The must-use features of the Fitbit fleet to keep your wearable working hard
So you’ve just bought your new Fitbit, a wearable that’s been on the scene more or less since the beginning. They’ve been through a fair few models, and now there are several options from the company, tailored to different lifestyles and tastes.
For fitness freaks, the activity-based Fitbit Surge and Fitbit Charge HR are at the top of their game, tracking every statistic you could want to know about your body and just how effective your sweat-drenched workouts are.
If you’re looking for a more subtle Fitbit fix, the slimline Flex is your best option, with its range of bright colours and discreet shape. Whichever you go for, here’s a few tips to make the most of your new purchase.
Related: Best Fitness Trackers
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Set it up
Did you know that your Fitbit’s readings will be affected by which wrist you’re wearing it on, your dominant or not? The extra movement from your dominant wrist will have an impact on your charts, so let the app know which wrist you’re wearing it on will make your readings all the more accurate and reliable.
Speaking of making your charts as reliable as possible, link up the app to MyFitnessPal, so both apps will be aware of everything you eat and drink during the day. Fitbit use this data to make your readings a combination of your calorie input and output, so there really is no hiding from the truth.
The Fitbit’s nifty little light indicators will automatically reflect your progress towards your step count goal, but you can change them to reflect how close you are to your calorie or distance goal. Depending on what you’re looking to get out of wearing your Fitbit, this can be hugely beneficial, especially if you’re counting calories via a third party app and need to check how you’re doing before heading out for dinner.
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Get in your stride
Out of the box, Fitbit bases stride length on your height and gender. This is the measurement used to track steps and if you are scpetical about the the data it's delivering, there's a way to make it more accurate. The Fitbit apps allows you to manually add stride length and running stride length but first you need to work out exactly what they are
To calculate stride length, find somewhere where you know the exact distance from two points. Next, you'll need to walk while counting steps up to at least 20. To work our stride length divide the total distance by the number of steps taken. The very same can be done for working out your running stride.
Now that you have the information, you can go back to the Fitbit apps, go to Settings and then select to edit the Stride Length and Running Stride Length sections. Once completed, hit Update profile.
Compete against yourself - and your mates
Activity tracking is a major pull of the Fitbit, so make the most it with MobileRun. Opening it up when you’re about to start pounding the pavement alerts the app to switch on GPS, later providing a map of your workout. You can also control your iTunes music via the app and share your workouts on social media, making it a one-stop-shop for your workout.
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Nothing’s quite as motivating as knowing that you’re only 100 steps away from beating your mate’s daily total, so link up with your friends’ Fitbit profiles via the app and get some healthy competition going. You can also set up challenges, either for yourself or a group, pushing you even further.
Get more data
Fitbit already also offers a comprehensive amount of data, especially if you subscribe to the yearly premium service. If you've upgraded to a new Fitbit and want to see lifetime stats, head to stepstats.com to see your data in a different way. To access, you'll need to log in with the same account details assigned to your Fitbit account.
StepStats will break down data whether it's active minutes or steps with daily, monthly and yearly averages. If you have been keeping an eye on your diet and sleep, it will also present your data in simple, easy to digest graphs.
Put a little heart into it
The big selling point of the Fitbit Charge HR is the optical heart rate monitor that sits against your skin and uses its little LED light to record your heart rate during your workout. Take a second to understand the symbols of the heart rate zones, or alternatively create your own heart rate zones via the app. Make sure you’re also wearing the band snugly but not too tightly, as this will have a detrimental effect on your heart rate readings.
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Sleep on it
The first mode you’ll need to know about is the sleep tracking mode, which, surprise surprise, tracks your time spent in the land of nod. However there’s nothing more annoying than waking up, looking to your sleep chart, and realising you forgot to let your Fitbit know you were hitting the hay.
Never fear though, the Fitbit is always working away, so just manually enter what time you went to bed and woke up, and it’ll retrospectively figure out your sleep data. Clever, right?
If however you do remember to set up the sleep feature, make sure it’s on ‘sensitive’ mode rather than the ‘normal’ setting: this will make sure it detects and records every little stir and movement, rather than just fully rolling over.
Get alerted, but save the juice
Your Fitbit does everything you’d expect from a wearable, including the obligatory alarm, which makes the wristband vibrate violently. Trust us - this is much harder to ignore than your phone or desktop notifications.
Use the alarm function to make you drink more water, get up from your desk for a walk, or simply to wake up in the morning. Your life, sorted. Be careful though - too many of these reminders and vibrations will drain your battery like nobody’s business.
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Since it’s on all the time, it also has the potential to drain a chunk of battery while you’re out and about. To stop this happening, turn off the all-day sync function that keeps the Fitbit constantly talking to its app. The Fitbit will keep track of everything you get up to, so just connect it back to your app in the evening to review your day’s progress.
Get the most from food tracking
Along with tracking your steps, monitoring sleep and even letting you keep a check on water intake, Fitbit includes a comprehensive Food logging tool built into its smartphone and web apps.
You can scan barcodes, get calorie intake suggestions based on activity but perhaps its best feature is Easy Meals. This helps logging frequent meals easier using an auto complete feature to suggest meals and sets of foods as you continue recording your daily food intake.
Got any other handy Fitbit tips and tricks? Let us know in the comment box below
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