How/why would anyone "cheat" in a challenge??

[mandynicole]

I've had my fitbit since Christmas. It has really helped me stay active and push myself. I've found so many awesome people to do daily, weekly and weekend challenges. I've never once questioned anyone's amount of steps. I have a very active job and there are days I push myself at the gym more than usual in order to get more steps. I usually get about 15k-25k a day.

However, I started a workweek challenge and added someone that I know and is new to fitbit and wanted motivation to start working out.. The steps seemed unrealistic for this person especially since they sync every few minutes, but I wasn't going to question it at first. Yesterday I was busy at work and was ahead by almost 8,000 steps. Within the hour this person ended up pulling ahead of me. 

I spent 2 hours on the treadmill and pushed myself to get my 45k badge before midnight. I was almost 15k ahead of the person and after 5-6 hours when I woke up the person ended up 10k ahead of me.. Which means they'd have to do 3k-4k per hour.

The numbers simply didn't add up. I know you can't manually log activity/steps and have them show up in the challenge. I hate to call anyone a cheater when it comes to fitbit, but it just doesn't seem humanly possible.

Has anyone else had an issue similar to this? Or am I completely wrong for thinking that the steps aren't realistic?

[Mikeb8830]

I just had this same issue. I work over night and I would average around 8-12k steps and the person seemed to only walk like 2-3 days for the workweek hustle challenge and come Saturday afternoon after I caught his up to his outrageous lead passed it and put up a good step lead.

[JackieThomas]

I hate when people cheat that's why I don't do many challenges anymore. Most of the people who have the most steps every challange are fat as hell, sorry, not fit like you mentioned! Why join the challange if you are going to cheat? I had one person telling me that they HEARD about people putting their Firbit in 3 socks and putting it in the dryer on the lowest setting. Dummy! My husband bought me my blaze as a birthday gift. Never! I use it to help my fat butt loose weight. Good luck to you finding honest walkers and only challange with them.

[Odyssey13]

Hello and welcome to the forums @JackieThomas

You know those cheaters are just after the stats, not the long term benefits from walking towards health.

Keep on stepping, it sounds like you're making your future better!

[londonrunner88]

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@Mukluk4 wrote:

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@AAPanini wrote:

 Greetings,

I have a co-worker who shakes her fitbit all day at her desk, I asked her why and she literally said "So my friends think that I exercise".  We will not be doing any challenges on fit bit ever! 

I am experiancing a similar situtation currently in a week long challenge with another friend. My friend got a fitbit a few months ago and averages 3-5K steps a day while I average 15K to 20K+ depending on what day it is (I play volleyball in a league 3days a week). My friend rarely hits 10K step goal (aybe 3x a month max) and has never won a challenge with me-yet.  All of a sudden this week she is getting ~30K steps a day!!!! She has in this week alone received the 20K, 25K and 30K badge- a new badge every day! I have been friends with her many years so I asked her to check and see if her fitbit was working properly because it appeared that there was a glitch (based upon her past history) and she proceeded to "lie" and say that she did in fact get 8K steps in 2 hours (all before 7am). I asked her what she was doing because that is about 66steps a minute for 2 hours straight. She relied that she walked to the gym (in her building) and walked on a treadmill, walked home (in her building), cooked, studied, took a shower and got ready for work- I said "wow, all in two hours"! and she said "YEAH"... CLEARLY this is a lie & I will never do a challenge with her again as this is simply impossible (for her) and is beyond realistic& makes no sense.

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My problem is that instead of congratulating your "friend" on the extra work (that could of easily been accomplished), you call them out on it without any hard proof and THEN complain about them on a random internet board.

If that's how you treat a friend, I would hate to see how you treat a random person on the street.

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You need to get off your high horse man. This an opinion forum. Let the woman live. 

[Juniorchevy2001]

New gal to a fitbit challenge got over 534,000 steps in this weeks workweek hustle. Lives in NYC and has two kids and refreshed fitbit every 15 minutes. When she was called out she said she always is like this and even lost many challenges...

IF that was true, she would be the worlds fittest person with over 250 miles in 5 days.

Just makes it not fun...

[shipo]

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@Juniorchevy2001wrote:

New gal to a fitbit challenge got over 534,000 steps in this weeks workweek hustle. Lives in NYC and has two kids and refreshed fitbit every 15 minutes. When she was called out she said she always is like this and even lost many challenges...

IF that was true, she would be the worlds fittest person with over 250 miles in 5 days.

Just makes it not fun...

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This is exactly why I decline any and all challenges these days.

Back in October and November I accepted a fitness challenge at my company, during those two months I ran 345 miles and 330 miles and logged something like 1.75 million steps; would you believe I finished in fourteenth place?  I actually had short/chubby co-workers who thought "exercise" was walking around our campus a few times beat me by nearly a million steps!

[JackieThomas]

How is that many steps possible even when cheating? What was she doing to her Fitbit! I'd be too afraid of damaging it. My husband paid too much for it to disrespect his gift like that!Jackie Thomad


Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device

[shipo]

No clue; maybe she put the darn thing on her Chihuahua.  😛

[Nessibear999]

Yeah I'm calling BS I'm always on my feet and if I'm not cleaning I'm
walking I have 4 children the and I'm always on the go the very most I ever
hit I think it was around 120,000 for the day but that was non stop. I
don't do fitbit anymore, I now have Garmin plus it's water proof, I don't
do challenges anymore because to many people cheat, I do my own
challenges.

[WavyDavey]

It's too easy to create fake steps for the challenges to be meaningful.

If you think someone is cheating, ask to see their daily step graphs. This may show times where the number of steps logged exceeds what is possible for a human. For some reason, cheaters never want to show their daily step graph? 😉

I wish there were challenges based on active minutes.  You can't fake active minutes (realistically), and they cover all types of exercise--even non-step-based ones.

[shipo]

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@Nessibear999wrote:
Yeah I'm calling BS I'm always on my feet and if I'm not cleaning I'm
walking I have 4 children the and I'm always on the go the very most I ever
hit I think it was around 120,000 for the day but that was non stop. I
don't do fitbit anymore, I now have Garmin plus it's water proof, I don't
do challenges anymore because to many people cheat, I do my own
challenges.

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Seriously, 120,000 steps in a day?  I may have to call B.S. on that as well.  Why?  That is roughly the equivalent of walking 60 miles in a day, and given the average speed for a human when walking is three miles per hour, walking 60 miles would take 20-hours of non-stop walking.

[Nessibear999]

Welp, it isn't BS, most of that was on a treadmill with lots of running
because I was in a challenge with someone (I still lost). It certainly
didn't take 20 hours but sure as hell took about 15 hours.

[shipo]

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@Nessibear999wrote:
Welp, it isn't BS, most of that was on a treadmill with lots of running
because I was in a challenge with someone (I still lost). It certainly
didn't take 20 hours but sure as hell took about 15 hours.

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Your first post made it sound like you racked up all of those steps chasing four kids around and keeping house; now it's fifteen hours on a treadmill.  The former I didn't believe, the latter is certainly feasible; good job.

[Nessibear999]

No what I meant was I'm on my feet all day cleaning, chasing 4 kids around
and running errands and there's no way I can rack up all of those steps
all day everyday, most of the people I did challenges with said that's all
they do too, 🤔 that's all you do too? So how are you getting 100,000 to
150,000 steps EVERYDAY. I had to fight and fight hard to get the 120,000
steps for the day, first and last time I EVER do that, I could barely walk
for a week after that LOL and I still LOST the **ahem** challenge lol

[shipo]

@Nessibear999, sounds like we're on the same page.  🙂

[Nessibear999]

I agree! After that challenge I stopped doing them, I don't even own a
fitbit anymore, I went with a Garmin because it is water proof. LOVE IT!

[shipo]

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@Nessibear999wrote:
I agree! After that challenge I stopped doing them, I don't even own a
fitbit anymore, I went with a Garmin because it is water proof. LOVE IT!

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Yet another reason why I upgraded to the Fitbit Ionic which is also waterproof.  🙂

[VeeBlank]

Yes!!! This! IF they are cheating, they are motivating you through it. You are doing awesome, so just keep it up. I also loved the suggestion about inviting them to exercise with you. 

[Nessibear999]

I actually told the one girl that we should wear go pro's so we can see
each other's activity for the whole day lol

[SunsetRunner]

My wife and I used to both have Flex 2 Fitbits.  One day, she started playing 'tug' with the dog with her Fitbit hand and noticed her step count was going up every time the dog tugged on the toy she was holding.  It was funny at the time, but maybe this guy is doing something similar to 'win' the competition...?