fitbit

I would love to know too, I just ordered one yesterday.

Hey Everyone! Congrats on getting your fitbits! It is a great addition to gaining control and understanding just how active you are being. I've had a fitbit for quite a while but only recently started using it in conjunction with myfitnesspal. So far all is well. As far as activities go, the fitbit will keep track of most of your activities through the day. You can log a specific activity on it's own if you like. For example, if I go for a jog and want specific info on that alone, I simply start my fitbit at the beginning and stop it at the end of my jog. It will understand that it is a separate activity. That way you can check your pace, calorie burn etc... for just that activity. You will manually want to still input some activities that you can't use the fitbit for (i.e swimming) or some that it doesn't fully understand, i.e. skiing, kayaking etc...Hope this is helpful. If you want to fully geek out, which I do, you can also link the nike+ or endomondo (although I have had issues with the endomondo syncing properly, nike+ works great) with your fitbit if you carry your smartphone with you on a workout, that way you can map your routes, and it too will upload everything to your fitbit account. I do like using only the myfitnesspal for logging food as it has the best food database out of all the sites. Once again hope this was helpful and not too much info.

how do you know what you deficency is at the end of day with it?? do you subtract the cal burn on fitbit to what you eat in myfitness pal??? help !!!!

I just ordered my FITBIT...

I got my FitBit from Best Buy the other day and so far it's been great. I haven't worked out with it on, but from what I've read in other posts, you can wear an HRM and log your exercise on MFP (make sure to note your start time so that FitBit can take away the calorie burn for that duration) or you can just let the FitBit do all the work (like PP has said, you can't use it while swimming, lifting weights, etc.) I plan on trying both ways to see how accurate it is, and if I don't have to wear an HRM, that would be great!

Hey Everyone! Congrats on getting your fitbits! It is a great addition to gaining control and understanding just how active you are being. I've had a fitbit for quite a while but only recently started using it in conjunction with myfitnesspal. So far all is well. As far as activities go, the fitbit will keep track of most of your activities through the day. You can log a specific activity on it's own if you like. For example, if I go for a jog and want specific info on that alone, I simply start my fitbit at the beginning and stop it at the end of my jog. It will understand that it is a separate activity. That way you can check your pace, calorie burn etc... for just that activity. You will manually want to still input some activities that you can't use the fitbit for (i.e swimming) or some that it doesn't fully understand, i.e. skiing, kayaking etc...Hope this is helpful. If you want to fully geek out, which I do, you can also link the nike+ or endomondo (although I have had issues with the endomondo syncing properly, nike+ works great) with your fitbit if you carry your smartphone with you on a workout, that way you can map your routes, and it too will upload everything to your fitbit account. I do like using only the myfitnesspal for logging food as it has the best food database out of all the sites. Once again hope this was helpful and not too much info.

Thanks for the response! Thats awesome to know.

fitbit was the best thing I ever did. It's the GPS on my weight loss journey. It syncs up so good....I never even log exercise anymore. fitbit automatically calculates my calorie adjustment for the day and sends my surplus burn directly to MFP where it is logged as exercise. MFP in turn sends all of my meal logging info automatically to my fitbit dashboard. It's so good. Enjoy!

Thank you, this is exactly what I needed to read!

So I think I just found the answer to my problem by accident. It's only 9:30am and Fitbit had already sent a calorie adjustment to MFP. I didn't notice it till I had already added in my workout this morning, when I clicked on it, it let me delete it. So those days when I'm lazy and it still sends extra calories to MFP I can just delete them. Love that I can do this, I'm struggling to stay on track and seeing those extra calories makes my brain think I need I need more food.

I have had my fitbit for about a month now. I originally got it so that I could see my TDEE because I believed the calculations that you do online were way to high for me, even choosing sedentary. Sure enough, there are days I don't even burn 2000 calories in a 24 hour period but all the calculators put me at 2200+ and I am eating 1800+. Not much of a deficit.

A couple of things I have uncovered with Fitbit (I love it).

First, you can set it for your personal stride or just use the default (use online manual at fitbit site).
2nd, there are 2 sleep settings, 1 normal and 1 sensitive. I used the normal for a couple of weeks and my sleep efficiency kept coming up at 97%, 98%, etc. but I was always tired. I switched it to sensitive for awhile to see what that said, my sleep efficiency was around 75% and I woke up around 8 times a night. For me, I know this setting is much more accurate. I feel much better when it says I am around 90% on sensitive.

Also, I box (spar) with a trainer on Sunday mornings and Fitbit is not accurate counting these calories.l I usually burn 400+ calories in an hour (really about 15 minutes total since we take turns) I am somewhat flat footed so it doesn't seem to register how much my upper body (arms/shoulders) moves in comparison to my lower body. So for that I manually log my activity from my HRM.

You need to play around with it and see what works for you and what information it is giving you that is most importatnt to you. For me it was my overall calorie burn in 24 hours/how sedentary I am which turned out to be a great big "VERY" and how well my sleep is. I too log food into MFP, they have the best data base and MFP does send you meal totals over to Fitbit and they give you a percentage breakdown of your macros.

Fitbit has a great user manual online. I recommend spending a half hour just reading everything, you will get so much more out of your Fitbit and just remember, It's one tool out of many that you use for this journey.