This post contains affiliate links. This post is not sponsored nor endorsed by Fitbit and is my unbiased review of their product, namely the FitBit Charge HR which I purchased with my own money. I have not been compensated for this post.
If you’re like me, you have been overweight your entire life and while you know you need to do something about it and get active, you struggle to make your way to the gym… no matter how much you are paying for that all-inclusive membership. Ugh. Since I was having such a hard time making a trip to the gym part of any sort of routine, I wanted to find something easily integrated into my every day. That’s when I started looking into the Fitbit.
It’s true, there are dozens of popular pedometers out on the market right now. I looked into a few and found something about each one that I liked. In the end, the FitBit had some key things that I was looking for:
Community: One of my favorite “features” of the Fitbit. is the ability to track progress among your friends. There’s even the ability to “cheer” one another on utilizing the FitBit App (seriously, it’s really cute and it sends a little notification to your phone if you allow for that sort of thing). Building a strong group of friends all looking to be more active whatever their reason, is one of the best parts of being a FitBit user in my opinion.
Easy Integration: The FitBit is more than a step counter – it’s an entire system. The app which is available for both Android and iOS as well as Windows devices is simple to use and understand. Best part is that you can sync your tracker (your FitBit device) and view all of your information from your smart phone or your computer!
There’s also a growing number of apps that seamlessly mesh with the FitBit. Check out this awesome list which includes well-known weight loss apps like MyFitnessPal and Walgreens Balance Rewards.
Sleep Tracking: Because I have narcolepsy, the information about my sleep patterns that FitBit provides to me has become an important part of its use. Unlike my FitBit Charge HR, it’s predecessors required you to tell the tracker when you are sleeping. The Charge HR figures it out based on movement patterns (and the lack thereof) and your heart rate. It’s able to determine when you were truly asleep VS. periods of unrest where you are perhaps tossing or turning.
Data & Patterns: I’ve already mentioned the easy integration and how great the app is, but not what it can actually show you. I like numbers and graphs. I enjoy being able to see my daily activity presented to me in this format because it lets me really analyze myself. I can see for myself what days I was most active, took the most steps, had the higher heart rate, or burned the most calories. I can process that information and compare it to what I was doing that day – Was it a busy day at work? Did I decide to take the longer route to the bathroom? Did I park a little further away from stores that day? It all adds up and all of the data being provided to me helps boost my activity level!
Getting Personal…
So now that you know a little bit about what the FitBit is, here’s the big question:
It is recommended that in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, you should be taking at least 10,000 (10k) steps per day. My first week with my FitBit left me feeling kind of bummed out about my activity level. While I’m not working a job that keeps me as active as ones I’ve held previously, it seemed like I was doing a lot of walking around but barely making 3,000 steps.
I soon realized that when am at work, I am not walking normally – I don’t swing my arms because I’m usually holding someone’s broken jewelry. I was taking a lot of steps and not getting any credit for them. I changed my FitBit’s settings to “sensitive” and feel I am getting better tracking results. I still take the step count overall with a grain of salt knowing that it’ll never be able to record everything.
Having said that, I do place an importance on my overall activity level. Since I started wearing my FitBit Charge HR, I have made the conscious effort to take more steps. Yes, that means as awesome as rockstar parking at the mall is, it doesn’t do a thing for my figure. I’ve been parking a few extra spaces away just to get in a few more steps. I may not have made it to the 10k mark with my steps, but I did manage to push myself to walk over 5,000 steps daily. It’s my personal goal right now to at least make it to the 5k mark.
I love that I have my own goals. FitBit encourages you to see how small steps can make a big impact and that’s exactly what it’s doing for me. It’s giving me tools I need to make small and lasting changes in my lifestyle. I may not be making it to the gym regularly, but I am making a real difference in my life with the help of this product.
Do you FitBit?
Do you have a FitBit? I’d love if it you’d share your experience with it – positive and negative. Has it helped you become more active? I’d love it if you’d add me so we can rally together and support each other!
Don’t have a FitBit? That’s okay too. Has anything in this post convinced you to purchase one in the future? Do you think it would improve your lifestyle?
Okay, fine! You’ve convinced me! :-) No, really, I’ve been thinking about it for awhile, but the way you laid out the details here was very, very helpful.
I’ve always been curious about FitBit! Glad it’s working out for you :)
Waaw Seems to be interesting,.. I would love to use FitBit..
I have a FitBit but have not even started to use it as of yet because I’ve been so busy watching a little boy as well ask my granddaughter this summer. I’m excited to start using it but wait until September when things slow down. Everyone I know that owns one, loves them.
I need to get back into using it. I got carpal tunnel a couple of months back and I had to stop wearing it. It wasn’t caused by the FitBit… but it was bothering me a lot while I was injured.