Fitbit – More Than Just a Pedometer

As you may know, I received the Fitbit not too long ago and I have been faithfully wearing it to track my activity throughout the day and my sleeping patterns every night. Unfortunately, I forgot to click it on to my shorts this afternoon as I went out for my run and unsurprisingly I was rather disappointed that I had missed out on the steps recorded but also the activity levels that would have been recorded.

If I had a regular pedometer then it would have very much been a case of “suck it up princess” or sitting at my desk looking like a douche shaking my pedometer to get it to catch up to my estimated total for the day. Luckily for me  the Fitbit is much better than a regular pedometer.

There is an incredibly easy way to add those missing steps by doing the following:

1. Login to the Fitbit website,
2. Click on “Log Activity”,
3. Click on “Log Steps” next to “Find an Activity to Log”,
4. Enter in the number of missing steps you want to add,
5. Click “Log Activity”.

Fitbit Website – How to Add Missing Steps

In addition, you’ll also want to log the details of your workout separately (in my case it was a 32 minute run) to record the anticipated calorie burn for the period. This was fairly simple of me as I had been using RunKeeper Pro on my phone to track my progress thanks to the built-in GPS. Best of all, the updated step count and distance travelled will sync back to your Fitbit without having to put it in its dock nor having to sit around shaking it.

One other interesting aspect of the Fitbit is that it is more discerning as to what constitute a step compared to a traditional pedometer which employed mechanical switches to detect a step. In contrast, the Fitbit uses a three-axis accelerometer to detect steps with the added benefit of software to ignore those bumps and jolts that occur during the day that may register a false positive.

These two aspects alone set the Fitbit above a regular pedometer.