Fitness Trackers - Are They Worth It?

2»

Replies

  • misslizzierod
    misslizzierod Posts: 57 Member
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    I use my Charge 3 to track my steps. That way I can see if I'm just being active or not. As of June last year, I average about 20,000 steps a day.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
    9285851.png

    Nice. I decided to go with a Fitbit Charge 4 as a good introductory tracker and my first. How accurate do you feel it tracks your steps? I've noticed I am walking and my steps "get stuck" and don't update right away. I'll be sure to take my step and calorie tracking with a grain of salt.
  • BecomingMoreAwesome
    BecomingMoreAwesome Posts: 150 Member
    For me, I move much more when I’m wearing my watch, and slowly start to move less when I can’t wear it for an extended time. So I think we can all tell that I need extrinsic motivation, lol.

    I’ve had a Garmin Vivosmart and now have an Apple Watch. I loved my Garmin and loved that it could hold a charge for days, so I could wear it to see my sleep patterns sometimes. The Apple Watch has a lot of nifty features and of course integrates really well with my phone, but it’s not such a game changer that you’ll be missing out with something else.
  • sheclimber
    sheclimber Posts: 176 Member
    I never thought I would get one. My primary form of exercise is bike riding and so the whole step counting thing didn't work. No credit given for bike riding. Then a couple of years ago I had to give up the bike for a bit and I started doing more hiking so I broke down and got one. My husband talked me in to upgrading to the version with GPS and I'm glad he did. I got the Garmin Vivosport. I'm a Garmin girl and have a computer (Edge 520) for my bike rides. It is great to have for my non-bike activities (hiking and kayaking mostly) and for when I forget my 520 on a ride. I also like the reminder to get up and move when I've been sitting at my computer for too long. I also get a good laugh out of how long and hard I can ride before the alert to move clears because it doesn't register movement when your arm isn't moving. Lastly, I like the active minutes tracker. I like seeing how many I can get each week.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    misslizzierod wrote: »
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    I use my Charge 3 to track my steps. That way I can see if I'm just being active or not. As of June last year, I average about 20,000 steps a day.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
    9285851.png

    Nice. I decided to go with a Fitbit Charge 4 as a good introductory tracker and my first. How accurate do you feel it tracks your steps? I've noticed I am walking and my steps "get stuck" and don't update right away. I'll be sure to take my step and calorie tracking with a grain of salt.

    Where is the lag - on Fitbit app reading from the device, or on MFP?

    Trackers only sync to MFP new data when the daily burn is 100 higher that prior sync.
    Of course if the tracker app isn't even getting newer data from the device, it'll be even longer than that.

    Like I have my Garmin set to manual sync, when I do it in the evening, just to conserve battery.
    Because nothing happens to the daily data that is going to change anything, or that I"m not aware of, as far as eating goals.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,094 Member
    heybales wrote: »
    misslizzierod wrote: »
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    I use my Charge 3 to track my steps. That way I can see if I'm just being active or not. As of June last year, I average about 20,000 steps a day.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
    9285851.png

    Nice. I decided to go with a Fitbit Charge 4 as a good introductory tracker and my first. How accurate do you feel it tracks your steps? I've noticed I am walking and my steps "get stuck" and don't update right away. I'll be sure to take my step and calorie tracking with a grain of salt.

    Where is the lag - on Fitbit app reading from the device, or on MFP?

    Trackers only sync to MFP new data when the daily burn is 100 higher that prior sync.
    Of course if the tracker app isn't even getting newer data from the device, it'll be even longer than that.

    Like I have my Garmin set to manual sync, when I do it in the evening, just to conserve battery.
    Because nothing happens to the daily data that is going to change anything, or that I"m not aware of, as far as eating goals.

    For Garmin, my steps in MFP are only updated when I've opened the Connect app and it finishes syncing the data. Maybe a similar issue with Fitbit (if the issue is with the update between Fitbit and MFP)?

Categories