who is new to fitness it has been an absolute God send in making me more active. I could not believe how sedentary I was... quite frankly disturbing. It's motivated me to be more active and hit the 10k step target and I love being in competition with myself in stretching my goals. I LOVE it!! :)

    That's where I am at right now. I notice I just sit around all day at my desk and don't move much. I'm hoping to use it more as a motivator but if it doesn't work like it's supposed to Idk.
    I also wanted to use one to help track my sleep as well. I have issues staying asleep.

    It's great for tracking sleep too. What's really interesting with me is that since my activity levels have increased I'm sleeping better both in terms of quality and length of sleep, usually uninterrupted. This is no coincidence. Definitely as my body is more tired through increased activity. Fall asleep much faster too.
  • OdditiesAbound
    OdditiesAbound Posts: 14 Member
    edited February 2018
    A lot of people report having huge inaccuracies with the Fitbit but I've never had that issue. I use a Fitbit Charge 2 and before that I had the plain old Charge and it seems to be fairly accurate for me.

    Now that I've gotten to a lower weight, I've found that the Fitbit suggested calories a day is more accurate for me than MFP. Especially on days I'm a more-sedentary-than-usual lump. I never had this issue until my 1000 calorie deficit started dipping below the 1200 mark pre-exercise, so it may just be a quirk of MFP never dropping below 1200 even with "allow negative adjustments" turned on but still adjusting up from the Fitbit data, not sure. But if I go off what MFP tells me to eat, I would need to only eat back only 50%-ish of the exercise calories it gives me.

    Some of the exercise numbers do seem crazy if you just look at the exercise entry in the app though, as it rolls in your BMR calories into the display number as well. So saying "wow I ran for 30 minutes and burned 350 calories!?" but really it was more like you burned 250 calories and the other 100 was just from being alive and you would have gotten them just sitting and reading a book, which is something to keep in mind.

    I love my Fitbit and consider it a large contributor to me losing 120 lbs so far. It was a large part of me becoming a lot more active just because I KNEW in my head I was sedentary, but seeing the hard numbers of HOW sedentary kicked me into gear. I went from 3k steps a day average (ugh desk jobs) 2 years ago, to slowly building up to 7k 3 times a week, to 10k every day and now I regularly hit 10-12k a day and run 5 days a week.

    I've seen enough reports of people saying how inaccurate it is that I don't disbelieve that it may not work great for others in guesstimating their calories burned, but it's pretty on-the-money for me, so your mileage may vary.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    Babs2Baby wrote: »
    Enthusiast84 wrote: »
    As someone who is new to fitness it has been an absolute God send in making me more active. I could not believe how sedentary I was... quite frankly disturbing. It's motivated me to be more active and hit the 10k step target and I love being in competition with myself in stretching my goals. I LOVE it!! :)

    That's where I am at right now. I notice I just sit around all day at my desk and don't move much. I'm hoping to use it more as a motivator but if it doesn't work like it's supposed to Idk.
    I also wanted to use one to help track my sleep as well. I have issues staying asleep.

    It will be a motivator if those kind of things motivate you. That's kind of an individual thing. Some people like data and numbers, and having a tracker is highly motivating and challenges them to meet their goals every day; for others who aren't into that kind of thing it can be meaningless and even irritating. So it more or less depends upon which of those camps you fall into.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,260 Member
    Motivating and 95% to 100% accurate in my own case.

    But it all depends on your logging and how you feel about things.

    Most people who hate them hate being "accountable" to a gadget (or being "prompted" by, or "monitored" by, or "shamed" by a gadget).

    Legitimately some people feel they are very inaccurate for them.

    Since I am not them I have no way of knowing if they are random genetic lottery outliers, have other logging issues, or have contributing health or previous diet issues.

    Just like MFP, Fitbit uses general population statistics to come up with burn estimates.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    I have a non-hrm Fitbit. It vibrates if I haven't gotten 250 steps by 10 to the hour. Between that, trying to hit my step goal, and joining contests it has made me much more active. I have no idea how accurate the step count is, but the negative adjustments that add exercise calories to mfp have worked out fine for me over the last 3 years or so. I'll def get another one when this one dies.
  • vingogly
    vingogly Posts: 1,785 Member
    I have an older one, stopped using it when they added tracking capabilities to the iPhone. Now I just have my phone synced with MFP.
  • lois1231
    lois1231 Posts: 330 Member
    edited February 2018
    I love mine. It encourages me to walk more. I try to get 10,000 steps in every day. I got the fit bit charge 2 for Christmas and let it sit in the drawer for a year or two until this year when I pulled it out and started using it. I should have done it sooner. I would get it if I were you.
  • wizzybeth
    wizzybeth Posts: 3,578 Member
    I love my Fitbit but I only have a very basic one. I have the Fitbit One. I like it because I do not have to wear it on my wrist I cannot stand wearing things on my wrist absolutely cannot stand it. I either tuck it in a pocket or clip it to my bra. It doesn't have a lot of fancy bells and whistles but it does work as a sleep tracker sort of. The only thing I have found to be inaccurate with it is sometimes it does not track my activity minutes. This morning I walked steadily for 30 minutes and it only tracked 7 Minutes of it. That kind of pisses me off. Also it does not always register staircases. But for my steps and calorie burn it seems to be spot-on.

    I absolutely love it. It motivates me to move more than I ever would without it. I do challenges with some people sometimes and sometimes I don't care and other times I get so annoyed that this one person keeps edging ahead of me that I have to keep moving to try to get ahead of her or him LOL. I admit it's a crutch. But it makes it fun for me to exercise and that's what it's all about.
  • emberlynn16
    emberlynn16 Posts: 8 Member
    just be aware if you take public transport (buses, trains etc) it can drastically up your steps even if your just sitting.
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