Fitbit Charge HR: a week and a half in

Howdy, friends.

I won't bore you with tons of graphs and screenshots this time. ;)  I still haven't worn my old chest strap heart rate monitor to a class yet at the same time as wearing my Fitbit, so I will try to stop harping on the inconsistent readings. ;)  I'm hoping to do it this week, though!

The biggest "pro" of the Fitbit is the overall tracking ability - I like that it makes a deal about getting 250 steps every hour.  It doesn't seem like it should be hard to do that - and honestly, overall it's not - but some times you can get sucked into a book or playing with your kid at the table and zoooop, an hour is gone by.  I wish the Charge HR had the "reminder to move" feature that they've added to the Alta device - it vibrates at 5 minutes to the hour if you haven't gotten in your steps yet.  Would be REALLY handy to have that on the Charge HR too!

I'm also trying to increase my overall "active minutes" (defined below from Fitbit's web site) -

"All Fitbit trackers calculate active minutes using metabolic equivalents (METs). METs help measure the energy expenditure of various activities. Because they do so in a comparable way among persons of different weights, METs are widely used as indicators for exercise intensity. For example, a MET of 1 indicates a body at rest. Fitbit trackers estimate your MET value in any given minute by calculating the intensity of your activity. You earn active minutes for activities at or above about 3 METs.  To stay in line with the Center for Disease Control's (CDC’s) “10 minutes at a time is fine” concept, minutes are only awarded after 10 minutes of continuous moderate-to-intense activity."

My active minutes are all over the place.  I obviously earn them during my hour-long cardio workouts, but I don't earn them at times when I think I should, and vice versa.  The Fitbit Charge HR has the SmartTrack feature, which auto-creates workout entries for me:

"The SmartTrack™ feature available on Fitbit Alta™, Fitbit Blaze™, Fitbit Surge™, and Fitbit Charge HR™ automatically recognizes and records select exercises to ensure you get credit for your most active moments of the day."

Today it created one for my walking at Costco and the grocery store. ;)  However, it reported it as zero active minutes, even though the activity was 19 minutes.  Weird.  Happens frequently - I think 4 in one day was my highest, and just a handful of active minutes credited.

However, this thing is really uncomfortable to wear. I take it off whenever I'm sitting down, and I don't wear it to bed (negating the whole "sleep tracking" feature of course).  I've tried wearing it at different heights on my forearm and different tightnesses of the strap.  I even have phantom pain on my wrist when not wearing it.  I'm going to have to think about this to decide if it's worth the pain to keep tracking my fitness this way.

OK, I can't resist one screenshot - I smashed my goals yesterday:

woo. :)

Fitbit Charge HR: the first four days of workouts

Howdy, friends. Today marks the 4th full day with my new Fitbit Charge HR and I'm still not sure how I feel about it overall. ;) Along the right side of this post are my workout charts from my Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday's U-Jam Fitness classes. (You can click on one of them to see it larger.) I'm baffled about the heart rate readings throughout the classes. Thursday night's class was super-intense and I was out of breath frequently.  According to the chart, I spent 11 minutes in the peak heart rate zone, so that makes sense to me.  Surprised that my average calorie burn was only 11 minutes, but okay. Friday night's class was nowhere near as intense.  I wasn't really out of breath at any point, and I was stunned when I looked at the chart when I got home.  How the heck was my heart rate so much higher overall?  Peak heart rate zone for so much longer?  It really confused me - which workout was the anomaly?  Did Thursday night not get measured correctly for some reason? Well, that all got thrown out the window on Saturday.  This was another intense class - yet my "trusty" Fitbit said I was never in the peak heart rate zone!?!  I don't get it!  I sweated my butt off.  I was out of breath several times.  I definitely felt like I got a more intense workout on Saturday than I did on Friday, but I burned over 100 fewer calories?!?  I am so baffled. Then we come to Sunday.  My Sunday morning class is awesome because it's usually 90 minutes, which equals more awesome for me.  However, it had me in the peak zone for merely 7 minutes of the class, which kinda blows my mind again.  I don't disagree with the heart rates in the last half hour of class - I really was getting tired! - but I'm so baffled overall. I don't understand what's going on here, and it's so frustrating (obviously!).  I should try to wear my old heart rate monitor as well on Tuesday night (that night's instructor is one of my favorites) and compare - but it doesn't give anywhere near this level of statistics.  It will tell me the max heart rate, average heart rate and total calorie burn though, so that's better than nothing. Have you experienced such frustrations with your fitness tracker?  Any recommendations?

Fitbit Charge HR: my first 24 hours

So I wrote yesterday afternoon about my less than pleasant experience getting my new Fitbit Charge HR set up.  I wore it for the rest of the day, including my fantastic U-Jam Fitness class in the evening.  It was an intense class and I had a great time.  I was excited to see the statistics when I got home. ;)

The overall calorie burn is on target with what I've seen in past experiences with my old chest strap heart rate monitor.  It doesn't provide any pretty graphs or statistics though, so no comparison for you! ;)

I'm delighted to see that I was in "the zone" for the whole workout - surprised by some of the peaks and valleys there, but overall, it's all good.  I thought I burned more calories per minute, honestly, but again, this isn't out of the ordinary compared to my chest strap version, so I can't fault Fitbit for it. ;)  I do look forward to doing one of my elliptical workouts with this on and then comparing the numbers from the machine to the Fitbit. ;)

I am frustrated, however, that I only got credit for 5,517 steps during this workout.  Fitbit uses steps as the ranking system between friends, and I could've taken a ridiculously slow stroll for an hour and gotten more steps.  I had manually entered in my workout from before I wore the Fitbit yesterday morning, and it did not count those steps towards the amount shown on the friends list, but it did include them in my personal count for the day.  Very weird - and frankly, very frustrating.  I know it's not healthy to compare yourself to others constantly, but dang it, I want credit for my workouts!

I also got credit for 5 flights of stairs during the workout.  Um... odd.

I wore the Fitbit to bed last night, but it was so uncomfortable that I took it off before I fell asleep, so no sleep data for me.

I'm finding often that it's uncomfortable to wear - right now it's off so I can do my typing with less pain.

I wore it while I did two miles of a Leslie Sansone Walk Away The Pounds video, and though I did break a little sweat, it was by no means intense.  ;)  Interestingly, with an average heart rate of 115 bpm, heart rate zone time of 0 min peak, 5 min cardio, 20 min fat burn - I still ended up with an average calorie burn of 10 cals/min.  Whaaa?  Feels a bit demotivating, eh? ;)

One last tidbit: my son had a meltdown at the grocery store this morning, and when I got home I learned that it caused my heart rate to go into the "fat burning zone".  Ahem.

Fitbit Charge HR - first impressions

I went ahead and picked up a Fitbit Charge HR today and am currently charging it.  As far as first impressions go, I am not pleased with the user experience out of the box.

When you open the box, you see the Fitbit, a small cord and a tiny piece of plastic.  None of this is identified.  There's two pieces of paper with it - a small booklet with tiny legal disclosures and another little flyer that tells you to go to fitbit.com/setup to set up your device.  That's it.  Not particularly friendly!

I went to that url on my phone, and it directed me to download their app.  Gee, thanks.  Downloaded it, and then signed up for an account, and finally got to the point where it would let me add the device.  Apparently, my Fitbit's battery was dead, so I needed to figure out how to charge it.  Nothing in the tiny papers in the box or the completely unhelpful fitbit.com/setup site tells you how to charge the device.  Ridiculous.  I guessed at how to connect the tiny cord to the device and then plugged it into my laptop, and... nothing.  Waited a minute and then pressed the button on the side (not that anything had shown me that I should do this!), and saw an empty battery icon with a charge indicator in the middle.  Guess it's charging finally.

An hour later, I go back and see it's still charging, but I want to get this set up on my phone so I start that process again.  This time, the phone does see the Fitbit and they get all synced up.  I'm currently on the "setting up your Fitbit charge hr" screen which tells me if can take up to 10 minutes, but the status bar on the bottom of that screen hasn't moved at all in the 10 minutes since I started it.



10 minutes later with no progress, I start searching for troubleshooting online.  I reboot the Fitbit, and suddenly the progress bar scooted along quickly almost halfway, and then slowed down again.

I also have no clue how close I need to have these two devices while syncing, but whatever... it just finally finished!  It's still not fully charged though, so I'm not going to unplug it just yet.



OK, all charged and set up finally.  Annoyingly, the tap-twice to see information thing works maybe 5% of the time (grrrr).

Tonight I'll wear it to my U-Jam Fitness class for the ultimate test - if it doesn't record things accurately, then we'll have issues. ;)

Fitness trackers, revisited?

I'm pondering trying another fitness tracker again.  I bought one of the original FitBit devices back in 2009, and I did not like it and ended up returning it.  I found it wildly inaccurate, and gave up on them.  In 2011, I bought a chest strap heart rate monitor with a wrist display, and it's fine.  I still use it today, but not often - the chest strap is annoying and the display is cumbersome.  But I do wear it when I'm doing longer workouts and it's really motivating to see the calories burned!

These days, there are so many different fitness trackers out there.  I have a couple of requirements:

• continuous heart rate monitoring - especially vital during my dance fitness workouts
• display of that heart rate and calories burned
• comfortable to wear

Nice to have would be notifications from my phone. ;)

Right now, the FitBit Charge HR seems to be the best match.  However, I have some friends who love theirs - and some who HATE theirs.  From what I can find online, it's definitely a love or hate relationship.  Reliability is a big complaint, and now I'm reading some folks are having issues with the the bands breaking or falling apart.  

Do I give FitBit another chance?  Do you have a fitness tracker you love? :)

Bodybugg or Gruve or some other gadget to track activity?

Hi there internets!

I really want to track my activity levels better - I would LOVE a way to track my actual calories burned throughout the day and when I'm working out.

I bought a fitbit last year - and I returned it :( It was completely unreliable on the one thing I could measure for certain - my sleep - so I didn't trust it at all on its other readings. I was heartbroken.

I like the idea of the Bodybugg, but I don't want to wear a big bulky strap around my upper arm and call attention to myself like that. (And it's really expensive!) The Gruve sounds interesting too, but also pricey - but no armband!

I also generally fear the idea of a chest-strap heart-rate monitor, as I don't even like the pressure of my bra on my chest. ;)

Any ideas? What do you use (or what would use if money was no object)?

fitbit - not recommended

I remember hearing about the fitbit back in September 2008 - a tiny little device that monitors your activity - and your sleep, too! And it was only $99! I didn't pre-order it though - I thought it was too good to be true. But a couple of my friends jumped on the pre-order. ;) They started receiving their units in September 2009 (yes, a year later...) and the overall vibe was positive. So I went ahead and ordered. It arrived three months later.

It's a cute idea, but it completely failed for me.

Y'all might remember that I walk a lot. ;) I have used several pedometers, and I have full confidence in my current pedometer - I've counted thousands of steps with it and it's always spot-on. The fitbit was off, every single day, by 30-60%. That's completely and utterly unacceptable. It counted hundreds of steps while I was driving - and I'd even wake up with steps counted! Are you serious? I'm supposed to trust this device?

I was very curious about the sleep monitoring - you wear it on a wristband, and push a button before you go to bed (and push it again when you get up). For example, one night I went to bed at 11:30pm, and I was awake until at least 1am, but fitbit says:
You went to bed at: 11:24PM
Time to fall asleep: 15min
Times awakened: 18
You were in bed for: 10hrs 23min
Actual sleep time: 9hrs 35min

So I declare shenanigans on that! The rest of the nights were similarly off as well. It was ridiculous. :( I have big problems falling asleep, and I was immensely curious about my sleep patterns - but this device didn't help clear up anything for me since I know it was inaccurate about my falling asleep data.

I posted on their user forums, but never received any reply (even though a "staff" person was replying to other posts in the same thread after mine). So with a heavy heart, I returned it. They did pay for the return shipping, but it took a long time to get the refund (had to send them a nagging email and then it finally got refunded).

I think this is an interesting idea, but unfortunately the implementation is awful. It's a cute little device - and I'm glad it's getting people moving more - but the data is totally unreliable.

Omron Pedometer HJ-303

I recently switched pedometers, from my trusty Accusplit pedometer to a new Omron "GOsmart™ Pocket Pedometer with Superior 3D Smart Sensor Technology HJ-303". It's miles more advanced than the Accusplit, but I'm not 100% sold on it, to be honest with you.

Advantages:
- you can throw it in your pocket and it works. Supposedly you can put it in your purse or even wear it around your neck, but I haven't tried those. It's nice to not have to put it on your belt, though it does come with a little case so you can do that if you'd like.
- it saves 7 days of steps for you, resetting at midnight each night

- it also has a "trip counter", which I've used to keep track of steps each month

- enter your weight and it calculates calories burned, and also keeps track of "moderate" steps when you're walking at a certain speed

- it has a clock, and it displays the time and total steps for the day by default

Disadvantages:

- it's a bit big :/

- today it got screwy on me - I noticed around noon that it said "9:49pm" and had about 7k extra steps.  Grrrr.  So I call Omron, and the customer service girl tells me I need to replace the battery.  I've had this for less than two months - and the low battery icon isn't displayed.  WTF?  I ended up manually resetting the device, which lost my steps for the day and the "trip" counter and all that, and we'll see if it stays accurate for now.

- battery is expected to last six months, but they ship it with a "trial" battery?  Very, very lame.

- it's silent.  For me, I was so used to the quiet clicking of my Accusplit, it's taken me a long time to get used to not hearing any confirmation that the pedometer is actually working. ;)

The Omron is $45, more than $20 higher than the Accusplit.  Accusplit customer support was much more friendly - and it has their insane warranty policy printed on the device itself so if there is a problem, there is no problem. ;)

Kitchen scale

One of the things I've used countless times over this 'journey' is my trusty kitchen scale. Mine is the "Escali Primo Digital Multifunctional Scale". It's small, easy to use and pretty. ;) It comes in oodles of colors, but I went with silver (shinee!). I tare out the plate or bowl I'm using to eat with, and then add an item, tare it out, and go on my way. I can add in everything easily and it's quick to use. It uses AA batteries, which is handy so you don't need to buy any funky watch batteries or whatever to replace 'em (I haven't had to replace batteries yet and I've had it for at least two years).

Pedometer

Walking is pretty much the easiest exercise you can get, and I highly recommend buying a pedometer. Mine is a simple one from the folks at Accusplit.


I like it for several reasons:

• it counts steps, which is something that is equal for everyone (the models that count miles need to be calibrated per user, etc)
• it has a cover so you don't accidentally bump the reset button
• it has a kickass warranty, which is printed on the inside cover, just in case something goes wrong later
• it comes with a little "leash" to attach to your belt loop so in case the pedometer falls off, it's not going far
  

I track my steps every day and try to aim for an average of 10,000 steps a day (over a week). This week I've been not hitting even half that because of the crappy weather, but last Sunday I hit 19k.

It was invaluable when we went on vacation - we walked over 154 miles in 14 days, and seeing those numbers kept us motivated to keep on walking instead of taking the subway.