About Dominique

@Strategic wrote: Does anyone know how the Aria™ Wi-Fi Smart Scale actually calculates % body fat? As @SunsetRunner wrote, the Aria calculates body fat % with the bioelectrical impedance method.   All I can say is my Aria doesn't exhibit the huge variation in body fat % reported by some people. Here is the measurement history (daily morning values) from Jan-9 to date:       ... View more

@Zee wrote: I am up on average 5 times per night going to the restroom. And I thought this was a problem typically affecting older men like me! ... View more

@SunsetRunner wrote: we're not all blessed with nice climates.... some places rain all the time and at the moment it's dark and cold too. What would you say about this :   ... View more

@sammsll wrote: I've often wondered the same thing. I use the one in our gym at work and for fat burning it starts slowing me down at 125 to recover heart rate but I don't feel tired, and feel like I can push the heart rate to 140. I will usually take my hands off the sensors so I can speed the treadmill back up. But it will keep flashing that it's slowing me down because of my heart rate. It's quite annoying actually. Maybe it's because you are in the US or in another sue-happy country and the gym owner / treadmill manufacturer doesn't want you to die of a heart attack in the middle of your workout on the treadmill ... View more

BMI is only a general indicator. Since you're within the normal range, you don't need to worry too much about it. BMI is a function of height and weight: since you can't increase your height (no matter how you stretch and do yoga!), the only way you can bring it down is by losing weight. What you want to avoid, especially at your age and if you are a woman, is losing lean mass (muscles). This is because it will be extra hard to regain lost muscle mass at your age. Overall fitness, being flexible and strong is more important than losing a few pounds. Walking, stretching and yoga sound like smart things to do in your situation. You may want to add some strength training to it. Browse through posts by @JenniLacey, she has good advice about this.   Also see:   http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/guidelines/olderadults.html ... View more

It all depends on your age and your fitness level. Your maximum heart rate is usually considered to be 220 minus your age. Let's stay you were 30, it would be 190. It could be higher if you were very fit, but since you just got a Fitbit, chances are you haven't exercised much lately and want to improve your fitness. So 179 to 189 would be 89-99% of your max HR: you would normally be running at full speed to reach that level and probably wouldn't be able to keep it for very long unless you are very endurant. If you are older than 30, not particularly fit and you not running at full speed, I would say 170-189 sounds worringly high.   Here is another link about HR zones in addition to the one supplied by Colin: http://blog.digifit.com/2012/07/why-should-you-know-your-personal-heart-rate-zones/   It argues that the standard formula 220 - age actually only applies to a minority. I found this to be true when determining my own max HR with the Cooper running test (one of the fitness assessment tests found in the Digifit app). It was 184, whereas the standard formula would have predicted 168.   Something you may also want to take into consideration is how reliable your treadmill's heart rate monitor is, assuming it's what you used (as opposed to a HRM worn on your body, for instance a chest strap). ... View more

"Awakened xx times" on your Dashboard is kind of misleading: Fitbit has no way to know whether you were awake or asleep, it merely makes assumptions based on your arm's movements. Likewise, if you see a solid blue area on the graph, it doesn't necessarily mean you were sleeping tight all the time: if you spent one hour with your eyes wide open, but your Fitbit-arm perfectly still against your body, Fitbit would deem you were sleeping.   I would say 10-15 "restless" episodes with the sensitive setting is good. If you feel rested in the morning when you wake up and don't fall asleep during the day, you probably had a good sleep, which your normal setting indicates. ... View more

I agree it must be hard for someone with a typical 9-to-5 office job to reach 20k steps. I've had my Fitbit One for 301 days and my "lifetime" step count so far is 6.1M, which translates into an average of 20.3k per day. I'm self-employed, work from home and my working hours can be pretty flexible. This helps quite a bit, but I still need to dedicate at least two hours per day in average to my walking/running. In fact, I've decided to reduce my step count and spend more time doing strength training. ... View more

I walk and run on dirt roads, asphalt and (now) packed snow. I use running shoes sold under the little known brand "Crivit", which is carried by Lidl (German hard discounter that has stores in many European countries, including mine, Finland). They have a summer model like this one (for ladies, but they have a similar one for men) and a winter model. Both cost either €19.99 or €15.00 (when on sale). I find they are very good for the price and I usually grab several pairs when I see them at €15.00. I ruthlessly discard them every 1000 km or so. The price is low enough so I don't feel too bad about it; if they were fancy and expensive brand shoes, I'd probably keep them well past their best before date I have been averaging 20,000+ steps per day for the past 10 months and I have had no injury whatsoever, so I guess these shoes are pretty good. Highly recommended to European Fitbiters, if Lidl is present in your country. ... View more

The red texts and arrows were legends manually added by me, they are not part of the Fitbit report. Sorry if I misled you! ... View more

This may make you think twice about "cleanses":   http://www.precisionnutrition.com/detox-cleanse-diets ... View more

@tallson wrote: I pick vegetables that grow on top of the ground, starchy tubers and potatoes are avoided.  What is wrong with veggies that grow below the ground (except for potatoes)? ... View more

What you see on your Dashboard are very active minutes. These are harder to earn: merely walking is not enough, you have to walk fast enough. If you click on the + button of the VAM tile, you will see your active minutes split between: very, moderate and light. You need to select the ALL tab: ... View more

Why do you need to manually log such activity (walking)? Your Fitbit tracker is a pedometer and should record your walking pretty accurately, if you remembered to wear it.   Have you seen what happens if you click on Don't know the distance? ... View more

If you synced your Fitbit with your account, your Dashboard should display the same amount of calories burned as your One. There might be a slight discrepancy, as here: This is because your Fitbit keeps adding BMR calories, so by the time I had set my One on top of my laptop's display (after syncing) and got my phone to take a snapshot, I had already burned 9 more calories.   If your Dashboard doesn't display the same amount of calories as your One right after you synced, you're having a problem. ... View more

@Befirm wrote: Is 100% sleep really attainable? Actually, you can get 100% sleep efficiency, as rated by Fitbit. See the following graph I posted in this thread: As you can see, Fitbit will deem your sleep to be 100% efficient even if you were awakened a couple of times. Of course, "sleep efficiency" as rated by Fitbit doesn't necessarily mean sleep quality. It merely means no or very few movements were registered.   ... View more

Have a look at your calories burned during these two days. For instance, mine for yesterday looks like this:     Your should see your one-hour workout @ 500 cal in the form all tall gren lines, like my 55-min. run above. If not, Fitbit failed to register it (or you failed to log it). Your Fitbit only registers activity (and, consequently, calories) it can detect reliably. It's essentially a pedometer, so not ideal for the kind of non-step-based activity your workout possibly was. ... View more

If your one-hour workout that burned 500 calories as per your HRM was mostly stationary, your Fitbit may only have detected it as light activity. Such activities should be logged manually if you want to be credited for the calories in full:   https://help.fitbit.com/customer/portal/articles/413311-how-do-i-log-or-record-an-activity-   Also see:   https://help.fitbit.com/customer/portal/articles/1020095-what-are-%22very-active-minutes%22- ... View more

Use this calculator to determine your BMR and your TDEE based on your gender, weight, height, age and activity level. ... View more

@Run4Fun wrote: getting above 20000 steps per day seems elusive to me. Help!  The explanation is in this post ... View more

If you haven't exercised much for the past 30 years (which your current BMI of 34 could indicate), you may want to take it easy. Set up a realistic goal you can achieve every day, or at least on a weekly basis. Start slowly and increase gradually. I'm saying this after I had a look at your steps for the past month:     It's a long-distance run, not a sprint. At your current fitness level, maybe something like 7000 steps could be a good starting point? ... View more

At least, you're probably standing a lot more than people who sit all day in front of a computer (that would be me) and also get some light activity registered on your Fitbit.   I would personally find getting 10K steps at the gym (treadmill) very boring, but I'm blessed with the possibility to walk & run outdoors year-round, even when it's -13°C (+3°F), like today (9355 steps, 55 minutes, 8.9 km).         ... View more

Kudos for the high step count you got during your vacation!   One way to find motivation would be to get some Fitbit friends and "compete" with them. If you have a mostly sedentary job (like me), the surest way to get your daily 10,000 steps is to dedicate at least one hour of walking or running everyday. ... View more

I'd be very interested to know that, but why are you asking under What's Cooking?  ... View more

It depends on many factors, for instance your age. Duration isn't the only factor either, quality matters too. How do you feel in the morning? Do you have enough "juice" to go through the entire day, without feeling sleepy at some point? ... View more

Fitbit trackers are basically pedometers, wich means they are not really suited for tracking stationary activities like weight lifting. Besides, they have no way to tell how heavy the weight you are lifting are. Chances are you are lifting heavy weights more slowly than light ones, and Fitfit will consequently "think" you are taking slower "steps". ... View more

@Mary wrote: 8 calories a minute for walking?  Dang.   She has a Zip, which I think is overly generous. From the graph, she gets about 110 steps per minute, which is 6600 steps per hour. There is no way she would walk at 4+ mph at that pace, unless she has a gigantic stride length. I average about 8900-9000 steps per hour when walking at 4.3 mph. ... View more

@crd22 wrote: Running counts as very active minutes, as does walking continuously at a mild pace (~3 mph from what I've seen). I definitely don't get VAM's from walking at 3 mph. Speed needs to be at least 4.1 mph for VAM's to kick in. What Fitbit model do you have? I have a One. My understanding is the algorithm for VAM's varies from one model to another. ... View more

10,000 daily steps is good. So is 90 minutes of walking. I'm a bit surprised you would get 60 minutes of VAM's with such activity, though. VAM's are normally granted for rather intense activity, like brisk walking (4.2 mph or more).   When walking briskly (about 7 km/h), I get about 9000 steps in 60 minutes, all of them qualifying as VAM's. I'm a 53-year-old male, normal weight and reasonably fit. It seems the algorithm that calculates VAM's varies from one Fitbit model to another: for instance, the Zip appears to be more generous than the One (I have a One). Calories burned and VAM's also depend on the stride length used by Fitbit (whether it was entered by you or estimated by Fitbit, based on your height). ... View more

In your Dashboard, active minutes are split between light, moderate and very active:     What you consider as "exercise" is up to you / your company. I personally consider only VAMs as real exercise, moderate and light are just non-sedentary.   As you probably are aware, Fitbit may fail to detect intense activity if it is not step-based. This is something you may want to take into account if such activities represent a lot of what you do. ... View more

@StefK wrote: There has been quite a lot of research done on intermittent fasting and it is perfectly healthy! Actually, not everyone agrees:   "The IF research is still in its infancy — indeed, it may be 5-10 years before it reaches critical mass and becomes a mainstream nutritional idea — but in certain quarters, the benefits of intermittent fasting have reached almost mythical proportions."   Source: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/intermittent-fasting/summary   I recommend reading the entire book (available as a PDF for free), it gives a well-balanced picture of intermittent fasting. It's written by people who advocate frequent eating, but who went through the trouble of trying intermittent fasting on themselves for a longer period of time and wrote about their experience. ... View more

@abb123 wrote: If you were to run 13 MPH (4:36 minute per mile roughly) for 2 hours (26 miles) you would burn over 4,000 calories from exercise alone. That would be very close to the world record for the marathon: only a handful of people can run that fast for that long. And none of the folks who can run 26 miles in 2 hours weigh 200 lbs! ... View more

@bexstar wrote: Do I attempt this all alone? It can be hard, for the reasons explained here: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/fat-loss-course-for-women-day-5 ... View more

@GetFitFargo wrote: That's pretty cool to track where you walked.  My son has son sort of an app on his phone that allows that.  I haven't yet figured things out!  Is that something available on the Fitbit 🙂 No, there is no GPS in Fitbit, nor a heart rate monitoring function. As I said, I'm using Runtastic Pro, in connection with my smartphone and a HRM that can link to it. I usually start (and stop) an activity at the same time on my Fitbit One and in Runtastic on my phone. The Runtastic lady is talking all the time to me, telling me which heart rate zone I just entered, how many kilometers I've completed etc. ... View more

Thanks for the good laugh, Marcy! That pretty much sums it up! ... View more