Have you lost weight since you got your Fitbit?

[Rnda]

I am the exact same weight as I was when I got my Flex 3 1/2 months ago!

How about you?

I'm hoping with Spring here and Summer around the corner, that my walking will increase. 

Moderator edit: title

[Running777]

Good morning I too feel your frustration LOL it's such an up and down thing for me getting on that scale. I think I'm doing all the right things but that scale does not budge. Sometimes though I think maybe I'm not eating enough of calories if that makes any sense. I also think for me my age Factor comes into play. Oh well I know I feel better exercising trying to eat right and trying to get my sleep and I'm praying that someday it all fits together and that scale goes down that would be a welcome sight good luck to you

[SunsetRunner]

I'm recommending that it is impossible to be at a 500 calorie deficit every day and not lose weight. If you burn more than you take in you lose it is really that simple. I would also recommend that you keep doing what you're doing in terms of recording everything because just being aware of what you are taking in is very helpful.

[SunsetRunner]

Also, could you be adding muscle which would throw things off for a bit? 

[slammykong]

I think it might be age, too. I'm 63. Before my 30s, even after kids, I never got above 120 pounds without even paying attention to what I ate or ever exercising. It's been 10 pounds a decade since then. I switched form being a road warrior to a desk jog about a year ago, and topped out at 168. I've been diligently tracking every calorie and counting 10,000 daily steps for the past 10 weeks or so, but just can't break that 160 mark. It's so frustrating!

[Glenda]

Just my opinion, but I think trying to lose weight figuring calorie deficits is a mistake.  Exercise or lots of physical activity  is important for better health and longer life, & does use calories that  can be significant to a degree, but what you weigh depends on what you eat.  You would probably be more successful if you google the maintenance number of calories for your age, height, gender and weight and then subtract 500 from that number and eat that amount.  Forget calorie burn.    Lots of people start an exercise program to lose weight and they eat more, they usually don't lose weight.    On the TV show about 600 pound people they are put on a 1200 calorie diet and they don't get an increase because they are carrying around 500 extra pounds every step they take.  

          Some exercise is incredibly helpful even if it doesn't use many calories.   I've been doing doing exercises for knee and leg joints that I do twice a day when I wake and go to bed that have improved my hip joints until I  seem completely healed or "fixed".   I'm just saying this to encourage all others with arthritis to exercise. Try it.  I do ten of each exercise;  2 on my back, 2 on my sides, and one face down.  I do standing up exercises at mid day.    Google exercise for any painful body part that you have.  Exercise helps even laying in bed. LOL     ............I should add, a joint specialist doctor told me to ride my bike 10 minutes a day which is so easy I do it.  I'm going to increase it to 12 minutes at least because the book Fit or Fat said 12 minutes is important.   It is very important to find a way to make things as pleasant and easy as possible so that you will do it long term.  I can read on my bike and treadmill.  Maybe you would enjoy dance videos or something else.  Try to find something you will not mind doing.

[hpy2bme]

My story:  I got my Fitbit thru my health plan in January 2022. On January 25th I weighed 156 and my body fat was 25.6%.and had been for at least 2-3 years. I set my caloric intake at 1200/day. I set my steps goal @ 250/hr from 10am-6pm. My goal for my weight was 135 and my body fat 22%.  I reached my weight goal of 135 on July 3rd and my body fat goal of 22% on July 4th of this year.  That's it. I didn't do anything else. Just getting out and walking hourly influenced what I ate and recording what I ate and sticking to 1200 calories/day worked magic. I wasn't in a hurry. I didn't even know if my goal was realistic for a 71 year old female in good health. I haven't been this happy with myself and my body in years and I attribute it to wearing my Fitbit, getting out and walking and sticking to a reasonable, daily caloric goal. Good luck everyone!

Thanks Glenda! Your suggestion to Google a mathematical formula for maintenance calories is a great suggestion. I'm 71 yo female,  5'5", 135 lbs who engages in moderate exercise.
After reading your post, I did the math* (link below) and came up with 1484 daily caloric intake to maintain my goal of 135/22% body fat.
Amazing! Because 1500 is sort of what I figured out was my 'comfort' zone since reaching my goal of 135/22%. 
Since reaching my goal weight and NOT wanting to lose even a few pounds more, the last several days I've been 'playing' around with my caloric intake to see how many calories I can safely consume w/o gaining the weight - not knowing there was such a thing as a maintenance number of calories.
Now that I know, I feel comfortable with relaxing and enjoying a wider variety of foods. I'm forever changed in the way I view weight loss, gain and maintenance. I no longer fear food or the power it held over me because I know what my body needs to do to lose it and then maintain what for me is a healthy weight and lifestyle.  
https://search.brave.com/search?q=maintenance+number+of+calories+for+female+71%2C+5ft+5in+135&source...

[Sithmaith1]

You need to eat a little bit less.  At 500 calories per day, my weight was stable at 12 stone 7 lbs.  I am now at 300 calories per day and stable at 10 stone 5 lbs.  It is hard, I have a thyroid problem which cannot be fixed, so my metabolic requirement is very low.  I want to get down to 9 stone something, so 3 more kg, so I have to eat no more than 250 Cal's per day.  I have the backing of my doctor.  If you are not losing weight, don't be afraid to eat less, but ask your doctor for blood tests first.

[Yankeecandle]

I'm sorry to hear about your problem glad you got support from your doctor
and the nurses may u stay blessed and keep safe..

[SunsetRunner]

While you are correct when you say "it is impossible to be at a 500 calorie deficit every day and not lose weight." I think the point is that calorie counting using a FitBit tracker is prone to significant error and you simply cannot rely on Fitbit numbers.  I for example am absolutely meticulous in my food diary (Cronometer) - I account for EVERYTHING (including TEF).  FitBit provides the activity/exercise-related calorie burn figures.  According to these numbers I'm in a deficit, but it is obvious by the numbers on the scale over the last 18 months that I am not.    

I do not trust any of the numbers coming off my Versa 3. 

[hpy2bme]

Oh dear. Hi Blacksands, I'm very glad I didn't read your post when I began my FitBit journey last January as I would have probably been consumed by self-doubt and looked for failure, as this has been a previous life pattern I'm breaking!  Instead I played along with FitBit entering everything to the best I could figure out, while some of my food I used other applications like Fatsecret and Fiton or I Googled to get a general idea and entered those #s. The main difference is I limited what I ate. Instead of sitting with an open bag of Crispy Quinoa Brittle and fooling myself that I was taking only the tiny broken pieces and together they couldn't add up to more than 2 big pieces (ha!), I measured out 28 grams and put the bag away.  One added up to 500 calories, the 28 grams=133. 
I get what you're saying and I'm sorry to hear you haven't had better and more rewarding results with the effort you've put in to shedding the weight. 

[SunsetRunner]

I appreciate your reply but you unfortunately you do make a few assumptions. I've actually achieved very rewarding results and shed a LOT of weight. (25kgs/55lbs).  My point is though that I do not thank Fitbit for that.  I shed that weight while using a device of another brand. It too was not totally without it's issues of course, but ironically at half the price of a Versa 3 it did appear to deliver far more reliable numbers that yielded results.   Most notably calorie burn numbers, which are of course crucial for determining daily energy balance (calories in/calories out). Achieving weight loss with this other device was quite successful.  However, since later moving to Fitbit (it was a gift so I couldn't refuse) things have started to go backwards. It gives quite different values, (I did direct comparisons before selling my other tracker - which I very much regret now that I realise the Versa can be quite inaccurate!).  The Versa 3 is for me quite unreliable, HR monitoring during workouts in particular is terrible -  I see very erratic values, sometimes recording totally ridiculous HR BPM's during my runs and walks and hence resulting in flawed calorie values, and I also see this erratic HR behaviour even during quite easy spin bike workouts., I do not believe the calorie burn numbers the Versa3 gives me, the distances recorded for runs/walks are also not entirely accurate (previous device was much better) and I also have several other issues with the device too - bluetooth connectivity, voice assistant unreliability etc etc., so as stated, I simply don't trust it and I don't like it, and I regret selling of my other device in favour of this one. In short, it's a dud.  ☹️

[Glenda]

We have these wonderful gadgets that supposedly tells us how many calories we are using.  I was so happy to get one.  However it is such a mistake. In my opinion you should google how many calories a day is maintenance for your gender, height, weight and activity level and reduce that number by 500 calories if you are big enough.  Forget calories burned.  Counting everything   is dreary and stressful and depressing and doesn't even work.   Trying to figure the calories eaten isn't accurate either but you at least know that some food is high calorie and should be avoided mostly.  To lose weight you know not to eat sugar, flour and high fat diary, or high fat anything..   If you did that religiously you would probably lose weight.  Try it.  Best wishes.

[Hmkitten]

Strangely enough, since starting (the church of) keto eating--no, I'm not going to push this to everyone--I have lost 12 pounds since I started two months ago with no sugar or flours but lots of fats. It doesn't work/isn't safe for everyone. Also, I went from 250 down to 190 by just counting calories without much exercise using the low-fat method. I had some surgeries in December that derailed my loss at 190 and got me back up to 225. Now down to 207 with the keto variety, still no exercise, which I need to change. Various methods work for various people. I still need to log my foods for my basic calorie counts--same for both methods of weight loss--but that is second nature now.

[SunsetRunner]

As a matter of interest, I switched to a FitBit Versa 3 back in April (birthday gift).   Prior to that I'd been tracking my activity on another device. I use Cronometer where I meticulously record every morsel that I consume.  I'm as about as precise as one can reasonably expect to be when recording my 'calories in'.  The other device recorded my 'calories out' which I manually entered into Cronometer, and had to estimate a value for NEAT.  Over the course of about 14 months I lost 28kg/62lbs with an estimated 500kcal daily deficit.  I've continued to use Cronometer but since April have been instead been relying on the data provided by my new Versa 3. The FitBit tracker is sync'd to Cronometer and records both NEAT and workout calorie burn.   BUT -  while theoretically still in a daily deficit of 500kcal this is what has happened to my weight since April (2022) when I started using the Versa 3 data:  

Clearly I am not in deficit, but worse, thanks to the Versa 3 I'm obviously in a calorie surplus, which suggests it's numbers are out by of over 500kcal per day! 

[Dv8ted212]

Yes, I went from 290 pounds down to 193, then gained some back but it is dropping again.

[kathryngentry66]

I've lost 15 lbs.!

[SunsetRunner]

I've lost 85 lbs. in a year and a half, give or take. I went from obese to this mornings weigh-in, normal. Amazing. My Charge 2 has been instrumental in my weight loss. I went from 252 lbs. to 167 lbs. I'm a 68 year-old male, 5'9". I tried to post my progress from the weight tile but I haven't figured out how yet. Anyway, I feel and look so much better so keep plugging away. I've hit plateau's, the last one lasted 3 months, got frustrated, ate too much but got back on track. Stay strong, step on.

[FitbitUser416]

Congrads, I have lost 15lbs. Type1 diabetic so weight goes up and down

[criminginc]

Yeah, genetics plays a role.Although almost all the biomarkers associated with my health issues have normalized other than two (one thyroid related), I do have consistently low HDL. Seems genetic. No matter what I've done it stays around 34. 🙂

Glad to hear that you've made so much progress! Hope it's still going strong. I don't visit these forums often, but anyway, I'm 53yo. I'vbe now lost 80lbs since April 1st with about another 60lbs to go. Hit a bit of a plateau the last few weeks or maybe it's that I'm putting on some muscle mass but for two weeks I've been at 240lbs.. Then again, I've been hitting the gym pretty hard for weight training since August but also got back into biking for fitness,

Who know?

Thing is, like you, I feel so much better and am much fitter now than anytime since about 2007 despite still being 60lbs overweight.

I know you mentioned early on you were intermittent fasting etc. Me too. Still do, but given the research that has found that IF doesn't work any better than regular calorie restriction, I've gone more that route more recently, so maybe I'm putting more kcals in than I realize since I don't actually track other than in my head. Anyway, I'm not concerned so much. I'll get to my goals soon enough....though like you, I feel better than I have in the past 2 decades as well.

[KarenRogers]

I've had a Fitbit for at least 10 years - since the Fitbit One came out.  I always wear it. But I didn't lose weight until I started logging all of my meals and keeping at around 1,500 calories.  I've lost 30 pounds since February doing this.

Yes exactly what I've done since February. 30 pounds lost since February by logging what I eat and sticking to 1,500 calories of healthy food or less.