Fitbit and Myfitnesspal review
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This is my one week review of using Fitbit Charge HR in tandem with myfitnesspal app. I intend to update it when I learn more as well. I'm curious about how accurate the pounds per week is.
Fitbit Charge HR is an optical based tracking fitness tracking device, which measures basal metabolism rate, heart rate, sleep duration and interruptions, steps like a pedometer, water drunk, food eaten, steps ascended/descended, and the time. It does everything fairly well but has some problems as well.
Heart rate is measured optically by these constantly flashing LEDS, that are only visible when the band is off the arm. You have the the band away from the wrist bone, like a normal watch. Doing steady state things like walking, running, heart rate is about as accurate as the ones on fitness machines that read hand pulses. When doing interval work, it doesn't register the fast changes in heart rate. I believe chest pulse bands are the best, but I don't want to wear that all day. When you mediate for a minute it measures your pulse dropping 4 bpm, and 8 after 5 minutes. When stressed your pulse will sky rocket often into fitness levels. There was a few times where it failed to record my heart rate for half the day, which may be do to it sliding out of a place or an app blue tooth bug.
BMR measurements I'm not sure how accurate they are yet, however it adds or subtracts (if you allow the option) calories from you daily calorie budget in either Fitbit's app or myfitnesspal. You need to enter your weight and height to get a baseline. I believe heart rate measurement and overall movement is calculated into it as well.
For walking its more accurate than I expected only about 2-3 steps off of 20 steps. You have to measure your steps per 20 steps, divide by 20 and get the feet measurement per step. For some dumb reason you can't simply add this to the Fitbit app, but it has to be done in the website account. This makes your steps pretty accurate. However when you sleep it sometime counts tossing as steps, so I wake up with 60 steps from sleeping! I think it calculates steps by attitude changes, not by arm swings. I was holding my hand still and got pretty accurate measurements that way. The app gives you a goal of 10,000 steps a day which is close to 3 miles a day. That's not too hard to get, although I end up going about 8000 or 9000 on average days.
For sleeping, it measures when you wake up, toss in bed (called restless sleep), what times you fall asleep and when you wake up. I'm not sure how accurate the time you fall asleep is though, I would need someone else to note that for me. If you wake up more than once per night it might be good to look into a sleep study. I may do one myself at some point.
The band itself is pretty sturdy, just difficult to put on. The fit of the watch is slightly tighter, so adjustments to the ring that holds the excess band is awkward to adjust. If your arms are hairy, its very easy to pull hair taking it off. Which you have to do every 2.5-3 days since the battery doesn't last super long. The screen itself is made out of a crappy material that scratched after the first day, so I recommend using small strips of scotch tape or cell phone screen protectors on the screen. Cut the protector so it will be slightly smaller than the screen so it doesn't fall off if it hits your clothes. Unfortunately the protector falls off after a few days, so haven't found a really good one yet.
The app itself syncs up to the watch via bluetooth, which drains cell phone battery faster. You will have to charge your phone daily. The app is pretty simple to use and everything is accessible except for step adjustments quite easily. When the battery gets low after 2.5-3 days it posts a big warning on the screen. You can sync the app with my fitnesspal as well which will send calorie data to the program. It than lets you easily compare the data as calories in, and the calories out is the fitbit data. Heart rate is measured throughout the day and shown on a graph. Unfortunately you can't zoom in to see per minute data. I'm not sure the break down in time since there isn't a legend, so it might be hourly. You can track water consumption and sleep data there as well, as well as everything else it tracks.
Myfitnesspal is my tracker app which I prefer to use over fitbits. Its more comprehensive with 500,000 or more foods (fibit has 2000 I believe), easier to scan bar codes, adjustable goals, and nutrition breakdowns. I just found out today that you can adjust your macros without paying for it. I've lost quite a bit of weight this week. Most chain restaurants have their foods uploaded to it and the portion size they use! Wegman's and places with barcodes have easy ways of add food as well. In the following weeks I will add more info as a I learn more about both app and tool.
This is my one week review of using Fitbit Charge HR in tandem with myfitnesspal app. I intend to update it when I learn more as well. I'm curious about how accurate the pounds per week is.
Fitbit Charge HR is an optical based tracking fitness tracking device, which measures basal metabolism rate, heart rate, sleep duration and interruptions, steps like a pedometer, water drunk, food eaten, steps ascended/descended, and the time. It does everything fairly well but has some problems as well.
Heart rate is measured optically by these constantly flashing LEDS, that are only visible when the band is off the arm. You have the the band away from the wrist bone, like a normal watch. Doing steady state things like walking, running, heart rate is about as accurate as the ones on fitness machines that read hand pulses. When doing interval work, it doesn't register the fast changes in heart rate. I believe chest pulse bands are the best, but I don't want to wear that all day. When you mediate for a minute it measures your pulse dropping 4 bpm, and 8 after 5 minutes. When stressed your pulse will sky rocket often into fitness levels. There was a few times where it failed to record my heart rate for half the day, which may be do to it sliding out of a place or an app blue tooth bug.
BMR measurements I'm not sure how accurate they are yet, however it adds or subtracts (if you allow the option) calories from you daily calorie budget in either Fitbit's app or myfitnesspal. You need to enter your weight and height to get a baseline. I believe heart rate measurement and overall movement is calculated into it as well.
For walking its more accurate than I expected only about 2-3 steps off of 20 steps. You have to measure your steps per 20 steps, divide by 20 and get the feet measurement per step. For some dumb reason you can't simply add this to the Fitbit app, but it has to be done in the website account. This makes your steps pretty accurate. However when you sleep it sometime counts tossing as steps, so I wake up with 60 steps from sleeping! I think it calculates steps by attitude changes, not by arm swings. I was holding my hand still and got pretty accurate measurements that way. The app gives you a goal of 10,000 steps a day which is close to 3 miles a day. That's not too hard to get, although I end up going about 8000 or 9000 on average days.
For sleeping, it measures when you wake up, toss in bed (called restless sleep), what times you fall asleep and when you wake up. I'm not sure how accurate the time you fall asleep is though, I would need someone else to note that for me. If you wake up more than once per night it might be good to look into a sleep study. I may do one myself at some point.
The band itself is pretty sturdy, just difficult to put on. The fit of the watch is slightly tighter, so adjustments to the ring that holds the excess band is awkward to adjust. If your arms are hairy, its very easy to pull hair taking it off. Which you have to do every 2.5-3 days since the battery doesn't last super long. The screen itself is made out of a crappy material that scratched after the first day, so I recommend using small strips of scotch tape or cell phone screen protectors on the screen. Cut the protector so it will be slightly smaller than the screen so it doesn't fall off if it hits your clothes. Unfortunately the protector falls off after a few days, so haven't found a really good one yet.
The app itself syncs up to the watch via bluetooth, which drains cell phone battery faster. You will have to charge your phone daily. The app is pretty simple to use and everything is accessible except for step adjustments quite easily. When the battery gets low after 2.5-3 days it posts a big warning on the screen. You can sync the app with my fitnesspal as well which will send calorie data to the program. It than lets you easily compare the data as calories in, and the calories out is the fitbit data. Heart rate is measured throughout the day and shown on a graph. Unfortunately you can't zoom in to see per minute data. I'm not sure the break down in time since there isn't a legend, so it might be hourly. You can track water consumption and sleep data there as well, as well as everything else it tracks.
Myfitnesspal is my tracker app which I prefer to use over fitbits. Its more comprehensive with 500,000 or more foods (fibit has 2000 I believe), easier to scan bar codes, adjustable goals, and nutrition breakdowns. I just found out today that you can adjust your macros without paying for it. I've lost quite a bit of weight this week. Most chain restaurants have their foods uploaded to it and the portion size they use! Wegman's and places with barcodes have easy ways of add food as well. In the following weeks I will add more info as a I learn more about both app and tool.