Cardio fitness score question (long!)

[emfgreen]

Hi y’all! Longer post, sorry!

I’m very happy to say that since the first post I ever made here, things have drastically improved for me! I am the most mobile I’ve been in years, no rollator at all, I am back to using weights, I can go for jogs, my swims are amazing, I’m walking sometimes 5x as much as I was many days last year, my heart rate has gone down, my HRV has gone up, my chronic inflammatory conditions are much better, and I’ve lost 35lbs. But my cardio fitness score is still in the poor range, even though I have significantly increased my cardio health in ways I feel every single day! 

I have no problem saying I still have a lot of work ahead of me. I still have more weight to lose, more personal exercise goals to hit, more improvements in my conditions to achieve. But I feel like a day and night difference has happened for me this year, and my heart feels it too. Activities that once sent me immediately to dizzy gasping at 130bpm, like getting out of bed to take dishes to the sink, are now the easiest tasks I do all day. So I’m wondering, what do I make of this metric staying the same? What am I missing that would show this change? 

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe I NEED a device to tell me the things that I feel in my own body. I know and my doctors know what a huge improvement I’ve made. But I really do value having that trackable data showing my health trends, because it’s helped me feel out the direction ahead. My cardio fitness score has been in the same poor range since I first got my Fitbit almost a year and a half ago, at one of my lowest points of illness ever. I have the Inspire 3 so no GPS run feature. I have jogged for 10 minutes recently to see if it would still update, but it didn’t. Is there a feature I’m maybe not turning on?

I know that my QOL, increased capabilities, and doctors’ assessments are the real measure of my improvement, but I can’t stop wondering what is up here. I went from struggling to get out of bed and having crazy heart palpitations just tackling my stairs to jogging around my block without missing a beat as just one small part of my day. My goal HR for exercise nowadays was a truly scary experience when I was so sick at the beginning of this year. The trainer I’ve met with monthly has been super excited about my progress. I still have a very long way to go, but I value any metrics that help me stay encouraged on the harder days. 

Sorry for so much blabbing, but the context is the only reason I ask! Why would the cardio fitness score remain in the same poor range throughout all these changes, and since I don’t have GPS for runs, what are Inspire 3-friendly changes I can make if I want to see the score go up? I’m definitely not in the great range yet, but I feel like a whole new person. Any help knowing more about this metric is so appreciated. I have read everything I could find on it, but have yet to see a situation like mine.

Thank you all so much! 💚

[alexthecat]

@emfgreen I have a few questions for you. Are you wearing your Fitbit to sleep? Is your weight updated in the Fitbit app? Those are both important to get the best estimation of your Cardio Fitness Score.  

Also, the Inspire 3 uses connected GPS through your phone. You can acquire GPS data for your runs, as long as you bring your phone along. You need to do that for several runs in order for your Cardio Fitness Score to be calculated. 

[emfgreen]

Oh my goodness I did not know it actually connected to my phone GPS. Thank you!!! That probably solves all my insane wondering right there! I like to give myself lots of phone-free pockets of my day, and exercise is pretty much always phone-free. I swear, I’m not as much of a dummy as I feel like right now! Would I need to turn on any certain settings to get that connection or is it there by default? A long time ago I turned off basically anything that was between my phone and fitbit except the Bluetooth connection of course, so just no phone notifications or anything. If there’s a feature you can toggle, I probably turned it off!

As far as the questions, I wear my Fitbit to sleep every night and update my weight usually a couple times a week, or at the least when it changes by one pound. I’d consider myself a dedicated daily wearer! I’m not great on the tech side of the fitbits specifically, and the community forum had to help me stop my rollator walks from auto logging as spinning, lol!  

[alexthecat]

@emfgreen I haven't used an Inspire 3 lately but, as I recall, you can just start an activity on the device and you get a message when the GPS connects. You don't need to do anything special. 

As far as my two questions, it sounds like you have everything covered there. I know you've done a lot of reading on the Cardio Fitness Score. In the course of that, did you learn that Cardio Fitness Score is Fitbit's estimation of VO2 max? That's another topic that is worth reading up on. Anything that improves VO2 max should also improve your Cardio Fitness Score, but Cardio Fitness Score is an estimation, so the results you get may not be precisely correct. 

[LZeeW]

@emfgreen   I don't use an Inspire 3, but there are two general settings to use connected GPS.  In your phone Settings, go to you app list, select Fitbit.  Make sure Location access is set to Always.  If you have a Precise Location option, like I have on my iPhone, toggle it on.  On your Inspire 3, swipe left/right and open the Exercise app.  Swipe up to find Run.  I think you need to tap on Run, then swipe up to get to the settings.  Make sure GPS is on.

I have some advice on getting a better cardio fitness score.  It is calculated using your heart rate and the GPS distance.  This is the premise -- if you have two otherwise equal people running side by side, the person with the lower heart rate has the higher VO2 max, and the better cardio fitness score.  You should try to run on level terrain, not hilly.