Hi. Just wanted to get everyone's feedback about the fitbit. I am really liking mine to help track sleep and activity. I am not having such great luck with their calorie allotment and reaching goals, however. The fitbit gives me a range of 1900-2100 daily but if I eat at that range, which it says is the hardest setting, I loose very slowly and fight bloat. So this week I've gone back to my own calorie allotment of 1500-1750 ish and the scale is moving again, quickly.
I love this little tool. Should I tweak my stride settings or whatever? Are you guys finding it accurate math-wise? I'll continue to use it b/c it's so cool but I think something has to be adjusted...ideas anyone?
I have found the count pretty accurate for steps. The stairs climbed is way out of touch with reality. There is a large hill on the drive to my mother in laws house that I get credit for 12 flights of stairs for driving up and down.
Calories.... I guess I have been using the fitbit as an excuse to eat more. Trying to cut myself some slack since my father in law died and I am working out of town.
Hmmm...that's interesting. Mine is accurate for stairs. My friend runs and they get stairs points for running up hills. I know you can tweak your settings on your dashboard so maybe I'll fiddle with those. I do know that other people have had similar problems with other apps that add back calories for exercise. I don't think that's something I want to do right now, maybe for maintenance. This last week I went back to my own calorie range and things are moving along nicely so I'll stick with my own calorie allotment and use the fitbit for tracking my sleep, activity, and food intake. If nothing else, I will get to see my habits charted so I can use them for reference.
It is tough to lose those we love and even harder to be away from family and our normal lives during these difficult times. Just do your best to keep developing your healthy habits.
Well, phooey, I posted in this thread earlier, or at least thought I did, and it didn't post. My internet connection must've fizzled out.
I use the fitbit, too, and I love it! I've had it since September, and am now in the weight range I wanted to be in. I have the old kind that doesn't measure for stairs.
Yeah, there are all kinds of ways you can fuss with your settings, and there are different things you can focus on. I don't always look at the "You can eat X more calories today" because it often inspires me to eat more when I'm really not hungry and don't need it.
As long as I know I'm eating an adequate amount (and that's never a problem for me!), I don't care if it says I'm under goal for calories eaten.
When I'm in weight loss mode, I will try to burn 500-1,000 more calories than I eat, no matter what those numbers specifically are. If I do that consistently, I lose weight.
When I'm in maintenance mode, I simply try to keep it about equal.
This is the greatest tool ever for weight management. My activity level can vary wildly, and I like to get a reading on that. It really does make a difference! I will wear this thing forever, and I will never have a weight problem again!
Besides that, I have Fitbit friends on Facebook who like to get into friendly competitions. Because of that, one guy has challenged me to do 15,000 steps every day for the next week. So I'm going to do it. I wouldn't necessarily decide to be that active if it weren't for the challenge. (I can't let him beat me. I beat him this week -- I can do it again!)
I Love my little fitbit and I do feel lost without it. I especially like that it keeps a more accurate account of Calories burned then the treadmill or eliptical does. I feel the fitbit is more accurate then the machines, so I tend to rely on that.
I like the sleep tracker, that has really helped me make sure I get 8 hours of sleep every night.
The food tracker does great and I feel it's rather accurate. (I do tend to try and over estimate on my calories if I am not 100% sure of something, so I go high)
Add me to people loving their fitbits I still use FitDay for food tracking because I've got 4+ years worth of foods added and don't want to start that over.
I have found it's great with actual stairs but really bad with hills. It thinks one uphill walk is multiple flights of stairs. Overall I do think it's fairly accurate though and love the additional challenges. Right now I'm working on my sedentary to active ratio.
I just looked around the FitBit website to find the answer about hills. Apparently it counts every 10 feet of elevation as a flight of stairs, so in a hilly place like Vermont I get 20 flights of stairs on a one hour walk!
I have only had mine a few days. I use Lose It to track my calories and I rely on Lose It's calorie budget as it seems pretty accurate, and I use FitBit to track my exercise. I haven't done the stride length calibration yet, and am finding that the distances I am given by the device are off by quite a bit. I did a 4 mile fast walk (14 minutes per mile, validated by a GPS watch) and FitBit said I did 5 miles at an 11 minute pace. But other than the tweaking that I will need to do in time, I find the constant tracking of my activity is really movitvating for me. While I am doing laundry, ironing, watching tv in the kitchen, I find myself marching in place, or finding reasons to walk from one end of the house to the other just to log more steps. But I rely on Lose It to give me a reasonable calorie budget, which goes down as i log weight loss, which makes sense.
There's a thread in the community forum on the Fitbit site titled "Friends needed" -- I went ahead and posted in there and sent friend requests to everyone who posted in the thread. If you go there and click on "Queen Sarah," you can send me a friend request -- That's a good way to get started (Several months ago, I posted a similar thread, and got a lot of friend requests!)
But the Fitbit community is sort of difficult for regular communication. I hardly ever go to the forum. Fitbit became more "social" for me when some of my Facebook friends bought Fitbits. It's just easier to communicate on Facebook.
There is also a pretty active Fitbit Facebook group.
Admittedly when I had my Fitbit I relied on how much calories I burned and less on their food calorie counter (I use Sparkpeople for that.) I basically made sure I walked or burned about 500+ calories more than I consumed that day (or if I'm feeling lazy 200 calories burned more, which is basically me breaking even.) It seemed like it worked for quite a while but then I lost the device a few weeks into it I feel so lost without the tiny fitbit on my bra motivating me!
My mother is giving me hers since she lost interest (how can she?!) so I can't wait to have it back again!
Gosh, I didn't know we had so many fitbit users. I will try tweaking my settings. I am gonna download a GPS app to help me calculate my stride. tweaking my settings may help with the calorie tracking or maybe my metabolism is just a little lower than the average person b/c I have insulin resistance and I need to use my own calorie range since it's always worked just fine.
I do love my lil fitbit though and have no intention of not using it. As for fitness tracking, even if it's not perfect and I never get it adjusted, it gives me some sort of baseline to see my activity and I didn't really have that before.
I love having a number on all that miscellaneous activity I do throughout the day. It really adds up, and often amounts to more exercise than if I went for a run!
Yeah I never would have thought that on my no workout days that I still burn 2500 calories. It helps me see that maintenance calories really are a good deal higher than calories needed for loss.
fitbit users- too big and others
Trying to cut myself some slack since my father in law died and I am working out of town.
I still use FitDay for food tracking because I've got 4+ years worth of foods added and don't want to start that over. 
