i did an hour of hot bikram yoga and it says i didn't really exert myself

[qiskis]

Hey what's up?  i like your product, it makes training into more of a game with points n such to achieve.  here's the thing though.  i just did an hour of hot yoga, which is yoga in an infrared sauna and was quite literally pouring sweat from 20 min on, like had to mop the pools of sweat off the floor after i rolled up my mat but your flex tracker says i never left the baseline like i'd been sitting in front of my computer the whole time.  i've only been using it since saturday, it's still flashing n such like it's still working and registers the run i did early today ssssooo... is it just not sensative enough to work with yoga or did it just break?  thoughts?

[qiskis]

the weird thing is it registered the raised heartrate from sitting in a steamroom but not yoga

[Dominique]

Keep in mind a Fitbit tracker is basically a pedometer, ie. a device designed to count your steps. Any more or less stationary activity in which there's no or little impact on the ground won't be accounted for, no matter how you sweat and/or elevate your heart rate. Your Fitbit flex has no way to measure your sweat or your heart rate. Also see:

https://help.fitbit.com/customer/portal/articles/1020095-what-are-%22very-active-minutes%22-

[Dominique]

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@qiskis wrote:

the weird thing is it registered the raised heartrate from sitting in a steamroom but not yoga

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It didn't register your raised heart rate. You must have moved your arm in the steamroom, this is what the Flex would register. It's like with sleep patterns: it has no idea whether you're actually sleeping or not, there's just a clever algorithm guessing based on your arm movements.

[Not_quite_fit]

you need to go to the log activities section and add th yoga yourself, then the fitbit will adjust calories and acknowledge how hard you worked!

[Not_quite_fit]

you need to go to the log activities section and add the yoga yourself, then the fitbit will adjust calories and acknowledge how hard you worked!

[qiskis]

hhmmm so when i run with a waterbottle in one hand and it doesn't swing the way it would empty, it thinks I worked less?  i assumed with it being positioned over my wrist that it could track heartrate.  

[Not_quite_fit]

time to buy a fuel belt 🙂

[Sunny2007]

You are correct.  I have noticed that I usually carry things in my left arm which means that I don't swing it like I would normally when my arms are empty.  This means that my steps aren't counted.  When I work out, I use a hear rate monitor that has a belt around my chest and a watch/tracker on my wrist so that I can manually enter calories earned and time working out.  You can find them for less than $50 at Walmart,  Target, or athletic stores. 

[Colinm39]

@qiskisYour Fitbit is a pedometer with a 3D accleromter to detect the type of movement and speed.

You will need to manually log Bikram Yoga, and if I do that  it gives me an equivalent calorie burn to a walk at 4.5mph (7.3kmh) which feels about right from your description.  The calorie burn also agrees with other internet searches for Bikram Yoga.

[au4all]

Sweating doesn't burn calories. Being overheated doesn't burn calories.

There's like a zillion posts like this. It's as if people believe you can run 10 miles in 32 degree weather and not burn a calorie because you don't sweat -- or burn a million calories because you're sitting down at the beach.

Your body uses energy to stay at 98.6 degrees when the air temperature is low. When it's warmer you use less calories. Your body has to use less calories to produce heat.

Your body can't burn calories and produce cool from the burning.

If your heart rate is up because you're not moving and drinking coffee or you're overheated; that's not a good thing for your health. Just because you can fool your heart-rate monitor into thinking you're doing something doesn't mean your body is being helped, and it definitely doesn't mean you're burning calories.

I hope that fitbit never decides to include a HRM or they'll be millions of people complaining they're not losing weight burning imaginary calories from caffeine or being overheated.

When you're running and your heart-rate is up, the calories are not coming from your heart-beats they're coming from the fact that you're moving your body; movement requires energy.