To wonder if I'm setting my sights too low with regards to fitbit?

[fitbituser]

I have around 4 and a half stone to lose to get to a healthy BMI, and I am doing a VLCD.

Even though I'm taking in so few calories I don't seem to be losing that much weight, and I wondered if I wasn't moving enough. Since I started the diet I've ensured on my Fitbit that I'm doing 10000 steps a day but should I be doing some exercise as well? The steps are just ones I do anyway (I have young children) - I don't stop myself when I get to 10,000 but I have found during the week when I am at work I only just make the 10,000 if you see what I mean: weekends are sometimes more.

Also, I'm only currently using it to track my steps, what else should I use it for? It's a charge 2.

Thanks :)

This is exactly where the fitbit has helped

For example, I need to go to the shop, it is ten minutes walk away, pre fitbit I would have taken the car, post fitbit I shall walk.

But all it is doing is recording my steps and others seem to use it to track weight loss and so on. That's all I was asking.

I'm being hostile now because I'm fed up!

I got a fitbit 2 weeks ago, have you downloaded the app? I use it to log my food calories and weight. I also log my water intake, it made me realise I don't drink enough water. It records my daily calories out and my daily calories in. I can do little exercise challenges, it records my heart rate so I can see which stage when I am in fat burn mode or cardio. It monitors my sleep etc. It's a great tool. I am now hitting my first targets so I will increase them for next time.

Download the Active 10 app and give it a go alongside your Fitbit. It records how many “active 10s” you do - 10 minutes of brisk walking. Aim for 3 a day. Much better for your heart, weight and overall health than trying to do the random 10k steps everyone seems to think everyone should be doing.

Fitbit already do this.

Fitbit only tracks weight loss if you go on the app and record your weight loss. You input the information.

I am also losing weight but have set my fit bit at a mere 7500 and some days don't manage that. Busy job, lots of children who attend lots of clubs... That said I do the 30 day shred everyday - Day 42 now - so how that helps. Honestly thinking of losing my fit but step target cos I love it on the ago when it flashes all green and it just doesn't happen enough

This is it: I am moving more due to the fitbit which is good I suppose!

PS well done on your weight loss. I'm assuming for around 1200 calories a day and finding that hard enough.

OK so the fitbit records steps.ut also level of exercise. Have you used that aspect of it? Mine (don't know itlf it's the same for all models) will consider a walk to be exercise if more than 15mms non stop (or is it 20mns?). Set yourself a goal of x days of exercise a week. It will then record the calories for each exercise. You can also input manually so if you do 20 mns up and down the stairs, record it with the time and it will cscluate the calories based on your heart rate.

The other thing you can do is use the fitbit challenge. Sign up to a challenge for the weekend for instance or you can do a group challenge with friends. That will motivate you to maximise your steps during that time. I have a friend who wins all the time, I think she jumps up and down in front of the TV at night :)

I'm obsessed with my fitbit (unhealthily so, probably). The steps are the main thing, imo, but I also use the active minutes, the 'levels' (although I don't trust those, they seem fairly arbitrary), the weekly exercise goals, calories eaten, sleep and heart rate (important for me because mine is too low).

4lbs in a week is loads. I'm not sure how much you could be expecting - especially if it's not your first week (often lots of water weight lost in first week). Your diet is working.

Not a myth no. 600 calories is a crash diet and won't work long term. You will lose weight for a few weeks, get fed up when you aren't losing loads of weight and then as soon as you start eating again your body will store it all out of fear that you may starve it again!

It is a myth. 600 calories is only a crash diet that won't work long term because most people start eating again. But it's the eating that causes the diet to fail, not the eating of 600 calories. It is a myth that there are loads of overweight people out there existing on 600 calories a day and not losing weight. If you eat that little consistently and long term, you will lose unhealthy amounts of weight. You will not stay the same weight or gain weight. I've been either significantly or seriously underweight for my whole adult life and I eat below the recommended minimum always (obviously or I would be bigger). It's not healthy but of course it works. How could it not?

With VLCD I use those on 600cal full meal replacement plan aren't supposed to do more that 30min gentle exercise a day & if going to gym/running etc should eat back the lost calories with low carb meal I.e be on a higher calorie plan if very regular.

4lb a week is a high loss though, apart from 1st week when body will shed water as glycogen used up where you can loose a lot more. Sometimes on week of 600cal plan may not loose anything & even gain a little but it will probably still losing cm those weeks & rebalances over the course of a month.

The HR function is very useful to see if you are working in the right range so if you are doing a HIIT class and your HR is in the orange you are not working hard enough

You can use it for this but on 600 cals you’ll likely feel rather unwell when pushing max Heart Rate.

Bonne chance!

Medical advice is that you shouldn't exercise on a VLCD as you aren't taking in sufficient calories to sustain it. Normal daily activity is fine

Does it matter? Do you work for them? It isn't relevant because MFP isn't relevant on the diet I'm currently doing.

No, it doesn't matter and no I don't work for them. Was just trying to offer some advice and friendly help but clearly you're not bothered judging by some of your responses to people.

Stay eating 600 cals a day and you'll make yourself ill. You'll lose weight but also take on a whole host of other deficiencies.

Good luck and all that.

@HoneysuckIejasmine I had no idea you could adjust the steps target! Just had a mess about with my Fitbit app and worked out how to do it! Thanks!

If you have the heart rate monitor then you could focus on reducing your resting heart rate by walking a bit faster.
I don't think you need to try and fit in more exercise as it sounds like that would be difficult for you, so trying to push yourself and speed walking for intervals with existing steps could be the way to go.

There's a few ways to get more from your Fitbit, such as tweaking your targets around etc. Join the weekend warrior or workweek hustle syndicates (if you pm me your Fitbit email I will add you to our one of mumsnet users)

There's Fitbit coach programmes too which you can access which are like little workout videos, but obviously you do need a few minutes at least to do them.

I just use mine as a personal target. I like tracking the active minutes for example. I like to monitor my heart rate during exercise and push it up say 20 bpm then keep It there for 2 minutes, drop it back, then up again etc. I do this while pushing the pushchair to school etc in addition to my normal exercise.

Re the VLCD, they aren't always awful and some are very successful, particularly those that use intermittent fasting and focus on eating high fat/protein nutritious foods. 4lbs a week is great but it will slow down as you get used to the diet, so mixing it up with a real food plan could help particularly once you're over the initial stages. You can join us on our blood sugar diet thread if you're interested, it's a high fat/low carb real food diet plan (although you can use shakes) and has different programmes for different ways to lose weight. I lost 3 stone doing it last year, plus running, and have kept it off for 6 months.

Blood sugar diet thread 13 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/fasting_diet/3437086-blood-sugar-diet-thread-13

Here's our BSD thread if you or anyone else is interested?

One more thing, sorry! I am a sahm and I know that a large amount of my steps are virtually pointless, as in the tiny little steps while cooking dinner or emptying the dishwasher, compared with the big strides when out running but Fitbit counts them all the same. Correlating your steps and active minutes is the key for me, so 10k steps but no active minutes, compared with 5k steps, 20 active minutes- the second is of course 'better' in terms of exercise as it's physical exertion. When I do my housework now, I always try to pick up the pace, running upstairs with laundry, etc and that definitely picks up the total active minutes without any extra time or noticeable effort. And for that reason I really try not to eat back my exercise calories- it's quite hit and miss.

I'm sorry, you need to eat real food. 600 calories a day will damage your body and you won't keep it off long term.

A successful diet is a lifestyle change - one you can keep going with for the rest of your life, new eating habits, new exercise habits.

I've been tracking calories and exercise for ten months now and I've lost 10kg. Not a lot for some people but I know this is a sustainable change.

You need to think long term and not pin your hopes on a ridiculous diet that won't work once you come back to normal eating.

Women's bodies are different to men's - in famine our bodies go into "hang on to fat" mode whereas men's bodies go into "lean up so you can fight or be more nimble to find resources" mode. It's better to go for a Calorie deficit and do a chunk of high intensity exercise. The whole 10,000 steps thing has been debunked, you shouldn't count pottering around the house towards an exercise goal.

How about completely separating your exercise from your diet? Losing weight is 80% what you eat and 20% exercise. As others have said you can't out train a good diet. For starters I would completely forget about what exercise you do in relation to your intake, treat any exercise as a bonus. It will be toning up your body so once that fat is removed you will be firmer and feel fitter.

Interesting comments, as ever, re VLCD. Have a google of Micheael Moseleys new Fast 800. New research is showing that people who have a lot to loose are very motivated when the weight comes off fast and they are now saying that it doesn't affect metabolic rate long term. Afterall we've all heard the slimming world, weight watchers followers who have lost the weight and then put it all on. I think the key is to accept that your complete way of eating has to be reset. It's not 'going on a diet', it's changing the way you view and eat food and getting it under control.

Lastly whatever you do it's key to remember that the weight can only come off so fast. Set yourself small goals and celebrate those. For example, getting out of obese bmi into 'overweight', losing 10%, 25%, 50% of what you need to lose. It won't happen overnight but before you now it you will be feeling better. Lastly google the 'whoosh' effect for when weightloss stalls.

The 10k steps has been debunked, however, it's still an arbitrary figure that's representative of a reasonable level of activity. My Dh drives all day and sits in an office, he almost never achieves 10k steps, usually 6-7k a day. I get anywhere between 15k and 20k daily, my daily average last year was 16k across the whole year. If I do a day and only get 6k steps in it basically means I have laid on the sofa all day and done nothing. So yes, not counting it towards exercise goals i agree with, but using it as a barometer of how active you are is really helpful. I know of people who do sub 5k steps every single day, so increasing that incrementally to 10k will surely require some conscious effort and Also have a positive effect even if those steps are simply from being more active round the house.

So if the op endeavours to increase her average steps by 1k a month, so in 6 months time she'll be doing 16k steps daily (average) that is representative of her increasing her overall activity level and decreasing her 'time sat on sofa' level. Whether it will impact on weight loss I don't know.

I've found that on a normal day at work, if I take the car but do walk up and down stairs rather than taking lift and get off my bottom at lunchtime, I average around 7500. On days I work at home if I don't make a conscious effort to go out for a walk ( easier now we have ddog) then it's nearer 5000.

If I walk from free parking into work and back ( about 3k each way) then I'm on around 11k steps per day. 16k steps would take about 90 mins per day minimum brisk walking and OP has no additional time. If OP is doing 10k steps per day then she is already moderately active and focus should be on diet initially ( rest days from vlcd will help to keep metabolism up.

I did Cambridge twice....lost very average amounts. They actually tell you NOT to exercise on that programme, as it puts your body into starvation mode.

I’m
Now doing weight watchers and lost 1.5 stone in 7 weeks eating proper food.

I thought that people on VLCD were told not to exercise

You can definitely eat too little. I was on 1500 for a while, and it did lose me weight, then my PT switched my regime.

I stopped losing nearly as much because my body retained. I went back up to 1800, could power through harder workouts and began to lose more.

I've built such good muscle that I could skip the routine for 2 months with my wedding and honeymoon and still lost 3lbs just from normal activity.