Your Physical Fitness Tracker Is Messing Up Your Weight Loss

20 thoughts on “Your Physical Fitness Tracker Is Messing Up Your Weight Loss”

1. I ignore all calories calculated by fitbit lollll. I only use it to count my steps to make sure I have taken atleast 8000 steps in a day and my resting heart rate.

2. My fitness tracker has a glitch that makes it measure enormous numbers for my heart rate when I try to record walking as an exercise (which I tended to do when going for a long walk with my dogs). For some reason it insists that my heart rate is in the 160-185 range when I walk – which it obviously isn't. I'm not out of breath and my heart is pounding from walking… For the other exercise settings I have tracked it seems to work properly and records heart rates in a believable range.
   Because of that glitch it obviously records enormous amounts of calories burned when I track a walk with it – so I have stopped doing that. It tracks my steps anyway and estimates the calories burned by that (it only shows acive calories anyway) so I rather take this likely underestimation than the exorbitant overestimation when I track.
   I compare the calories I burned in different workouts with each other to compare them to each other in intensity. I guess that is pretty safe with the other exercise settings I use. Especially if I compare workouts that I recorded with the same setting.

   I also don't count calories. I restrict the amount by intermittent fasting (16:8 or thereabouts – I just don't eat anything after lunch) and eat a diet including lots of vegetables and only minimal amounts of processed food items. That has so far worked for me.

3. Thank you so much! Since the beginning of this year, I'm walking 10,000 steps a day, and I am going to start a fat loss program so I intended to buy an apple watch for my workouts! I know it's not perfect, but I am such in a good healthy place mentally to start my journey, and my phone is okay for the steps but not for my workouts!!
   The iphone is not accurate, because I walk the same path everyday to do my 10,000 steps and it's not the same results, sometimes it's 10,200 sometimes 9,900 but It's ok because I know how much I walk everyday as I've been really consistent!! So not so worried for my future apple watch lol

4. I had a Fitbit AGES ago. I wore it every day for a year. Then, one day , I just took it off. I literally was like " I don't want to wear this thing anymore." My husband sold that Fitbit, a year later, because I just wasn't wearing it. I think having a Fitbit caused me some kind of stress. I know calorie counting apps do that to me. I lost like 55lbs about 6 years ago(Calorie counting, exercising). I lost it slowly over 16 months time. Then the pandemic happened. I've gained about 15lbs in the last couple years. The only reason that I know that is because I weighed myself. But being 46 years old, weight loss is a little different now. I'm just not tryna' be stressed out. I've used the information in your "How many Calories Should you be Eating?(think that's the one) video to land on a number. I'm also giving myself A LOT of time to lose 15lbs(like 12 months). I'm also gonna' have to base it on how my clothes fit and my body looks. I won't be weighing myself for the next 12 months. I can't weigh without feeling stressed out. I eat rice or pasta EVERY DAY and knowing that water weight may affect the number, on the scale, makes me unhappy. I rambled. Thank you for taking the time to read this. And thank you for everything that you do to make women, like me, understand that we can change our bodies, and it doesn't have to make us miserable.😊

5. Yeah I synced my Fitbit to my fitness pal and noticed immediately it’s doubling everything lol. It gives me wild numbers of calories burned. I’m not counting calories anyway just mostly focusing on getting 10k steps a day and being more aware of what I’m doing and eating but I could easily see it totally ruining someone’s progress!

6. My monkeybrain is very engaged by the gamification of fitness provided by these trackers. I'll find myself randomly doing an extra cardio session or walk because "te-he number go up!"

7. I have the VeryFitPro from Amazon. Definitely inaccurate but I mainly use it to just tell time 😅

8. This is all very interesting, especially considering that at my lowest weight I didn't have a Fitbit – had no clue how many calories I was burning or how many steps I got in. I just consistently worked out and tried to maintain a caloric deficit. Then I got a Fitbit and it became my Bible or something, I don't even know 😂 I'm definitely going to change my approach. Because I have been stuck at a plateau and clearly obsessing over data on a wrist watch isn't helping me.

9. Omg, the built bar puffs are horrible!!!!! Tried so many different kinds and they all have a weird taste and consistency. The red chocolate and pumpkin were the worst. Regular built bars though ohh myyy. They recently had the bites (half the size) on sale for 9.99 a box, between my bf and I we ordered 8 boxes 😱😱😱 many don't have the flavor on the wrapper and we threw them all in a box so it's a surprise every day when we grab one 🤣🤣🤣

10. I really like this video. The obsession is REAL! I will say, however, that the heart rate (at least on the Apple Watch) is alarmingly accurate. It has helped a few people I know (including myself) identify heart issues. So, while it may be inaccurate sometimes, (like you said) it is important to take notice to how you are feeling. That's what I do now, because I've resolved that I can't change some things. When I feel "icky" I check my watch or other health devices and more times than not, it correlates perfectly well.

11. I have an Apple Watch but I never use it. I personally think fitness trackers or smart watches are a waste but that’s just my opinion. I just have no need to track my workouts or need to know all of my notifications 24/7. I focus on the food I put in and the workouts and it’s lead to great success. But if it works for you it works for ya

12. I did a weight loss challenge/experiment a while ago where I wore my Fitbit charge 2 24/7 for two months and tracked every single gram of food. (Even if the packaging had a weight on it, I weighed everything just to make sure to eliminate that possibility for error, spices, condiments, liquid calories- if I had one potato chip, it got weighed out. I sure felt like a crazy scientist for that time) The deficit according to my Fitbit was only 10% off what it actually ended up being. Lost 9kg, when it “should have been” 10kg. I feel like that’s a fair amount for an outdated watch. Mine also never gives me crazy high heart rates for moderate activity, it’s a struggle to get it over 100bpm while walking. The only time I’ve seen something close to 180 was when I was running like a mad man with no prior experience, almost passing out from exhaustion and heat. I can’t speak for other fitness trackers but mine is a reliable tool in my own experience.

    Edit: You can always look into the Fitbit app to see the full bmr calories under food, if you don’t there an option for it in the settings.

13. #3 makes so much sense in why I am not losing weight! THANK YOU!!

14. I never could get into fitness gadgets after my mom had dragged me to this fitness seminar back in the 00s. Can't remember the name but majority of the audience was middle aged women with "baby weight" from 20 years ago. There was a challenge where we were split into groups and each group got a step counter that attached to a belt you wore. It was timed and each buzzer you'd swap with another member.

    One woman in my group, instead of running/stepping fast in place, just shook her hips and got "300 steps" in like 20 seconds…. I was completely dumbfounded.

    Don't get me wrong, I think fitness trackers can be a useful tool, but I wouldn't rely 100% on just a gadget alone.

15. 👍👍👍

16. I would like to see your thoughts and professional opinions on Noom! I was reading reviews and was wondering “what would FrumpyFit say?”

17. I’m always aware it seems like I’ve burnt off more calories than I have so I tend to halve the calories it says I’ve burned or by 1/4 so it’s more realistic.

18. I have an Amazon Halo. I love it! Like you mentioned, I pretty much look at my heart rate, my sleep, and I compete with myself to "do better today then yesterday". It does have a pretty cool body measurement feature on it so you can physically see the inches lost/gained (I haven't set that part up yet). I'm learning a lot from your videos… So THANK YOU❤️

19. You graduated from high school the same year as my sister

20. My fitbit seems to be pretty accurate when it comes to calories, based on the time I've had it. The days where I'm not very active it tracks close to what a TDEE calculator puts me at, and on more active days it puts me at a higher (but not outrageously high) calorie burn.

    I keep my calorie deficit consistent based on what my TDEE calculator says. I track what my calories burn via fitbit versa says and compare that to the weight I lose in a week on my deficit calories. It works out to be pretty accurate, not exactly on the nose but really close! So I don't use mine as an end-all-be-all, but it does help me stay on track a bit more!

Comments are closed.