ACTIVE MINUTES: How?????

[sabicas]

if one participates in strenuous activities (in this case Tae Kwon Do and surfing) how can one get the Flex to recognize those as "very active minutes"?

no doubt that TKD for 50-60mins is strenuous and likely burns 400-500 calories. same with surfing (usually lots of 'spirited' paddling), which is usually two hours or so.

currently, i estmate the calories burned and enter that when i log the activity. one can eiither log 'miles' or 'calories' with an activity, but it doesn't seem there is always a correlation between what i've logged (eg 50 mins of intense TKD= 475 cals burned) and the total of 'very active mins". thanks for any advice.

[shipo]

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@Heybales wrote:

And your can indeed tweak the height on Fitbit so it's formula ends up
at the same BMR if a big difference.
Must adjust stride length manually though since it's calculated from height
and gender.

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I run with a Fitbit Surge in GPS mode so I don't fuss with the stride length; makes my life easy.  Why?  A couple of years ago in my pre-Fitbit era, my company was issuing waistband pedometers and, at the time, I would run almost exactly 16,000 steps for my normal 10-mile/16-kilometer trail run; roughly one meter per stride.  If I bumped the pace up, the step count dropped and vice-versa.  Now with the Surge I don't need to mess around figuring out my stride length (easy for a 10-miler, less so for something like 8.45 miles), I just look at the results of the run (distance and steps) which shows me my stride length changes in a fairly dynamic manner.

Case in point, this Tuesday I did a 12.45-mile/19.92-kilometer trail run in 19,903 steps, meaning 1,598.636 steps per mile (or one meter per stride; pretty much in line with a couple of years ago); that said, during my most recent 5K race I logged only 3,725 steps meaning 1,201.613 steps per mile (or 1.342 meters per stride).

Trying to figure out what my stride length was going to be on any give day would drive me bonkers.  😛

[Colinm39]

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@shipo wrote:

The calculator link provided in the above post from @Colinm39 is interesting, however, I think it is flawed.  Why?  Said calculator only uses weight, height, age, and gender as it's metrics; while I've never used a calculator like this before, I cannot wrap my brain around a calculator which indicates the same BMR for say, an obese 250 pound individual of any given height, age, and gender versus a heavily muscled 250 pound individual of the same height, age, and gender.

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@shipoI agree with you totally and that is all Fitbit uses with their calculations. Even with variations between how you enter the data. So it's all trending graphs for me, and you can't beat the scales and a tape measure and RHR

I just tested a manual activity for walking at 2 mph and entered it two different ways.

I didn't compare the Walking table because of the unknowns. For instance 50 years ago my BMR would have been another 255 calories higher based on the Mifflin equations. (5 calories per year)

The first was the 2 miles distance walked in 1 hour, the 2nd was 2 mph for an hour.

Results  168 calories and 134 calories respectively.

It gets worse, 4 miles distance walked in 1 hour, the 2nd was 4 mph for an hour.

Results  328 calories and 132 calories respectively

I reported these variations to Fitbit a couple of years ago,and fortunately I don't use manual activities, and if I did, it would only be for the non tracker detectable activities.

[Heybales]

The problem is not your running stride length and getting accurate
measurements of distance. Calorie burn at that point is taken care of by
heart rate formula for calorie burn.



The problem is your daily activity is NOT estimated for calorie burn based
on HR, but rather distance and pace and mass - so steps translated to stride
length do matter.



But you don't have to drive yourself bonkers - because the stride length
figure along with mass gives an expected impact per step, your actual impact
on any given step is therefore used to calculate actual stride length for
that step. With calorie burn being the result.



But as you can imagine, the more the actual is away from the expected - the
worse the accuracy.



For instance, you set a stride length based on fast exercise pace, then the
calculations when doing grocery store shuffle won't be as accurate. And
vice-versa.

But get a stride length figure for your average daily pace - and both ends
of that range can be accurate enough.



So keeping an inaccurate stride length isn't good for the vast majority of
your daily moving calories - minus your actual exercise time based on HR.
Non-moving time is based on that BMR figure - so that is helped too then by
using a better estimate.

[Dollydenim]

I wanted to know how to set up the active minutes on my fitbit profile to use it, unless the activities I'm doing aren't long enough or aren't the same long enough for the fitbit to count it

[Colinm39]

@Dollydenim Good to see you back.  There is nothing to setup. Have you got the Active Minutes image in the cluster of goals with your steps?

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@Dollydenim wrote:
I wanted to know how to set up the active minutes on my fitbit profile to use it, unless the activities I'm doing aren't long enough or aren't the same long enough for the fitbit to count it

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[Colinm39]

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@Dollydenim wrote:
I wanted to know how to set up the active minutes on my fitbit profile to use it, unless the activities I'm doing aren't long enough or aren't the same long enough for the fitbit to count it

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@Dollydenim Walking at least 2.5mph (4 kmh) for 10 continous minutes could give you a bare minimum of active minutes. If you want to examine the type of activities that you can try to get your active minutes recording use this link which Fitbit use for the categories of exercise. Rather than get too complicated, it uses a measure of METs and you are looking for any activity with 3 METs or greater.

[slysam]

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@Dollydenim wrote:
I wanted to know how to set up the active minutes on my fitbit profile to use it, unless the activities I'm doing aren't long enough or aren't the same long enough for the fitbit to count it

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With Fitbit's active minutes it can go either way. It is about the duration (I think it needs to be at least 10 minutes in duration, is that still true?) and it is about the calorie burn per minute. The calorie burn needs to be a certain ration more than your resting calorie burn. I believe it is what is considered moderate activity on up. Oh, and it also needs to be activity your tracker can sense unless you are manually logging (this will vary a little depending on the type of Fitbit you have so it makes it a little complicated).

As far as settings go, the best thing is to make sure your stats are accurate and possibly to make sure your stride length setting is reasonably accurate. I set mine for a normal fairly brisk walk and my running stride is jogging with a shorter stride. Also, if you are doing activities that your Fitbit doesn't track well, for example you have a One and go to spin class or lift weights. Or you swim but use well, any fitbit (sonce they are not waterproof or programmed to track swimming). Then manually logging your workout will make your active minutes more accurate for your true activity level. 

I hope that makes sense, it is hard to give a dumbed down but meaningful answer.

I objected to the change to a minimum duration because I sometimes do interval activities where I work vigorously for 1-2 minutes then recover. I don't get as many active minutes from these as before this change but my heart rate monitoring fitbit does okay with this. If I were only using my One, I would need to log the interval workout.

[Keilisi]

I have a suggestion for a dual active minutes tracker. I know that active minutes are measured when there is sustained activity. I walk a lot and it's not sustained for 10 or more minutes. Why not create a secondary tracker to show both active minutes and sustained active minutes? This would be great and encourage both types of activity. I know that I would like see something like that.