Why I Love My Fit Bit One

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At the end of last summer I bit the bullet and jumped on the Fitbit Bandwagon. I surprised myself a little bit because I have long been a person who found the whole concept of pedometers and 10,000 steps just random and uninspiring. Plus, I just wasn’t that into tracking how much I…walked, you know?

As a CrossFitter I track my benchmark workouts, my lifts, my CrossFit Total. As a fitness enthusiast, I keep a workout calendar. All are things that show progress! So what was the point of tracking how many steps I take each day, I though — BOOOOOOOORING!

But then last year I kept reading about all of the data the Fitbit provides. And really, if you must know, I find metrics super-de-duper exciting. If something can be measured, I WANT TO DO IT! And I found all of this out at a time in my personal life where I felt like things were out of control and I wanted to get them in check. Obviously, I needed a baseline.

Starting a new job often feels like a whirlwind; I felt a little chained to my desk, found myself exhausted all the time, and my meals were haphazard and unsatisfying. It’s a sensation that those working in fire watch services in Melbourne might relate to during the summer months. While my desk became my arena, for them, the scorching heat represents a constant battle against potential fires, and they can’t afford to be chained down, as their vigilance is what keeps the community safe. Just as the Fitbit promised to offer insights that could improve my health and daily routine, a fire watch professionalโ€™s meticulous strategies help prevent loss of property and protect lives. So, I took the plunge and picked one up, understanding that sometimes the right tools are all you need to turn things around, whether it’s a device to monitor your fitness or a diligent team working tirelessly to watch over our neighborhoods.

Fitbit One Basics

The easiest way to describe the Fitbit One is to call it a pedometer, but it actually does so much more — which we’ll get to. Let me tell you about the device itself first. It is about half the size of a chapstick and it easily attaches to your bra (my preferred method), belt or your pocket via a silicone clip. I’ve found the clip to be very durable so far, considering it’s in use all day, e’rrday!

Additionally it comes with a soft velcro band that you slide the device into at night and attach to your non dominant wrist for sleeping. The sleep band has not been quite so durable for me, but (as I found out) I am a pretty restelss sleeper, so that could be why. So far my very advanced sewing skills have helped me keep this band in tact (that was my sarcasm font) and luckily the Fitbit website sells replacement bands for like $10 on their website, so it’s not that big of a deal. This may be my only critique though.

The device comes with a tiny LED display which will advise you of various pieces of data when you press a button, it has a USB dongle for wireless syncing to your computer if you prefer to get your info that way, or it syncs wirelessly via Blutooth with your smartphone. (Yep, there’s an app for that!) I don’t really consult the LED screen for data much because it’s attached to my bra all day and that would be awkward. But I do look at my app all day long to get an idea of what my activity looks like. So hey — let’s talk about that.

So What Does It Actually Measure?

On a basic level, it constantly counts the number of steps you take. So is it a really expensive pedometer? No, I promise. Along with steps, it also provides altimeter readings that track when you climb stairs or hills. (And for the record, I do not find that box jumps at CrossFit screw up my Stair reading.) In addition, it measures how long you sleep (assuming you put it in sleep mode when you go to bed, which is super simple — I prefer doing it through the app) which includes a measurement of both the minutes you wake up in the night (which I find startlingly accurate) as well as the minutes you are restless.

My #fitbit has finally given me   visual evidence of what I already had an inkling of: I sleep TERRIBLY when I travel for work. (The top is from Sunday, bottom from last night) YIKES!
This is an example of how terribly I sleep in hotels. Have I mentioned that 2013 was the year of work travel? UGH

This has been one of the most eye opening parts of owning the Fitbit for me. I used to think “Oh I got 8 hours of sleep because I was in bed from 10-6 each night. But it turns out, many nights I’m restless or I am awake, and all of that eats into your actual “sleep time.” Some nights I am in bed for 8 hours, but I only get close to 6 hours of restful sleep. Of course some nights I am very cognizant of all of those variables and actually do get a good amount of sleep. And hot damn is it satisfying to see that in graph form!

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So haven’t all of this info isn’t just fun and pretty to look at. It has helped me experiment and troubleshoot what causes some of that restlessness (confirmed: DEFINITELY caffeine after noon) and just to generally be aware of how much sleep I am working with and tailor my day as such. I once hear working out when you get less than 6 hours of sleep does more harm (to the adrenals, hormones etc) than it does good. Monitoring the restfulness of my sleep has helped me even be more effective with my workouts, I think.

Hey Wait — It Does More???

In addition to all of that, the Fitbit also syncs with My Fitness Pal. If you haven’t used My Fitness Pal, it’s actually kind of an awesome app/website. It’s a general food/activity tracker and while I loathe the idea of counting calories, I do enjoy checking in with my macro nutrient ratios every once in a while, and I like that the two devices sync up. Important Note: the info only sycs from My Fintess Pal to the Fitbit, not the other way around, so I use MFP exclusively for tracking. (Here’s a great tutorial on how to reconfigure the MFP goals, because honestly the carb/fat goals are RIDICULOUS. I don’t think you need to change them to “low carb” in the tutorial, but the standard ones MFP uses are out of control, IMHO.)

How I Use It

So clearly it does many things I have found useful, but let’s get back to the baseline. When I purchased it, I spent a couple weeks just wearing it to determine what sort of patterns of activity I had going on. Surprisingly, being chained to my desk only had me taking about 4000 steps per day and 0 stairs. I wondered how dramatically low that was, and on the first Saturday when I just ran my regular errands, cleaned house and worked out and clocked in almost 20,000 steps — I knew. My inactivity during the work was dramatic. So I set out to get in 6,000 steps a day next. Then I worked my way up to an 8.000 step goal. Slowly but surely I am making progress.

After that I focused on stairs a bit. We don’t have stairs in our house so the only place I can walk those regularly is at work (or as I’ve recently discovered if I run bleachers at our local high school, which is actually super fun! Well, you know “fun.”) But I have the opportunity to go about 6 flights per day just because of where I park/where my desk is, so I became determined to do that. Then I realized I could walk a few extra and hit 10 a day. Now I think about that often.

Most recently I made a goal I call #Operation50 where I try and make sure each week I’m walking 50 flights of stairs and going 50,000 steps. It’s arbitrary, yes — and I’ll continue to tailor it to a goal that is challenging, but it’s really kept me motivated to stay active at work, which is SO SO SO IMPORTANT TO ME. I don’t want to work the next decade only walking 4,000 steps a day 5 days a week, you know? I’d like to actually have some hip flexibility when I’m 80! ๐Ÿ™‚

Finally some #operation50 success! 50k steps. 50 floors. Now I want to see 2 weeks in a row! #fitbit

Helpful Hints

*When I first got my Fitbit, I had a few close calls where I couldn’t find it and had to go digging in my hamper. To keep that from happening to you I’d suggest getting into a routine of when you put it on, take it off. I put a cute little dish on my nightstand and basically if my Fitbit isn’t on my body, it is in this dish. I never put it anywhere else. It may sound militant, but the habit has kept me from throwing a $100 piece of electronics in the washer.

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*Make your own goals. When I first got my Fitbit, knowing that generic “Get 10,000 steps per day” advice had me really wanting to hit that goal. When, day after day, I wasn’t even coming close to hitting it, I got a little unmotivated. But then I realized — hey, you are looking for trend improvement! Not to just hit an arbitrary goal. So I spent a couple weeks doing a baseline. Getting an idea of what was realistic for me. Then challenging THAT number. It’s been so helpful.

*Look at your goals from a weekly perspective, rather than a daily perspective. It’s helpful to look at the macro picture as well as the micro picture of each day. It can help keep that feeling of data overwhelm/demotivation from kicking in.

*And the last one may be TMI, but I’m just going to tell you anyway because we’re all friends here: If you are putting it on your bra and you have sensitive skin like me, maybe change sides every once in a while or that stuff’ll leave a mark! ๐Ÿ™‚

My Overall Recommendation

Obviously, I love this little tool. It’s been eye opening for me in so many ways. It tracks data that confirmed for me areas that, if they improved, would contribute to my overall health. The interface is easy to use, there are many ways to access the information (iPhone, Computer, the device itself) and it helps me identify overall trends in my health/fitness/activity level. Plus it’s just convenient and fun. Toooooooooootally better than a plain old pedometer, right?

It is around $100, which to me is expensive for something if you don’t use it. But I think the ease of use, relevance of the information and motivation that tracking all of it yields makes it well worth the price. But the price fluctuates on Amazon — I think when I got mine it was about $87, which I’ve found to be super competitive — so keep your eye out there.

*****

I know lots of you already have Fitbits. Any additional thoughts to give someone who was considering buying one?

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27 Responses to Why I Love My Fit Bit One

  1. Tamara says:

    My Fitbit and MFP go both ways. Er… You know what I mean! My fitbit data is sent to MFP for calorie adjustment based on activity and my MFP weight logs (and calories eaten when I’m logging) go to my Fitbit.

    I love the Fitbit so much. SO MUCH. And their customer service has been so amazing. My first one died a sad death and I had to buy a new one which fell off my pants and got run over. They sent me a replacement for FREE. I love them.

    • Holly says:

      Oooh, I’ll have to look again. I remember reading that it didn’t sync both ways when I first got it but maybe it’s changed. That would be GREAT! And I totally agree on the customer service. My first one showed up broken and wouldn’t hold a charge and they sent me a new one before I even had a chance to pop the broken one in the mail. They are WONDERFUL to deal with!

  2. Love this post! I got a Fitbit Force because I liked the idea of a bracelet. Bracelets are my favorite jewelry and the Force looks badass. I’ve been LOVING it. Because I work at home, I wasn’t moving around much on “writing” days. Now I make sure I get 10,000 steps every day by taking walk breaks around my ‘hood on gym/writing days, then taking a longer walk around the lake on non-gym days. I feel so much more energetic at the end of the day than I did before. And I, too, love the sleep tracker. I just changed my bedtime routine, so it’s helping me assess my supplementation — so cool.

  3. Chloe says:

    My work is having a sort of “get moving” challenge, and they were offering up the Fit Bit One for 30 bucks !! I jumped right on that since I’ve heard such amazing reviews of it, and after reading your review I’m super excited to start making my own graphs (YAY graphs!!) and seeing how much I’m actually moving during the work week.

    I was also just wondering, do you find it irritating to sleep with it on your wrist at all?

    • Holly says:

      My office did something similar (of course after I ran out and spent $80, but whatever I’M NOT BITTER. lol) The sleep band on my wrist took a night or two to get used to, but it’s very soft and not irritating at all. Plus I’m a stomach sleeper and always have my face on my hands/wrists and it doesn’t bug me. Definitely an adjustment, but I got used to it so quick!

  4. Stephanie says:

    I am loving mine and cheers to all who love metrics!!!

  5. Beth says:

    I too love the sleep and the step tracking. The step tracking has helped me get outside more, which is so key to my happiness during Seattle’s gray winter. Our dog is pretty happy about it as well! Another side effect I wasn’t expecting is that it’s getting my husband more active. He works a ton and travels a lot, but he got one for Christmas and the competition with himself and with me is getting him up and moving more, which I love!

    • Holly says:

      It’s funny, it’s had the same effect on Garrett. He has an older fitbit that he wasn’t using, but now that I got so into mine he has busted his out again and walks for like an hour everyday at work between breaks and lunch. He blows my numbers out of the water regularly, but sets his own challenges too. It’s super fun!

  6. For what it’s worth, my boyfriend totally accidentally threw his in the washer, and it still works! Now, I wouldn’t recommend making a habit of that, but I thought it might give you some peace of mind to know that if you did mess up, it might not destroy it. =)

    My favorite part about the Fitbit is definitely the Fitbit interface. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to use the weight counters, but the graphs, oh, the graphs! You can choose to set your goal at maintaining weight if you’d like and then it gives you a nice dotted line at that number, so you can keep track of gains/losses/keeping steadies. You can zoom out and look at month, days, and years! It really gives you the happy feels when you are able to look back at all the progress you’ve made!

  7. JLee says:

    Mine has been in the wash twice and still works great! Though I wouldn’t recommend throwing yours in there!

  8. sallie says:

    I love, love, love my Fitbit. I’m rather competitive with myself and knowing that I have 9,950 steps before I go to bed always pushes me to get those last 50 steps in. I’ve found that I move waaaaay more than I used to and since I have a desk job, that is a huge plus. A bunch of us at work have Fitbits and we do little contests and constantly cheer or taunt each other. It’s been fun and I’m so glad I got one. Worth every penny!

  9. A'Dell says:

    You should know that I have TOTALLY washed my Fitbit and it was FINE. It’s the tiny one though, I can’t remember what it’s called, but it was FINE!

    I wore mine for about four weeks and then I got bored of it. Maybe I will dig it out again, since Spring is coming. MAYBE.

  10. Maureen says:

    I am so glad you posted this, because just yesterday I was thinking about Fitbit, but I didn’t know that much about it.

    I have a couple questions, and here seems like a good time to ask them:

    1. When I buy the Fitbit, do I have to pay any other fees except for the device? Is there any kind of fee for getting the data?

    2. Is it hard to set up, get going with? Or is it kind of plug and play?

    Thanks!

    • Holly says:

      OOOOOH, get one!!! ๐Ÿ™‚

      As for your questions, there are no other fees. Once you set up your account, the data is 100% free to access. Also, I don’t really think it’s too hard to set up. As long as you have a computer, you really just plug in the dongle, turn it on and register the device. You have to put in info like your name, weight, etc and then let it sync and it’s good to go.

      If you want to track with the app, you have to sync it again with your phone/bluteooth but that is very intuitive also.

      For what it’s worth, I think it is a pretty easy thing to get your arms around and I am total tech NOOB!

  11. Done. I’m convinced. Keeping my eyes open for the next sale. Your review was super helpful.

  12. Stephanie says:

    My only criticism of the product is that my weekly emails are all in German and I don’t know how to change that. I have country set to Germany so that the time is correct and everything is in English, but the weekly emails come in German. Its a little annoying but a little funny too, does anyone know how to fix this.

  13. Linda Sand says:

    I can’t get your comment about hotel sleeping out of my head. I wonder if part of it is a mind/body thing? Like when you wake up 5 minutes before your alarm would go off because your mind is set to wake you. I slept terribly in motels until one night I was so exhausted that I slept very well. I told myself it was that bed so I try to stay in that brand of motel. But what if it’s just my mind? What if I told myself I sleep well in all motels? Would that help? Those are all rhetorical questions but you might want to think about them along with me.

  14. Jess says:

    I got a Zip a week or two ago, but picked up a One today and will be returning my Zip. I was on the fence, but this article pushed me over the edge. I like having something to use for motivation and the stair thing really excited me. Sending my pretty white Zip back tomorrow – oh how I wish the One came in white…

  15. Stephen says:

    Cheers to all of you! I think you’re all great being so into getting healthier. Neat.

    I got my Fitbit One on Friday and am already “in love” with it!! This thing is fascinating and it’s really pushing me forward to getting healthier. I’m a fairly regular walker but now that my little friend spies on me, it’s making me reconsider what I thought was regular. Ha!

    The graphs, oh the graphs. How wonderful. I don’t have any Fitbit friends yet, as my simple pace would probably make most of you laugh, and since i’m not using it for weight loss, i’m more into the (amazing) sleep records as well as all the other ones.

    • Stephen says:

      I forgot to add that I found this site by typing “I love my Fitbit One” into Google. Pretty amusing yet effective way at finding other bit’rs that are out there. ๐Ÿ™‚

  16. Breanna says:

    Your review was SOOO helpful. I’d been debating getting one for a while, mostly because I was interested in the sleep tracking feature. They say getting restful sleep is important in weight loss, and I’ve forever had trouble sleeping. Anyways, mine fitbit came yesterday and I’m SO SO SO excited. I agree that 10,000 steps a day is a bit unrealistic for me since my job requires desk sitting most of the day. I really like your #Operation50 goal. Thanks so much for the motivation!

  17. Renee says:

    I also LOVE my Fitbit One! My husband and I have a new morning ritual of talking about last night’s sleep report. I’ve also been working on upping my daily step count goal. I started at 6500 per day and worked up to 8500 per day. Next stop, 10,000 per day, which will mean getting up from my desk for a walk at least twice a day. Eeeek. I spend way too much time sitting at a computer screen.

    Here is a tip for keeping the wrist case on better at night, put it on inside out. I find that putting it on so I can see the Fitbit isn’t as secure which means that it is falling off and I’m overly aware of it (not good for keeping my sleep in the dark blue). But, putting it on inside out keeps it on all night and I don’t think twice about it.

    Happy stepping everybody!

  18. Lexi says:

    I got a Fitbit in September after Holly’d been raving about it ๐Ÿ™‚ I certainly do not regret it! I thought I walked a lot but was only hitting about 8k a day, with Saturdays and Sundays being really sedentary. As of January I am up to around 12-13 k a day and it pushes me to go for walks during the weekends too. I love it!
    Apparently I had an old MFP account that I never used so now it’s connected to my Fitbit and I’ll start a second level of tracking ๐Ÿ˜‰
    Also, there’s a second cost, the premium account. Does anyone use it?

    (people, add me as a friend if you want, xonie@hotmail.com, Holly, I’ve already got you added! <3)

  19. Jess says:

    Btw, for all the One wearers that have issues with the wristband – I ordered a SPIband from spibelt.com and it works perfectly for holding the one at night. It is just as responsive as it was in the fitbit wristband and MUCH more comfortable!

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