[Snoofie]

I'm a tech junkie. I mean, really, I am. I already owned the WW pedometer, and when I embarked on my ill-fated calorie counting adventure last year and saw the various Fitbit incarnations, I just OMG had to have one, because that's how I am. And it was interesting to see how many calories I burned in the run of a day, but obviously it didn't do a **** of a lot in terms of helping me navigate the waters of calorie counting, or else I wouldn't have 25 pounds to lose. Bah!

But now I'm back on the WW wagon (god, yes, AGAIN) and I'd still like to be able to use my Fitbit, because I have a tendency to go through WW pedometers like nobody's business (I'm on my fourth; do not even ASK, I don't even know, seriously.)

So. Is there anyone out there who actually uses a Fitbit device while doing WW? If so...*how* do you use it? I downloaded an app that "supposedly" took your Fitbit "very active minutes" and converted them to APs (I think it was called Fitwatcher) but it never worked for me. It was basically useless. I may have been using it incorrectly but I don't think so. So! Any advice? Like I said, I really would like to actually get some use out of my Fitbit. I'd hate to think that I spent over a hundred bucks on something I can't use. :/

(I should also add in the fact that I don't wear my WW pedometer all day long. I only use it when I'm actually purposely exercising. So I suppose if nothing else I could just use the Fitbit as a true measurement of how many steps I'm actually taking in the run of a day.....)

[QuilterInVA]

I'm a tech junkie, too. I have a FitBit but found it lacking and bought a BodyMedia Core. That is wonderful - also about $100. It tells you exactly how many calories you burn during the day as well as steps, measures sleep, etc. It's the one used by Biggest Loser. Far superior to FitBit.

[Snoofie]

OK, thanks for the reply, but I'm not interested in buying anything else. I already have the Fitbit and it's what I plan to use....which is why I asked if anyone else had one and how they use it in conjunction with WW.

Even if I had the means right now to buy another gadget..which I don't....I wouldn't. I already have what I have.

ETA: I'm also *definitely* not interested in anything used on The Biggest Loser. I despise that show and everything they promote.

[tarragon]

I love my fitbit. Just upgraded from the Ultra to the One. My Ultra broke a while ago & I'm getting back into wearing it regularly. I don't count AP except for things like Body Pump or if I go over 10k steps a day. In general eating my APs never seems to work for me so I mostly just track for the (self) competition aspect.

I have to say, the BodyMedia Band didn't work for me. I was really self-conscious about it & it showed in nearly all of my work clothes. It's sitting in a drawer now with ten months left in my subscription. I wonder if I can sell it . . . It definitely confirmed to me that there's never just one way. It didn't do anything that my FitBit doesn't also do (steps, cals burned, sleep, etc) from what I noticed.

[Serenity100]

I don't use one personally, but I think if you search fb you probably can find a fb fitbit/ww group.

[Snoofie]

Originally Posted by tarragon

I have to say, the BodyMedia Band didn't work for me. I was really self-conscious about it & it showed in nearly all of my work clothes. It's sitting in a drawer now with ten months left in my subscription. I wonder if I can sell it . . . It definitely confirmed to me that there's never just one way. It didn't do anything that my FitBit doesn't also do (steps, cals burned, sleep, etc) from what I noticed.

That's another reason that I much prefer Fitbit to the BodyMedia stuff (aside from the Biggest Loser connection, which honestly turned me off from it from the get-go): If I pay $100 for a fitness gadget, I damn well better not *have* to pay a monthly subscription fee to get the benefits of it. Yeah, my Fitbit cost a bit, but I don't have to pay a penny more in subscription fees, and that was a huge thing for me. And from what I can see from the BodyMedia website, their stuff doesn't track anything that my Fitbit One doesn't track. I'm like you -- I don't typically *use* my APs, but I like to track them because I like to compare how many I build up from week to week.

And as an added bonus....my One is comfortable and doesn't show at all, not even in my work clothes. That's a huge thing for me.

[Koshka]

I have a Fitbit and use it with Weight Watchers (I've talked about this a fair amount on my blog).

Anyway, I do a couple of things. First, I record all my food in MyFitnessPal and MyFitnessPal talks to Fitbit and so I can see my calorie deficit each day. In truth, I really pay much more attention to this than I do to WW points or to earning activity points. I follow the WW food plan but mostly I try to have a good calorie deficit between calories I burn and calories I eat and I use the combination of MFP and Fitbit to do that.

That said -- at times I have recorded Activity Points. When I was walking a lot, I basically would go into etools and go to activity tracker. At the bottom of the page, click on add steps. Set my stride length to match that in Fitbit.

Then put in my number of steps for the day (I wear the Fitbit all day long). I select "All Day" for Duration. Basically this will cause you to have to meet a baseline before you earn activity points. For me, about 4900 steps equals my first activity point. But, 6700 steps is 2 activity points and 8500 is 3.

So, that takes care of activity points for step based activity.

As you probably know the Fitbit measures movement, not effort. So activity that takes a lot of effort and burns a lot of calories really won't show up on the Fitbit as burning many calories. In short, non-step based activities don't do much.

Due to an injury and a knee problem I'm actually discouraged from walking now, so my step count is really low (way below baseline). But I do other activity. For example, I use an exercise bike and an elliptical. For those I use a heart rate monitor (bluetooth) which talks to my iPhone which talks to Digifit which talks to Fitbit. Basically those activities are written from Digifit to Fitbit and the calorie burn is determined based upon heart rate. This is then shown as an activity in Fitbit.

I don't actually bother to record these for Activity Points in WW since I don't care about Activity Points (because I just pay attention to my calorie deficit). But, from reading the WW forums, I know that some people use 80 calories of exercise to equal 1 Activity point when using a heart rate monitor. So, if I was going to record Activity Points that is probably what I would do.

Note that WW has stated that it is going to open up its platform to fitness trackers so they can directly interface with etools. WW has been testing Fitbit in Germany. From what I have read Fitbit is working much like the Active Link works. That is the data from Fitbit is uploaded to WW and is then converted to Activity Points. I suspect that this will come to the US in 2015 but nothing has been announced yet, so no real idea of timing.