Do you use a Fitness Tracker.. would you recommend it?

I absolutely love my fitness trackers and the variety of records they keep for me. I have a jenga tower of health issues that require me to track a lot of stuff, and the tracker makes it all a lot easier.

That said, I've had many Fitbits, and they do a great job, but the hardware is somewhat more delicate then my lifestyle seems to allow for, so I break them once or twice a year. They're on the expensive side, so I stopped getting them after a while. They have a great app with useful tie-in's to other apps, though, and they do a perfect job of estimating my calories.

I am currently on my third iteration of Mi Band. It's Chinese, and doesn't really connect to any app other than Google Fit. However, I LOVE the advanced features, and the low price of the hardware, and the accuracy of the tracking. I have to port the information myself, but I really only need to do that occasionally when I'm trying to troubleshoot my health changes. My daily activity is so steady that just using the tracker to eyeball trending is enough for me to make occasional adjustments to MFP as needed.

Garmin appears to be a favorite brand around here, and they seem to also have fairly accurate data. I have not had one, but assume my utilization would be much the same as the other two I favor.

My android phone will also track almost everything my fitness tracker does, but I don't like having to carry it in my pocket all the time. Women's fitness gear suffers from a dearth of pockets, so it's not always a practical solution for me, even if it is economical.

There are many great solutions out there. You may need to dabble a bit and consider your personal priorities before making a final decision.

Half or three quarters of people on here are addicted to their fitness trackers. Me, not as much as I used to be. It was very motivating for steps the first few years of my journey. I went through several Fitbit Ones til they stopped making them. Now I use a Garmin Vivoactive3 I got a great deal on used. I like it for bike rides and swims. It tracks steps too but I’m less focused on that now. It has a lot of other features I don’t use.

If you get one, it's important to clarify your needs before choosing. (Elizabeth's post includes some good things to consider. Another question is whether you want one that offers full functions when you don't have your phone with you, i.e., stores a meaningful amount of data until you're back in the phone's Bluetooth range. I'm sure there are other points, too.)

But IMO it's also important to understand two key things:

1. Fitness trackers only estimate calories, they don't measure them. Like any other estimating method, the good ones are close for most people, a bit off for a few (high or low), and materially off for a very, very few. That's how statistical estimates work. Within good-quality, well-respected brands, the question "are they accurate for calories" is the wrong question, really, just like the "is MFP accurate for calorie goals" question. The question is really more how average the person is, not how accurate the device is. Fortunately, most people are pretty average!

They're also likely to be better at estimating exercise activity calories for some things vs. others, too, given the nature of what they actual can measure (and then use in their estimates). Fancy ones will have GPS, some kind of altimeter, ways to detect arm movement or maybe impact, heart rate, and that sort of thing. Some of those measurable things are pretty good proxies for estimating calories for some activities, and some aren't. Part of the implication of this is that devices that ask you what activity you're doing have the potential to be more accurate at estimating exercise calories.

2. Accurate profile settings make a difference. The usual demographic stuff is easy (age, weight, etc.), but do remember to keep those up to date. Others that can matter a good bit are stride length (if you do a good bit of walking), and max heart rate (the age-estimated max that most use as default are inaccurate for many people).

You can check stride length by walking a fairly long measured distance (high school or gym track, stay) at a moderate everyday pace, counting your steps, and figuring out the average stride length from that.

For max heart rate, there are self-tests you can do, but I do not recommend an actual max test, where you literally try to top out your heart rate, until you have a reasonable fitness base and clearance from your doctor. A medical stress test may not provide your actual max heart rate (they stop the test when they get the data they need, without concern for true max). There are sub-maximal effort tests you can find online (choose one from a reputable source) that will give you a better estimate than 220-age or the like. Wait to do that until you have a reasonable fitness base.

If the device has self-tests for fitness or VO2max or that sort of thing, follow the device's directions and do the test, when your fitness is up to it (they're pretty achievable if you're moderately active). If I recall correctly, mine wanted something like a minimum 15 minute walk at a brisk pace, using one's own definition of "brisk".

Personal experience, which will be wordy; feel free to skip it (I'm including it because it might help you think about your needs):

I have a Garmin Vivoactive 3. I like it very much. I always wear a wrist watch (boomer! ) and this one is sturdy, not huge enough to be annoying, plus doesn't make me look like some kind of Delta Force commando. (Nor does it look like jewelry; my aging eyes need to be able to read it!). I abuse it physically, and it holds up well (I've had it for a couple of years). It charges fast, and will hold adequate charge for a couple of days. (Usually putting it on the charger when I'm in the shower is enough, or close.)

It tracks the activities I do most often pretty well: It tracks and maps my on-water rowing, giving me GPS-based distance and split (pace) timings, plus estimates of strokes per minute, and I can look at that data correlated with my heart rate. For rowing, I need a chest belt (pairs via Ant+) because the wrist-based monitor loses contact due to too much arm flexing. (The wrist-based monitor works fine for other activities.) I like it for my casual cycling, canoeing, walking, etc., and use it for calorie estimates for spin class (best option I have, not perfect for intervals). It will count reps/sets for many strength training exercises, which is imperfect but workable.

I like the tracking of resting heart rate, something I care about for fitness/health reasons, and as far as I can tell, it's reasonably accurate. (I used to do first thing in the AM readings periodically before I got it, and it's pretty consistent with that. It also tracks pretty well with instant readings of HR at the doctor's office.)

Its sleep tracking is laughable, and what I've read about research on these devices (not just my model, but the whole gamut) suggests that they're not that reliable at tracking sleep. Mine frequently believes I'm in REM sleep when I'm awake reading or texting (for long time stretches, not just moments!), and will miss short (few minute) wake intervals at night if I don't move.

For me, the all-day calorie estimates are inaccurate, by about the same percentage that MFP and other so-called "calculators" are inaccurate, because for some reason(s), I seem to be non-average. It underestimates my calorie needs by a significant amount, as compared with 5+ years of logging and weight data. I don't care. If I wanted to use its, I think it is off by roughly the same percent day to day, so I could adjust and use it. I don't synch it to MFP, which would add needless complexity, but I do use it to estimate calories for some forms of exercise.

I have a Garmin forerunner 35 and I love it for tracking my runs. Most runners I know seem to have gone for a Garmin watch. It’s more accurate in tracking my pace and distance than the phone app I was using.

I don’t actually find it super useful for my weight loss goals though. I lost my first 50 lbs without any sort of fitness tracker. Though I have been paying more attention to my steps and how many calories it says I burn (it seems to be pretty accurate). It’s fun to have the data but totally not necessary for me to lose weight.

A) You don't absolutely need it, you can just carry your phone. If you want HR, you can buy a (Wahoo fitness) HR strap.

I bought one anyway. A Garmin Vivoactive 3. It has worked very well and I don't regret it at all. The 3 is on sale right now because the 4 just came out.

Fitbit was just bought by Google and will likely go through some changes in the near future.

jm_1234 wrote: »

I recommend, but it depends on the features you need. I like the Garmin Vivosmart 4 ($99) as a basic entry level watch - https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/605739

Outside of activity tracking I like the sleep and stress features as well as the style and size of the watch.

A few things to consider is if it has built in GPS, heart rate monitoring, and the app features.

It's scary how well the stress feature works!

adotbaby wrote: »

Personally, I don't want to have one. It is reported they emit radiofrequency, and I'd rather not expose myself to that strapped on me 24/7.

I actually have had a nagging thought in the back of my head about what it’s doing while strapped to my body (didn’t know exactly what technology they used) - when I first started wearing my Fitbit I only wore it at night (mainly got it for sleep tracking) and had issues with a dull ache in my wrist. I stopped wearing it for a while, then picked it back up a couple of months ago when I started this WL journey... I had been looking at fancier options, but recently started backtracking and thinking of a chest strap HR monitor to use as needed.

NorthCascades wrote: »

Chest strap isn't useful for weight loss.

This is what I am still figuring out

ETA: What are the advantages of a fitness tracker for weight loss vs. the chest strap. It might be blaringly obvious, but I had Benadryl last night so still working through that brain fog this morning I know mine has been a fun motivator, and thanks to my nerdy husband (said with love and affection) I do enjoy the numbers and graphs and things.

Looked into Fitbit and Garmin vivos but ended up going with a HR chest strap and I love it way more. More accurate for calories burned and I only where it 1 hour a day

NorthCascades wrote: »

Chest strap isn't useful for weight loss.

I dunno: Chest strap HRM (with related receiver, of course) provides exercise calorie estimates of limited accuracy for a limited range of common activities, and one can log those into MFP as one's exercise calorie estimate (possibly unaware of the potential accuracy limitations).

That might help some people lose weight.

On the other hand, a 24 x 7 fitness tracker provides all-day calorie estimates including exercise that are of limited accuracy and have most (not all) of the same limitations with respect to common exercise activities as the chest-belt HRM, and one can synch those to MFP to automagically adjust one's MFP calorie goal based on the estimates (possibly unaware of the potential accuracy limitations).

Don't get me wrong, folks: I used to have a chest belt HRM, and used it for many things, one of which was using its calorie estimates as an input to logging exercise on MFP. I now have a high-quality fitness tracker and use it in a similar way (wouldn't dream of synch-ing it to MFP because it estimates my overall calorie burn way too low, and trying to make sense of the synch data would be far more work than it's worth).

Either one can be useful, and they'll tend to be close enough to accurate for most people.