Fitbit
 

Hey ladies! I am looking at getting a fitbit in the near future. I have looked at both versions the one and the zip. I was wondering if any of you had an experience with either one and what your thoughts were about them! Thanks :-)

slo2250 I have been on the verge of buying one of those little suckers for MONTHS. I just can't pull the trigger! I decided this morning, after my workout, while eating breakfast, that I will buy myself one as a healthy reward after losing 50lbs total. For my 20 lb loss i bought my self the Polar f4 HRM, and a LOVE IT. It makes my workouts even more gratifying.

I work a sedentary job (librarian), getting up from my desk is a real challenge. Right now, I would be more likely to get the ZIP, just becuase I don't care about the sleep tracking thing. But I really like how the flex (coming this spring) allows you to set goals and can be worn in water.

Mostly I just love how they have such awesome graphs and it syncs with your computer. I am techy like that, and data excites me.

Best of luck!

I have had the Zip since October & totally love love love it, such a friendly little inexpensive tracker, yet it has had a huge impact on my fitness.

I have a fitbit ultra and loved it!! It's NOT waterproof and the first one I had actually stopped working because I wore it on my bra and the sweat from going to the gym made it stop working.

I contacted customer service because I had it for less than a month and they replaced it free of charge. Since then, I would wear it wrapped in one of those snack size plastic baggies and in the hidden pocket in my yoga pants. It's perfectly fine to wear it in your bra if you're just doing normal walking activity, but when wearing it at the gym, definitely keep it away from moisture.

I also recently got the WW Active Link and I'm really liking that right now. I am stuck on the plateau of death right now, so I figured I would switch things up a bit.

Thanks ladies! I am leaning more toward the zip! Hopefully I'll order one before the month is over :-)

I had to google this to see what a fitbit is, LOL. Nice device! I think I'll ask for this for Mother's Day.

I'm not on WW but I saw this thread. Do any of you use the sleep tracker? That part fascinates me but I think I'd be waking up all the time just to wonder if it's working!

Does it motivate you to take more steps, take the long way through the store, etc. by you watching it like a pedometer? Or is it more than that?

I want one because I like gadgets and numbers but I don't want to become obsessed with it!

I'm curious about the whole sleep thing too... I've been using the Nike FuelBand which I've secretly become addicted too, but it doesn't track your sleeping.... And I really wasn't interested in that, so it didn't matter too much to me... But I've been wanting to try out the FitBit for a while now... So I finally went ahead an ordered one this morning on a whim (damn Amazon and their one-click ordering...lol...) So I should have it tomorrow.... so I can start playing around with it this weekend...

GREAT questions...I have been looking too! I am NOT into the WW active link at all, doesn't give me enough information. I do swim lots, so that would be a key piece for me and I know I sleep like poop!

Any more info!?

Awesome! I will be ordering mine in a week or so as a birthday present to me! lol...what one did you end up getting?

LOL tripswitch @ one-click ordering, love it! We need a full report please!! And I wouldn't be able to use the sleep monitor for a while because I'd be too excited to sleep knowing it was tracking me LOL!!!

I'll definitely do a report on it once I have it up and running.... I just hope it's not a thread entitled "My FitBit Says My Sleep Is Total Crap!"... :D

LOL!!! I cracked up at this image of you smiling and giggling in your sleep due to your excitement.

If I got one, I think it would tell me my sleep isn't up to par!

Sooooo I am thinking of waiting to order the Flex!

Thoughts?

My DH (who is on WW with me) is waiting for the Flex. I decided to go for the One which I've had for about a month. I love, love, love my Fitbit. It has motivated me both with regard to exercise and eating in a way that my ActiveLink didn't motivate. I record what I eat at MyFitnessPal which talks to Fitbit so I can look at any time of day and see my calorie deficit for the day which I find highly motivating.

Since I got my Fitbit DH and I have started taking a 40 minute walk every day (gives me 4000 steps or so). We are soon going to up it to 60 minutes a day.

As someone with a sedentary life (sit at work and have a 1 story house), I found that I wasn't taking many steps. This motivates me to take more and if I can't walk on a day I am even more motivated to go use the rowing machine.

Also I'm really hooked on trying to meet my calorie deficit goal each day (I am for a 750 calorie deficit each day).

Anyway to answer a few questions.

The sleep tracker thing is not all that accurate. However, once you use it for awhile you can see what is or isn't accurate. Basically for me it way underestimates when I get to sleep. It will say I've fallen asleep in 15 minutes when I was awake for an hour. It is based upon movement and so if I am still it will think I'm asleep. So that early part tends to be inaccurate. On the other hand, it seem accurate in showing when you wake up and move during the night and it gives me a relative comparison of how much sleep I got and how restful it was. The night it showed me waking up 19 times was a night I didn't sleep well. The night I woke up 3 times was an exceptionally restful night. The main takeaway I've gotten from the sleep tracker is that I don't get enough sleep.

Flex v. One - I like the idea of the wrist for the Flex. I keep my One in my pocket and I do worry I will lose it or launder it. I also like that the Flex is more water resistant than the One. The negative to me with the Flex - that was a dealbreaker - is that you don't get the display that you get on the One. The Flex gives you I think 4 dots. With my One I can look at it and see my steps and my calories burned and what time it is and a couple of other things. It does sync with my computer wirelessly but that wouldn't help me if I was out and about. That may or may not be important to you. It is important to me and isn't important to DH. Right now I have an Android phone that it won't sync it. If I had an iPhone it would sync wirelessly and I might feel different then.

I think THIS just made me change my mind! I like to see things! THANKS:carrot:

I love my Fitbit. I had the Ultra but it cracked after about 10 months and they replaced it for free with the One. Fitbit customer service is amazing! I even got to keep the cracked one (it still works!) and my husband uses it sometimes. I don't really use the sleep tracker.

The One has a lot of upgrades. I like the vibrating silent alarm clock and wireless updating. Plus, they redesigned the case to prevent that cracking problem the Ultra had.

I love my fitbit. I'm on my 3 one. If you get one, get a leash for it. I lost mine off my bra during Christmas shopping. The other one broke but was replaced for free from the company. Link it to every site you can. I can link it to my work wellness thing and more. I just love it. I have the ultra. One day I hope to get the one. I like that there is no month subscription unlike other trackers

See this has me a little bit concerned, because I've heard of a lot of people losing the thing... I've been wearing the Nike FuelBand which I've been really into since I got it and since it's a wristband there is no chance of it falling off...

I'm getting the FitBit anyway just to check it out compared to the FuelBand so we'll see... and I'll be curious to see what people have to say about the FitBit Flex... which I'll probably try at some point too since that's more of a direct comparison with Nike's FuelBand...

I really wonder why they didn't give it a display like the FuelBand has... the only thing I can think of is that maybe they were trying to keep the cost down... and it does look like the Flex might be lighter and smaller than the FuelBand, so I'm waiting to see one in person when they're out to compare that... and it definitely seems like Nike and FitBit are marketing to very different demographics too...

Fitbits are great little gadgets
 

I do use the sleep tracker, and it's very interesting. For example, this morning I recorded that I went to bed at 10:40 pm, and woke up at 7:00 am. My tracker told me it took eight minutes to fall asleep, I woke up 14 times (shows a little graph on-line to indicate when you were awake). You can also see by the graph how long you woke up for. I'm only aware of waking up a couple times last night, and one was for a phone call at 5:45 am
(wrong number!) You wear it on a band on your left wrist, and enter your times into your database on-line. I love my little Fitbit, encourages me to take more steps and climb more stairs. (Also shows how many stairs you climb and calories burned during the day. It's well worth the money for me.

Thank you, Fredlr!! I am absolutely fascinated!! And boo about the wrong number, I hate that!! Better than a hang-up though!

Does anyone have the Fitbit Zip, and if so how do you like it? Trying to decide between that or WW Activelink, but leaning towards the fitbit as it doesn't have the monthly fee.

Oh and how do you convert the fitbit into WW activity points?

I think I will go buy one at Target today!

Okay, I bought it, but now I am wondering...do I really need a $100 pedometer?!?!?!

I got mine today and I'm wondering the exact same thing... Lol...

So far I'm not finding it motivating like the Nike FuelBand that I've been using... And it's estimate of calories is way off compared to my FuelBand...

I guess I'll play around with it for the next week... But so far I'm pretty underwhelmed... I just really like the FuelBand better...

Oh, well... Live and learn.... Maybe my Mom might want to use it... If not I'll probably just give it to one of friends... and I'll just stick with my FuelBand...

Talk to me about this FuelBand? :)!

The FuelBand is from Nike and it's basically an activity tracker that's a wristband... it tracks steps and calories burned... and you earn Nike "Fuel" for your activity... so you set a "Fuel" goal for the day and then you go out and do what you need to to earn it for the day... which I've been finding pretty fun... So I just put it on in the morning and than do what I need to do to make "Goal" for the day... so it definitely has me moving a lot more to do that...

I think FitBit came out with the Flex to compete with it... So I'll be curious to try one of those out to see how it compares once I can get my hands on one...

The FitBit One is starting to grow on me and I got a chance to check out a bit more of the web site which seems pretty nice.. and since it tracks some different things I'm gonna keep playing around with it... but I'm not gonna wear the thing 27/7 or anything like that...

The one thing so far that I didn't like at first is the way that the FitBit tracks calories burned, since it's giving you a total of calories burned based on BMR + all of your activity... The FuelBand just gives you calories burned based on your activity... So for instance when I got up this morning the FitBit said that I had already burned 600 calories even though I wasn't wearing it and it just sat on my desk all night... where as with the FuelBand when I put that on in the morning it's at zero since I haven't done anything yet...

So what I do is when I hit 400 calories burned on my FuelBand from activity I'll go ahead and give myself 4 AP's... which doesn't really matter to me since I don't eat any back unless I've earned more than 5 AP's in a day (so roughly 500 calories burned)

Sooo which one to buy?!?!? Generally, I am training for some sort of race or I swim, so I know I get enough movement in and really I am not planning on eating any AP....soooo I think I just want a new gadget :)!

One of my friends has the Jawbone, it's another wrist activity monitor like the Fuelband and Flex. It plugs directly into her iphone to download the data. She can set a goal to hit each day (say, 10k steps a day), and it also monitors sleep like (I think) Fitbit does. Around $129 if I'm not mistaken. She really loves it.

I've had a pedometer before and the fitbit does way more than that. It helps if you like to see numbers and are motivated by more exact numbers.

The issue I had with the ActiveLink is that everything is geared to percentage of your goal for that day (you see the baseline on screen but you don't see percentage to baseline). You don't see number of calories burned or how many were burned by a particular activity.

Now - for some people that doesn't matter. They get super motivated by the ActiveLink and knowing percentage to goal and if they have earned activity points and how many is all they want.

For me, I didn't find that motivating. I find the information in the Fitbit motivating. For me the absolute key is recording calories eaten (I do it at MyFitnessPal) and sending that info to the Fitbit website so I can always see what kind of deficit I have for the day. If I am aiming for 750 deficit, then I will watch what I eat toward the end of the day if I'm running behind on that. Or, I'll go do some more activity. It changes my behavior.

I do activities other than walking such as rowing which I do name on the Fitbit.

The real proof is in the weight loss or lack thereof. Back in the old days (before ActiveLink) I lost 1/4 to 1/2 pound a week on average. I never knew why since I followed the eating program very closely and I exercised 5 days a week.

When I got my ActiveLink - all was revealed. Despite my exercise with my sedentary life I wasn't meeting my baseline. No wonder I lost slowly. While ActiveLink was illuminating to me, it didn't help me lose. In 6 months, wearing my ActiveLink every day, I gained 10 pounds.

I've had the Fitbit just over a month and have lost 4 pounds (which for me is a huge, huge amount). I love the display on the Fitbit One and when I am out walking for example, I will check it to see how far I've walked and how many calories I've burned and it helps motivate me.

Do you already have some sort of HRM type sport watch? Because if not... That would probably be a better type "gadget" to have if you're training for races... Are you talking about running? Because than you could get something with GPS so you could have accurate speed/distance/pace... I use to use a Garmin... But now I train with a Suunto... and that watch does everything... altitude... barometric pressure... I mean it lets you know when the weather is about to change... Plus all the HR stuff... It's like wearing a mini exercise physiology lab on your wrist...

Oh, and as far as know none of the "activity" monitors are waterproof... I don't train in the pool with a HRM... But I do wear one under my wetsuit when I race for the swim leg in the triathlons that I do...

Yeah...I like that the Fitbit works with MFP and SP. I like to bring up MFP before Ive even eaten or logged anything I can already see the adjustment for calories burned. I don't eat them back. I just like seeing the way they are applied to my day there. At SP I am an occasional drop by member and when I log in I always get several trophies pop up for my fitness minutes. I just like that they automatically synch up there whenever I get around to visiting.

I have a Garmin watch...yes running! I don't like a HRM at all, makes me slow down because I work too hard...bah ha ha ha!

If you have Walgreens in your area, you can sign up for their Walk With Walgreens program and your FitBit will sync to the Walgreens site. You get balance rewards points for weighing in and walking. It's nice to get a reward for doing something that is good for you.

That's a great benefit, thanks for sharing QuilterInVA!

Between syncing with myfitnesspal and now the Walgreens benefit I think I really want one.

Now to convince the husband I need another gadget!! :carrot::carrot::carrot:

Really? I do Walk with Walgreens and have always logged my own walks there. I guess I need to synch up! Thanks!

I posted in another thread about my Fitbit One (I think it's in the Does it Work? section). But I love mine too. It says nice things to me when I wake up!

I've had pedometers before and I thought my Omron was really good, but it's still nothing compared to this. I usually forgot to wear the pedometer and it was bulky. I wear my Fitbit One constantly.

The pedometer rarely motivated me to actually move more. The Fitbit does! I check it throughout the day, I set mini-goals for myself throughout the day now (to walk a certain number of steps by a certain time). I always want to earn the next badge! I love getting an email saying I've walked 250 miles, or I've climbed the Statue of Liberty in steps. I share my badges on Twitter. You can't do that with a pedometer!

The sleep tracker works by just holding the button down, which starts a stopwatch. You wear it around your wrist with a velcro band, and it tracks how long you take to fall asleep, how many times you wake up in the night, and how long you stayed in bed for the night (you stop the stopwatch the same way you start it). It only measures movement, so it doesn't track whether you are having deep sleep or anything. You just sync it and then you can see a graph showing the whole night. I use it most nights but I'm not obsessive about it. If I don't use the sleeptracker feature, I just keep the thing clipped to my shirt so I don't forget to put it on in the morning.

And the clip that came with mine is extremely secure. I haven't worried once about losing my Fitbit.

Count me in as waiting for the Flex. I've heard varying dates (April 28, May 25) so who knows when it is coming out, but when it does, I'm getting one.

:)

Omigosh, just googled it.....want!!!!

Btw, dumb question coming, but what is "DH"? Is it "dear husband" maybe? :-s

Hoping to get my hubs moving with me after May. He has been working so hard in school over the past 4 years and is finally done in a few weeks, and I know he wants to get back in shape. Hopefully I'm setting a good example. Maybe this Fitbit would be a nice grad gift. So proud of him :)