Does this actually do anything to help you gain weight?

[rgp93]

I know I can track my calories and what not but I can do that with a piece of paper. I got this thing for christmas and I'm trying to gain more weight, not lose it. Is this fitbit helpful?

[trainer]

Yes, you can use this to gain weight. In your case you are going to want to focus on your activity to make sure you are doing enough muscle building and not too much cardio. Monitoring this in your activity log will help. You can also set up your profile settings on your dashboard to understand your goal and it will  help guide you in healthy eating choices so you gain lean and not fat mass. I am sure there are others doing this and you can probably find a group here that has members working on the same goal.

[kimchristensen]

Often those who need to gain intuitively eat less. Having a general idea of what you burn each day helps to ensure you are eating ENOUGH. You need to lift more, cardio less, and eat at a slight surplus.

[tallson]

In this day and age it is rare to talk with someone who actually wants to gain weight. Obesity and all the issues that entails makes me want to ask why? But if you seriously want the weight just exercise to provide an appetite and load up on carbs. It is no big secret that a diet high in complex carbohydrates, refined grains, and sugar lead to weight gain.

[kimchristensen]

It's actually not rare for people to want to gain weight. It's interesting to me that you read it as "I want to gain loads of body fat in a world of obesity". I read it as "I'm leaner than I'd like and I'd prefer to gain some muscle and perhaps a little fat to achieve better health and aesthetics." I have a number of friends who are on builds and focus solely on gaining, men and women. A Fitbit can be a great tool to keep from under eating and give good starting numbers on how to eat at an excess alongside a good lifting program.

[tallson]

Not to put to much definition on a fine point, but if you find it interesting that I misconstrued the authors intent, perhaps it is because it was not as clear to me as it obviously was to you. touche

[ghchinoy]

I'm also interested in having either a tile on the dashboard or some other weight gain goal trackable.

Something like an indication of how many calories I'd need to consume to maintain or exceed my daily weight with a graph (line/bar) that shows how many calories I've consumed (minus the ones I've burned) and a target weight.

FWIW, I've always been thin and that's the reason

[Mary]

I believe you can make your goal to gain weight and the charts and info will work the same as for weight loss goals.

You can track your calorie intake on paper without a Fitbit but how do you estimate your calorie burn day to day on paper?  

[SunsetRunner]

I'm also trying to gain weight. Have you discovered any new tricks?

[slysam]

I don't think Fitbit currently supports a weight gain goal. But you could set it to maintain, enter your goal weight and just go a little over your allowance by however much you need. I know a some people want to gain lean mass and eat at a small surplus, take in enough protein and strength train. There are nutrition tracking apps that can link to Fitbit that do support weight gain. For example, MyFitnessPal has options for weight gain of a certain amount per week. If you link the two, and your activity data would be factored into your food allowance. I can't comment on the most effective strategies for gaining weight since it has never been my goal, but there are ways you can use the technology.

[slysam]

One small thing about setting your goal weight over your current weight to maintain... I have used Fitbit to maintain, if you log a higher weight than whatever is entered as your goal it will put you on a loss diet. So if you weigh 150 and think you might want to weigh 170, if you enter 150 as the weight to maintain if you later log 155 it will put you on a diet. So you would probably either want your eventual goal (if you know it) or enough extra pounds that daily ups and downs won't put you over.

[SunsetRunner]

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. I eat protein and stregnth train. I have gone form 153 to 180 in a little over 1 year but unfortunately I am stuck just 5 pounds shy of my goal. I am familiar with myfitnesspal so I went ahead and linked both accounts now. Let's see how that turns out.

The only bad thing is that the sync is one way so your meals can only be entered in myfitnesspal and not on fitbit.

[Mary]

If you're logging your food at MFP, why would you also log here?  As long as you just pick a site and log there you'll be ok.  

The synch is two-way in that your food totals come from MFP to here and your calories burned from here to MFP.  

slysam- I seem to be able to set my goal weight above my current weight and it seems to understand I want to gain (not that I do or took the experiment any further).  Maybe you have and can tell that it doesn't really work that way on the dashboard charts or something?  It seems like it should, since it's the same logic.  

[slysam]

Maybe they changed it when they updated the site and apps. Does it give you an allowance in surplus of what you burn (for gain)? Like I said, I have never had a goal to gain just that on the old forum a couple months ago a staff member posted they don't have preset options that support gaining and there isn't the option in the food plan last I looked. When I was set to maintain and was weighing myself daily, it would put me at a deficit if I logged a weight over my goal weight--that is why I suggest entering a higher weight as the goal if you want to gain. Since my allowance would decrease in response to daily ups and downs of a pound or two. That also make me think it makes sense to enter the upper range of the weight you want to maintain if just maintaining.

[Mary]

No, you're right.  If I put that my goal weight is above my current weight, it does correctly say I want to gain weight but at the end of the food plan steps it also tells me it set me up for maintenance and it wasn't set up to do goals for gaining.  I didn't follow it through far enough before.