Does fitbit really work?

My Alta HR seems to be pretty accurate. I suspect it underestimates my calorie burn a bit--it's mostly meant for walking, so depending on what else you do in a typical day you might find it tends to lean one way or the other for you.

Since I have a lot of variety in my activity level on different days of the week, it's really helpful for me to have it linked to MFP. I glanced back through the last couple of weeks and one day it took away 100 calories from my goal, while on another it added more than 600; I'm glad I'm not trying to work that out myself every day!

My advice is to link it up with MFP (enable negative adjustments!), wear it for a few weeks, and see what happens if you eat what it tells you. Watch how your weight responds and that'll give you a pretty good sense of how well it's working for you.

I have an Alta HR. The steps are pretty accurate except it does count some steps while driving. The sleep tracking however is useless as it’s never accurate or even close.

JenasyJen wrote: »

awesome feedback TY!
As far as what device i have it is fitbit versa . It say's i burnt 563 extra calories on my 1st day and honestly i did alot of cleaning walked to store and shopped but nothing to purposeful. Almost seems to good to be true. I am pretty hungry though so i figure eating back half is a safe bet? We'll see .

Is your MFP activity level set to sedentary by any chance? Spending a few hours cleaning and shopping could easily add 563 calories onto sedentary. If that’s a fairly normal amount of activity for you, tell MFP that you’re lightly active or active (because you are!) and your Fitbit adjustments will get lower. It works out to the same number of calories either way, but smaller adjustments can feel better psychologically. 🙂

It has worked for me. I work in an office and I use it to motivate me for NEAT.

CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »

tbright1965 wrote: »

It was within a mile of MapMyRide and my odometer on my bike. They all claimed I rode between 52.6 and 53.4 miles today.

So that part seems pretty accurate.

I don’t trust the calorie burn estimates.

I don’t think I burned between 4800 and 5200 calories as they all estimate.

So they work, but one has to take some of the numbers with a grain of salt.

They are pretty good for comparison from day to day. But don’t try to go to the moon or train for the olympics with one.

is that number calorie burn for the day so far? if so that includes your BMR into that number.

No, that was just the estimate for the ride. This is why I don't trust the estimates.

I tracked the entire ride on my Fitbit, pausing it during my brunch stop 35 miles into the ride. Fitbit estimated 4806 calories over 52.6 miles.

MapMyRide, also using GPS like my Fitbit Surge, I broke the ride into two rides. One, on the way to the brunch and a return ride.

Ride up, MMR claimed 3113 calories over the 34.9 miles up. It then claimed 1719 calories over the 18.4 on the way back. So again in the 4800 calorie range. Distance was closer to what the odometer on my bike indicated at 53.3. My bike odometer had 53.4 miles indicated.

After having slept, not sure where I got the 5200 calorie number from, so maybe I saw another number, or was just confused after (apparently) being in such a large calorie deficit (sarcasm.)

I don't allow myself to eat more than 1/2 of any recorded exercise calories.

I'm sure I burned a ton of calories. But I didn't burn nearly 5000 in 3.6 hours on my bicycle.

So I'd take calorie estimates with a healthy grain of salt.

My actual consumption yesterday was on the order of 2200 calories. I'm 5'11" and 215 pounds, FWIW.

Accuracy of the calories burned portion will vary person to person.

For myself the models without HR actually underestimate by an average of 250 calories a day. Models with the HR seem to be close enough for me to eat all the calories.

Steps are pretty accurate. I have done step tests with various models and the only one that didn’t catch all my steps was replaced by Fitbit.

Distance accuracy is actually determined by the stride length settings. Versa I believe will adjust your stride length based on GPS tracked walk and runs. It starts off using the average for your height though.

I have been using a Fitbit since 2013 and love it. I have MFP set to Sedentary and just let Fitbit make adjustments up or down based on activity. When I first started using Fitbit (a magenta zip) it would actually get a negative adjustment in my exercise diary unless I worked out and that would just bring my calorie burn to even with what MFP expected (so no additional calories). Since I am set to Sedentary, I sometimes see adjustments as large as 1000 calories on active days (for example the day I did the Valley Loop Fitbit Challenge/ 35,800 steps...you don’t actually have to finish these in a day, but I was doing it just to see if I could).

I may have missed it, but what fitbit model do you use?

I can't get my HR to measure distance correctly. It way underestimates. There's no GPS on it, it just estimates distanced based on how many steps you took. I tried updating my stride length and that didn't help any. But oh well. I think calories burned is pretty accurate (at least for me)

I had Carge HR and unfortunately it overestimated my calories by a lot - around 300 per day. So after several months I stopped using it.

I have an HR Charge and I enjoy it- because it motivates me to get my walk in.

JenasyJen wrote: »

i did a little test today walked on treadmill for 30 mins... Treadmill said 150 cals, Fitbit was in the high 200's almost double.... Interesting lol.. Wonder which is right. (i entered in treadmill under exercise in fitbit while i did it)

Did you put your info in the treadmill?

If for any reason you'd prefer ordinary pedometers, you can still find decent ones for about $15-20
I used to use the Nike and the fitbit, too many reasons I went back to old school. Regardless of
the method, seeing the numbers you create in the little window is motivating all on it's own!