Fitbit

I picked one up about a week ago. I used MFP to track exercise and food because they have a native android app. The food tracking on fitbit.com is all web based and not as nice. You can join fitbit.com and use it without having an actual fitbit. I find that it's about 90% accurate. The one thing I don't like about it is that when you are in the car driving there's no way to 'pause' it so that it doesn't count these as steps so you end up logging all your car trips as activities on fitibt.com to help with accurate tracking. The couple things I like about it is the 'sleep tracker' and the constant calorie update. The sleep tracker is a little creepy but I can scroll through my previous days and see what night's I didn't sleep well or see why I'm tired. The constant calorie tracking helps me eat more. I have a habit of trying to create huge calorie deficits (which is bad bad bad) and the website and the fitbit actually show me that I burned X number of calories simply by living. This keeps me eating to keep up with it so that I do reach my daily goals.

I purchased a Anytouch Pedometer Heart Rate Watch, I like the heart rate part of it, but it does not do what I need other than that. I too am looking at the fitbit wanting it to track calories burned during activities such as cycling and walking and pretty much any exercising I do. If any one knows if fitbit does that or if there is a machine that does that people are aware of I would love to find out!

I have a fitbit as of a couple of days ago. What's really good about this thing is it counts all calories burned...not just activities, but calories burned when idle. Also the website (after you set up and give details etc like here) gives you a general idea of how many calories you should aim for during the day, and it keeps adjusting depending on your activity level every time you sync the device. So instead of MFP having a set in stone calorie goal...this website has an ever adjusting one. As a result, I'm now ignoring the MFP calorie goal and just using MFP to log food with the fitbit website to monitor progress and stats.

There are a couple of downsides to it though. For one, as another person mentioned...when in a car or public transport, it still counts steps and stuff (but you can add them to activities on the fitbit website to adjust things) and another downside is that its impossible to add calories burned to MFP since it counts all calories burned during the day. So I guess thats both a good and bad thing.

Overall though, I have to say I'm really liking it so far. :-)

Although I haven't used the sleep monitoring side of it yet and may never do. I think I may leave that to my sleep cycle alarm clock app as and when I need to use it.

I am not trying to be obnoxious but does it track everything you burn, if I went for a bike ride and then walked on a treadmill and then did karate, does it track all activities (exercise) that one could possibly think of? I really can't spend the $100 on each since I need two if I don't have more info, if you can answer that could you please? Thanks for everything to this point and your answer is very helpful.

I have a fitbit as of a couple of days ago. What's really good about this thing is it counts all calories burned...not just activities, but calories burned when idle. Also the website (after you set up and give details etc like here) gives you a general idea of how many calories you should aim for during the day, and it keeps adjusting depending on your activity level every time you sync the device. So instead of MFP having a set in stone calorie goal...this website has an ever adjusting one. As a result, I'm now ignoring the MFP calorie goal and just using MFP to log food with the fitbit website to monitor progress and stats.

There are a couple of downsides to it though. For one, as another person mentioned...when in a car or public transport, it still counts steps and stuff (but you can add them to activities on the fitbit website to adjust things) and another downside is that its impossible to add calories burned to MFP since it counts all calories burned during the day. So I guess thats both a good and bad thing.

Overall though, I have to say I'm really liking it so far. :-)

Although I haven't used the sleep monitoring side of it yet and may never do. I think I may leave that to my sleep cycle alarm clock app as and when I need to use it.

I am not trying to be obnoxious but does it track everything you burn, if I went for a bike ride and then walked on a treadmill and then did karate, does it track all activities (exercise) that one could possibly think of? I really can't spend the $100 on each since I need two if I don't have more info, if you can answer that could you please? Thanks for everything to this point and your answer is very helpful.

Yes it does, but its nondescript. It just counts the loss, not how you are losing the calories.

I've had a Fitbit for over a month now and I love it. I use MFP to log my calorie intake, as the database is so much better than Fitbit, but I use Fitbit to log all exercise. The only thing with Fitbit is that it doesn't record activities where you're still a lot of the time. It picks up body movement so with stuff like yoga and weight lifting when you're not moving your body a lot then it won't accurately track it. For yoga and strength training I either use MFP or just log it on the Fitbit website or app. Honestly, I rarely use the app but it comes in handy from time to time.

You have to be next to the docking station for the Fitbit to sync up and that's a bit inconvenient because I can't check throughout the day when I'm out running around. The actual Fitbit itself keeps track of steps taken, miles gone, calories burned, and flights of stairs climbed which is nice to have at your fingertips. It also syncs with MFP and, according to how many calories Fitbit says you've burned, it'll add the extra calories in as exercise on MFP so that you can take into account the extra calories you can eat.

Another thing I really like about it is that it breaks your day down into 4 categories, the amount of time you're sedentary, lightly active, fairly active, and very active. That's really helpful in seeing how your day was and how active or inactive you were. There's a function that records sleep and the tracker comes with a wrist band. I found it really uncomfortable to wear the wrist band at night and the Fitbit kept falling off so now I just hook it onto the collar of my shirt and it works just as well! It tells you what time you went to bed, how long you were in bed, how many times you woke, and the amount of time you were asleep. I find it so interesting.

Hope any of that helped!

Everyone was extremely helpful for me, thanks

Not sure if this has been posted in other posts, but just wondering where you purchase the Fitbit in Australia? I was planning on buying it from Amazon, but was worried about the charger not suiting Australian power points?