Getting a FitBit – advice

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lottieouroboros
lottieouroboros Posts: 15 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi,
I'm considering getting a FitBit. I've done some research into it but I'm stuck between the Alta and Alta HR.

I want the fitbit to track my calories as accurately as possible and I will be doing a mixture of gym exercises and general daily movements (climbing stairs, walking, etc).

I'm wondering if people who own either the Alta or Alta HR (or other models of fitbit) could tell me a bit about their experience with using fitbit, syncing it to MFP and whether they considered it something that made a sizeable difference to their weight loss journey.

Thanks :)

Replies

  • Fflpnari
    Fflpnari Posts: 975 Member
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    I have a fitbit charge 2 and love it. I cant get it to sync to mfp, apps are connected but calories dont snyc. I love the visual grafts if has. I go on weekly average of calories burn so I can eat more daily! You can set it up to buzz and remind you to walk. There are so many neat features
  • divcara
    divcara Posts: 357 Member
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    I've never had the Fitbit Alta (Charge HR, Blaze, and Versa - loved them all), but I'm a huge fan of having the heart rate feature on any of them. It didn't matter so much with syncing with MFP, but doing exercises or walking or making a point to elevate my heart rate through physical activity did make a huge difference for me.
  • Psychopasta
    Psychopasta Posts: 37 Member
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    I have a FitBit Blaze, totally recommend it for use with MTF. Also use the FitBit dashboard, and I have a FitBit Aria2 Wi-Fi scale to make weighing in every day easy. Makes for a great combo.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
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    I’ve been using Fitbit with MFP since 2013. I started with the zip. I found that Fitbit adjusting my calories helped me make sure I was eating correctly for my activity level.

    When I first started Fitbit would take away calories from even the Sedentary calorie goals on MFP. I was truly so Sedentary at the time that a workout would just reverse the negative adjustment. Sad, but true.

    Fitbit has given me insight into my activity throughout the day and I have used the data to become fairly active these days.

    For me though Fitbit works as follows:
    No HRM -> underestimates by an average of 250 calories a day
    HRM -> last time I reviewed data it was about right. However this past month looks like it might be underestimating. I need to go over my numbers one of these days.
    **These conclusions were reached with consistent logging over 6 week periods with the use of a food scale 80-90% of the time.**

    Not everyone has the same experience though. For some people calories burned will be overestimated. Some find the models without HRM are about right while models with HR overestimate. Perceived accuracy can also be thrown off if your food log is off.
  • yow_katherine
    yow_katherine Posts: 16 Member
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    I have the alta hr. I got when it first came out a year and a half ago. For me it has been very accurate at tracking my calories burned and I have found it to be a very helpful tool. I was able to get a better understanding of how much I move during the day and have found ways move more and I have managed to improve my sleeping. However I picked this based on how it looks. I thought it would like better with my work clothes due to it being slimmer but because it's slim it has to be thicker and it sticks out, I will probably be switching to the charge 2 it's a bit wider but it's slimmer and tracks all the same things plus it tracks floors climbed (the alta hr doesn't).

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