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Living the Fitbit life

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Re: Living the Fitbit life

#41

Post by lotyrin »

Kiro wrote: post #18
kator wrote: post #2

My wife and I are avid fitbit'ers. We used to walk about an hour every day before we got them so it wasn't like we became fanatics when we got them but things have changed in some very subtle ways: We can get the same amount of walking in even when we travel to a new city, we used to slack off sometimes when we travelled because we didn’t have a “route” to follow. Now we just go and often walk until we get to 1/2 our…

How come you got the Withings scale instead of the Fitbit one?

I use the same products (Fitbit, Withings, Lose-it) and in my case because the Fitbit scale didn't exist at the time.

Re: Living the Fitbit life

#42

Post by kator »

jamesRaybould wrote: post #25

I love my fitbit and wear it pretty much religiously, it tracks how much I move in a day and how much I sleep, but 2 things irk me about it. It is constantly broadcasting my location via bluetooth LE. You have to have an internet connection to retrieve any data from it. As a software dev I'd love to get my raw data out just to see what fun an interesting things I could do/see with it. When I have asked in the past th…

Great point about the Bluetooth LE.. I've been doing some BLE investigations recently and one of my apps showed both my Fit Bit One and My Wife's. I've been thinking maybe I could use this to automate some stuff around the house.. ;-)

"Supposedly" it randomizes the BDADDR but it seems everytime I look it's the same for both devices.

Re: Living the Fitbit life

#43

Post by devindotcom »

bluedino wrote: post #8

>> “It’s a Fitbit. You synch it with your computer, and it tracks your physical activity.” Is it sync, or synch? The 'h' really bothers me for some reason.

New Yorker style seems to be synch, but they're a bit idiosyncratic when it comes to these things, requiring diaereses in words like cooperation for instance.

Re: Living the Fitbit life

#44

Post by alecdbrooks »

Yen wrote: post #33
jamesRaybould wrote: post #25

I love my fitbit and wear it pretty much religiously, it tracks how much I move in a day and how much I sleep, but 2 things irk me about it. It is constantly broadcasting my location via bluetooth LE. You have to have an internet connection to retrieve any data from it. As a software dev I'd love to get my raw data out just to see what fun an interesting things I could do/see with it. When I have asked in the past th…

There is one open-source project that manages synchronizing a fitbit to their service. Apparently, one used to be able to get data from listening to this communication, but they now encrypt all data coming off of the device. I got a Jawbone Up24 for my birthday, which seems to be a similar device. I'll see how easy or difficult it is to get data off of that. (I think it's designed to sync via bluetooth directly to a…

It looks like Jawbone has a reasonable-looking API [1]. Alternatively, you can set up Beeminder [2] to collect the data (or for Fitbit) for free and then use Beeminder's API [3].

[1]: https://jawbone.com/up/developer [2]: https://www.beeminder.com [2]: https://www.beeminder.com/api

Re: Living the Fitbit life

#45

Post by mvanvoorden »

bluedino wrote: post #9
eroo wrote: post #5

Once we start seeing reliable metrics for other common vitals, I'm optimistic we'll see massive benefits from data insights. With a large enough sample size and the right vitals, I'm hopeful we can find highly correlated early predictors of some massive events: e.g., does 20 minutes before a heart attack have a reliable signature? Is there any boilerplate legalese for open sourcing that kind of data?

I can't wait for a device that can measure how many calories you've eaten. The possibilities for that would be endless. Beeping after you've hit your goal/limit for the day?

If you eat the right food, you don't need to count any calories and can just eat until you had enough.

I start my day by drinking a cup of coffee with 60-70 grams of grass-fed butter (Bulletproof Coffee) and it made me lose 15 kilo's over the last year. It puts your body into 'fat-burning mode' and I found out by experience it's true. Also, I drink no more soda or fruit juices, and limit my overall sugar intake to barely nothing (but still I will never say no to any offered pie/cookies/chocolate at social gatherings). Oh and I lost weight and got more energy without exercising any more than I did (which is close to nothing).

Do away with light or low fat products, especially margarine, and embrace bacon and grass-fed meat. Make about 60% of your food-intake be fat, 20% veggies and 20% protein, and limit carbs like potatoes to once a week, and you will never have to count any calories again.

For info, I advise to look up Bulletproof diet, and you don't have to buy any of the products/books offered, on the website is also explained for free what to look for if you don't feel like spending any money on his overpriced products :)

Re: Living the Fitbit life

#46

Post by voltagex_ »

rasz_pl wrote: post #37
varelse wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In late 2011, when I won a fitbit in a white elephant party, I came to the awful realization I only walked 4,000 steps per day. Over the next 2 months, I gradually upped my steps to 20,000 steps a day and lost 13 pounds. I am now known as the fitbit fascist by my friends because whenever someone kvetches about their weight, I offer to buy them a fitbit. I have followed through on this twice. In both cases, the victim…

>Figure out why that happens fat people are lazy. You need a pill, or a cap full of electrodes that would make them shiver in their sleep . http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/shivering-as-a-form...

This is the first time a comment on HN has made me go WTF?!

Re: Living the Fitbit life

#47

Post by mmagin »

jamesRaybould wrote: post #25

I love my fitbit and wear it pretty much religiously, it tracks how much I move in a day and how much I sleep, but 2 things irk me about it. It is constantly broadcasting my location via bluetooth LE. You have to have an internet connection to retrieve any data from it. As a software dev I'd love to get my raw data out just to see what fun an interesting things I could do/see with it. When I have asked in the past th…

Privacy concerns are one of the reasons I went for the Garmin Vivofit -- it only powers up the radio when you activate sync by holding the button (necessary to achieve the one year battery life).

Re: Living the Fitbit life

#48

Post by olefoo »

evanlivingston wrote: post #27
bluedino wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> However on some days I'll consume twice the amount of "recommended daily calories" for an adult my size. Yet I remain an 140lb adult male. That's the thing - some days. People who are overweight generally do it every day . And I'll also assume you're ~ 25 years old and your metabolism hasn't started slowing down yet.

I think obese and many overweight people are aware that they consume more food than the average person. What is the obese person going to do at 6pm when they've received the notification that they've consumed too many calories? There are much larger issues than calorie counting that cause 2/3 of the U.S to be overweight. Agricultural corn subsidies for starters, a defunct FDA, poor education, lack of strong culinary…

Not to mention a culture that encourages people to spend money on things that allow them to live a sedentary lifestyle.

If you drive to work, take the elevator, sit in front of a computer all day and then watch television to relax... then; duh. You're gonna be chubby, even if you only eat organic salads from Whole Paycheck.

If you walk or bike for local trips, stand or take frequent stretch breaks while at work, always take the stairs and garden in the evenings you're going to much more fit even if taquitos are a food group as far as you're concerned.

Habits are the key. Figure out how to shift your default behaviours and you will effect change.

Re: Living the Fitbit life

#49

Post by naveen99 »

I just got into fitness 3 weeks ago. Fitbit seems interesting. There is a ton of info on http://reddit.com/r/fitness Also http://stronglifts.com Tons of youtube videos on fitness, for example by pendlay Myfitnesspal is very useful also for free. I have already lost 3 lbs and am actually eating more than when I was a couch potato. I am also trying to apply discipline I am learning for fitness in my work and home life also. Love it.

Re: Living the Fitbit life

#50

Post by olefoo »

mahyarm wrote: post #31
evanlivingston wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean diets in the restrictive sense, but rather as a description of any type of food a person generally eats. I agree completely that weight loss/control is about caloric spendature in relation to caloric intake. However in the US we have more labeling and discussion about calories than any other country that I'm aware of yet we remain an overweight nation with nearly 2/3 of our population being over weight,…

Many social situations and small restaurants/cafes exclude calories. And many calorie labels have awkward 'amount of servings' that make it hard to calculate for the average American to calculate actual calories. Someone who may have a daily muffin from some no-name cafe may think it's only 250 calories from their previous label experience and then are surprised to find out it's actually 700 calories for example. Ano…

I saw a demo awhile back of an app that would try to estimate calories based on pictures of food. It was wildly inaccurate. For people who are determined to make it work, counting calories requires an obsessive mindset that will weigh a handful of nuts before eating them.

This is one of the few use cases where Soylent ( the pseudo food ) may be superior. Because you can guarantee that you are eating x calories per day and only x calories per day.

But then, you'd be living on soylent...

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