hiking

[PiPi84]

Should you log hiking in the activity log or doe fitbit track the calories correctly? It already states it was intense activity on my dashboard.

Thanks

Liz

[Heybales]

It's basing impact of foot steps, and therefore choosing between walking and running, and changes in stride length, based on your stated weight. It's not deciding on incline though, which is a big factor too.

Did you carry a 20-30 lb backpack? Totally wrong then. Many hrs of that is off by decent amount.

Or just a water bottle and some treats? Close enough then.

[SteveH]

Your fitbit is designed to track walking and running so I would just leave it to get on with tracking your hiking.

I find that it tracks my hiking quite well (when compared with a GPS track) but there are a couple of considerations. If the ground is very rough I find that my stride shortens and as fitbit doesn't know about this it can overestimate the distance covered. Also, if you are hiking over very steep ground be aware that you do not get any extra calorie burn recorded for the ascending / descending (even if you have a tracker model that tracks ascent).

[Colinm39]

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@PiPi84 wrote:

Should you log hiking in the activity log or doe fitbit track the calories correctly? It already states it was intense activity on my dashboard.

Thanks

Liz

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@PiPi84The Friends on my list normally log the option using the manual activity hike by typing hik. You will find the Hike+ has the option for intensity because I'm sure the Fitbit will pickup the steps, but effort calories are always a problem. These same Friend wear a HRM.

You should experiment with the hiking and hike to see how the results compare with your Fitbit. A Fitbitter the other day posted that the Fitbit recorded the distance as too long, we assured her that because of the nature of the hike, she was taking very short climbing steps at safe speed, so the steps were correct but the distance was based on a full walking stride. Distance is not used in calorie calculations.

[Colinm39]

Well done everyone. We come from all corners of the globe at different time zones, only minutes aparty with suggestions. Excellent Community interface

@SteveH@Heybales 

[RJPerthON]

Hi SteveH

I noticed that the number of stairs went up considerably when I was hiking over fairly rugged terrain. Does the FitBit not consider calorie burn for stairs climbed. I had psoted a question earlier asking how the FitBit takes into consideration leg movement such as riding a bike or working out using an eliptical?

Cheers

RJ

[SteveH]

@RJPerthON  no, fitbit does not record any additional calories when it registers floors. It calculates calories based purely on steps so if, like on an elliptical, it only registers a few steps, you only get a few calories. If your actual effort is much higher then you need to manually log the activity.

[RJPerthON]

Thanks SteveH