Fitbit/fitness pal sync messing me up!

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  • cristina0000
    cristina0000 Posts: 111 Member
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    I make it a habit not the eat away the additional calories that I get from exercise and steps. I just maintain my original MFP calorie goal. That has been working for me so far...
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    marycharron wrote: »
    No I didn't enable neg adjustment thanks to those who mentioned it I will try that and see if it works!

    Negative adjustments just allows the ability to drop your calories under what MFP gives you if you don't burn enough over the day, up to the 1200 calorie floor.
  • SandyCoils
    SandyCoils Posts: 164 Member
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    sandylion wrote: »
    I have not had this experience with mine being synced... It takes them away in the morning, but then gives them back as I burn.

    Mine does the same thing. Early AM, FitBit immediately takes away about 90 of my cals. I don't mind it, because my goal then is to earn them back. It's been hard with the frigid temps lately, so doing flights of stairs in my house has been helpful with getting me over the hump.

  • andreaheileman
    andreaheileman Posts: 48 Member
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    I've had this happen to me before too... I think that the fitbit "thinks" you will be just as active for the rest of the day, so it estimates how much extra you will burn but really we just go to bed. I've found that I just use my fitbit to make sure I'm more active during the day and not to really eat back extra calories ya know? I'll eat some back if I truly am HUNGRY (not craving) but other than that I don't eat those back. It changes too much and I don't trust it.
  • fabulousmomma
    fabulousmomma Posts: 172 Member
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    Another reason why Shitbits (Fitbits) are lame! Total waste of money:)
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
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    I've never lost more than 100 calories at most.
    I do wonder though if your selected activity level on MFP makes a difference. I only recently upped my activity level to lightly active, but when I had it on Sedentary I rarely lost any calories. I have noticed that my "full day projection" on MFP is now higher than what it was with similar calorie burns and sedentary.

    I tend to go to bed however around 10-11 pm, so that might be why I don't lose many. I have my fitbit set to only add calories to my food plan (on fitbit) as I earn them. This way as it gets closer to the end of the day, I just check the fitbit website to see where I'm at for the day. The number tends to be lower than what is displayed on MFP and generally leaves me waking up with either being under goal or right at goal.
  • happycauseIride
    happycauseIride Posts: 536 Member
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    Fitbit will give you calories for your workouts and also if you add a workout into MFP you are essentially doubling your workout calories. I enter my workout on MFP as 1 calorie and then let Fitbit make its own adjustments so they are not doubled up. If that makes sense.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
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    The 'problem' I think is that MyFitnessPal assumes you're going to be active every hour of the day. Like if based on your stats, activity level MFP predicts you're going to burn 2400 a day - they assume 100/hour. When in reality you have sedentary hours that you burn less and active hours you burn more. And your last few hours of the day are probably sedentary.

    The way to work around this... look at the Fitbit app. Make sure your calorie settings are for sedentary. This way Fitbit will show you your calories burned so far & estimate sedentary for the rest of the day. If you move more you burn extra, but you won't lose anything. Fitbit will show the result in the 'xxx calories over/under' comment on the app. Right now I've prelogged my day, and I'm at ~1700 calories in. Fitbit shows I'm 333 calories over - which means if I don't move anything extra I'll only burn a about 1360. But its 11am, and I get much of my activity in during the evening hours - so I'll be fine. I'll end the day at 1800-1900 burned.
    marycharron wrote: »
    Hi everyone! Ok so I am feeling frustrated, I have synced my Fitbit and fitness pal and yesterday fitness pal took into consideration my exercise on Fitbit and adjusted (increased) my calories. I thought it seemed a bit excessive so I didn't eat them all back, I saved about 100. Well I'm glad I did because I woke up this morning, looked at yesterday's entry and it had adjusted again AFTER I had signed off for the day and now it says my exercise wasn't as much as originally calculated and I actually over ate by 150 cals!! Wtf!? Should I just ignore my exercise adjustment and follow what Fitness pal originally set up for me or is there a way to fix this? Thank you!!!

  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
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    PS-the end result should be the same for Fitbit & MFP if they have the same goals. Meaning at midnight: they should agree. The earlier you are in the day, the more likely there will be a drop in what MFP shows your adjustment is.
  • SandyCoils
    SandyCoils Posts: 164 Member
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    hmvanwink wrote: »
    Fitbit will give you calories for your workouts and also if you add a workout into MFP you are essentially doubling your workout calories. I enter my workout on MFP as 1 calorie and then let Fitbit make its own adjustments so they are not doubled up. If that makes sense.

    I've only seen my FitBit recognize my "walking" as being active. It hasn't yet recognized my work-outs or even playing the Wii. Could that be because I have my FitBit on my non-dominant wrist and the Wii on my dominant wrist? I log my Wii playing time since my FitBit does not. I don't think I'm doubling up here because I never saw FitBit recognize it. I just logged it on MFP, and then checked FitBit and it was there.

  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
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    There should not be any doubling up. If you log a workout at MFP, you log a start/stop time. Say you log a dance class from 1pm-1:45pm. MFP would take your Fitbit data for the day, but ignore Fitbit from 1-1:45 and for that time block use your entered information.

    Now if you enter a high value for the workout - that will affect things. I see in my feed sometimes things like 1000 calories burned in a 60 minute workout. Almost impossible LOL. A very large person maybe could burn that many in an hour, but probably would not be able to keep up the intensity required for that long.

    If using a Fitbit, don't worry about logging any step based activities. Swimming, biking, etc.: log. But otherwise let Fitbit do its thing.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited February 2015
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    hmvanwink wrote: »
    Fitbit will give you calories for your workouts and also if you add a workout into MFP you are essentially doubling your workout calories. I enter my workout on MFP as 1 calorie and then let Fitbit make its own adjustments so they are not doubled up. If that makes sense.

    @hmvanwink - that's not how it works. If you enter the correct start time and duration for a logged workout it will overwrite the calorie burn fitbit gave you for that time period. Here I'll do an example:

    okay so here is how my day looks so far:
    ly0acbedk2ut.jpg

    I'm going to log on MFP a 2 hour walk with 1 calorie burn:
    vzehe1rr5u4z.jpg
    7q8864lbi0vg.jpg


    ok so go back to fitbit and this is how it looks now:
    2amn0g967fls.jpg

    And a side by side:
    jp55zxy3qfa3.jpg


    By logging 1 calorie burn for your workout, you are essentially wiping out whatever calorie burn fitbit would have given you. So the way you're doing it, you are telling fitbit to ignore the calories burned during the times you worked out.

  • ColinsMommaOC
    ColinsMommaOC Posts: 296 Member
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    marycharron wrote: »
    Thanks for the responses. I agree that I think from now on I will stay with my original fitness pal estimates. I don't like the idea of "predicted" amounts j don't know how you are supposed to plan your day when your calories are constantly changing!

    From what I understand - Over time, your fitbit will learn your patterns for movement and calorie burns and automatically make adjustments to its "forecasts" on your calorie burns. So could it be that you have just not been using it long enough to establish a pattern? Mine is pretty accurate, but I have had it for a year. Though I did just change to the Charge from a One. Good luck!
  • ColinsMommaOC
    ColinsMommaOC Posts: 296 Member
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    SandyCoils wrote: »

    I've only seen my FitBit recognize my "walking" as being active. It hasn't yet recognized my work-outs or even playing the Wii. Could that be because I have my FitBit on my non-dominant wrist and the Wii on my dominant wrist? I log my Wii playing time since my FitBit does not. I don't think I'm doubling up here because I never saw FitBit recognize it. I just logged it on MFP, and then checked FitBit and it was there.

    Are you putting your Fitbit into Activity mode when you are working out with the Wii? If yes, then I don't know what to tell you. If not, then try doing this, your activity will be automatically logged onto Fitbit account and your calories adjusted on MFP as well. I don't log any activity or exercise into MFP unless I do not have my Fitbit on when I am doing the activity.

  • SandyCoils
    SandyCoils Posts: 164 Member
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    ColinsMommaOC wrote: »
    SandyCoils wrote: »

    I've only seen my FitBit recognize my "walking" as being active. It hasn't yet recognized my work-outs or even playing the Wii. Could that be because I have my FitBit on my non-dominant wrist and the Wii on my dominant wrist? I log my Wii playing time since my FitBit does not. I don't think I'm doubling up here because I never saw FitBit recognize it. I just logged it on MFP, and then checked FitBit and it was there.

    Are you putting your Fitbit into Activity mode when you are working out with the Wii? If yes, then I don't know what to tell you. If not, then try doing this, your activity will be automatically logged onto Fitbit account and your calories adjusted on MFP as well. I don't log any activity or exercise into MFP unless I do not have my Fitbit on when I am doing the activity.

    A-HA!!!!! No, I have not been doing this. Didn't even know it was an option. Ok, how do I put my Charge into "Activity mode"?
  • ColinsMommaOC
    ColinsMommaOC Posts: 296 Member
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    SandyCoils wrote: »

    A-HA!!!!! No, I have not been doing this. Didn't even know it was an option. Ok, how do I put my Charge into "Activity mode"?

    Press the button on the side and hold until it buzzes and a stopwatch appears on screen. This means its in activity mode. When you are done, just press and hold until it buzzes again :)
  • SandyCoils
    SandyCoils Posts: 164 Member
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    ColinsMommaOC wrote: »
    SandyCoils wrote: »

    A-HA!!!!! No, I have not been doing this. Didn't even know it was an option. Ok, how do I put my Charge into "Activity mode"?

    Press the button on the side and hold until it buzzes and a stopwatch appears on screen. This means its in activity mode. When you are done, just press and hold until it buzzes again :)

    Oooooh, thanks! I'm going to try it tonight.

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