"very active minutes"

GAJulie78

Today I walked 2 miles with my dog in about 45 minutes (My time is slower when I walk the dog because I stop and make him sit when cars go by and he likes to pee a lot). The fitbit gave me 50 "very active minutes" so far today (looks like all within the walk)

A few days ago I walked 3 miles on the treadmill in an hour, so faster pace. But it only gave me 24 "very active minutes"

Why the drastic difference?
(I have Fitbit One)

heybales

Do you know it was 2 miles, or is that what Fitbit reported?

The treadmill said 3 miles done, what did Fitbit say for the time period?

GAJulie78

I know it was 2 miles because I also tracked it with mapmywalk and gps, and treadmill said 3 miles. I didn't do before and after on my fitbit though, just checked it at the end of the day.
I don't know if this helps but here is screenshots of fitbit screenshots.You can see where I did my walking it's all clumped together. Both days in the fifteen minute intervals looks as if averaging 1550-1650ish steps (per 15 min period...
The first one is Thursday and second is today when it gave me way more 'very active minutes".

heybales

So the reason you need to dig in to the details, which you can't at this point, is because even though you knew what the distance was in each case, if Fitbit had it wrong, it would easily explain the difference in VAM time.
Because you have to maintain that calorie burn for the whole minute for it to count towards VAM. Walking on treadmill would be easy, as it's a set non-variable speed - unless you did vary it, starting out slower and going faster.
Outside could have had more impacts from down hills, or smaller steps it thought you went farther, so greater calorie burn.

So post analysis looking at steps isn't meaningful sadly, because you have no idea what Fitbit thought those steps covered in distance.

ZebsterBC

MapMyWalk is the difference. The data imported from MapMyWalk is logged as all active minutes, even if you had some stops along the way.

heybales

Well, by default it is NOT all logged as active minutes, or as discussed here, Very Active Minutes (VAM). Totally depends on the calorie burn of the workout synced in.

Normally Fitbit must see a calorie burn of 3 x resting for AM time, and 6 x resting for VAM time, for a whole minute for that minute to count.

But when you manually log or sync in an activity, if the total calorie burn works out to that math, the whole time is given AM or VAM time.

Which does indeed mean if enough of it was intense enough, then that could average out the waiting time.

But walking the dog? As VAM time? Still doubtful.
Which means the Fitbit probably saw the distance as longer for some reason.
If the One is on the wrist, and dogs are jerking the chain, I could see bunch more heavy steps being added, therefore assumed greater distance, faster pace, bigger calorie burn = more VAM time.

kpkitten

I get walking the dog counted as VAM time quite a lot, as well as parts of my job (retail). I had to raise my VAM target or I was just acing it without doing anything

myfatass78

On the treadmill, were you holding thr rail ? Fitbit does not like that.