Surge syncing exercise with mfp

clairmonaghan

Help..... I have been using my fitness pal for months so I saved to buy a Fitbit surge to help me! I am so disappointed to find that when using the surge in exercise mode using gps to track a 6km walk, in which I earned 400 cals, this is not the passed to my exercise in mfp! I had the added steps but without the calories. In messing around in settings uninstalling and reinstalling I have no ended up with 177 exercise calories for 10,000 Fitbit steps??? So frustrating! Any ideas on what to do and how to use the surge to add my steps and exercise, before I throw the dam thing! Thank you in advance

Stacivogue

i just log my activity calories in my status - and let the fitbit do the calorie synch. when you go for a walk - hit the button for "Exercise", then scroll over to "Walk" and make sure you hit the button next to the arrow to start. It will track your calories and HR, and when you're done, just use the top button (the finish flag) and it will tell you the workout. There are also 2 new tiles in fitbit that shows your exercise calorie/step breakouts.

editorgrrl

clairmonaghan wrote: »

When using the surge in exercise mode using gps to track a 6km walk, in which I earned 400 cals, this is not the passed to my exercise in mfp!

That's not how it works. Your Fitbit burn is TDEE (your maintenance calories). MFP estimates your burn by 11:59 p.m., compares that to your MFP activity level, and adjusts your calories accordingly.

Enable negative calorie adjustments: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

If you want your Surge exercise to appear in your MFP newsfeed, post it as a status update.

NancyN795

What editorgrrl said. Plus, read the FAQ found in the stickies:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy/p1

cyronius

The way I do this is to sync my Fitbit account (using a Surge) with Strava, and link my Strava account to MFP.

That way, the activity is published to Strava, which in turn publishes it to MFP. The MFP calorie burn for the exercise will be slightly different to your Surges estimate, but that doesn't matter, because the Fitbit calorie adjustment sorts all of that out.

The only problem with doing it this way is that MFP then publishes the activity back to Fitbit, creating a duplicate. But I find deleting the duplicate in Fitbit easier than manually entering the exercise in MFP, so I still do it that way

heybales

cyronius wrote: »

The way I do this is to sync my Fitbit account (using a Surge) with Strava, and link my Strava account to MFP.

That way, the activity is published to Strava, which in turn publishes it to MFP. The MFP calorie burn for the exercise will be slightly different to your Surges estimate, but that doesn't matter, because the Fitbit calorie adjustment sorts all of that out.

The only problem with doing it this way is that MFP then publishes the activity back to Fitbit, creating a duplicate. But I find deleting the duplicate in Fitbit easier than manually entering the exercise in MFP, so I still do it that way

I was wondering what info Strava took from Fitbit sync.
I manually upload my Garmin GPS files to Strava, and it always replaces the calorie burn with it's own terrible estimate.

I'm not sure why they haven't bettered their formula for watts for cycling, and then from watts calorie burn (which actually is decent formula, the watts is bad though).

So it sounds like same thing - they'll take the Distance and time info, and GPS track, but then do their own math ignoring the Surge calorie burn?

Yesterday's ride, they were 300 cal short per hr, for 3 hrs that is a bad amount off, and if not eaten back, would have badly messed me up along with deficit I did take.

cyronius

They do seem to calculate their own calorie burn, but Strava has access to the heart rate data from the Surge workout, so they seem to be pretty close (at least for runs. Cycling differs a bit more).

However, the value that Strava or MFP calculates is completely irrelevant.

Lets say you burn 3000 calories in a day, and then on top of that you do a bike ride. MFP or Strava screws something up and gives you *another* 3000 calories just for that ride, for a total burn of 6000 calories that day. Even if that happens though, the Fitbit comes along and says you only burned 3300 calories that day, including the bike ride. MFP then adjusts your calories for the day back down to 3300 that the Fitbit is reporting (as long as you have negative adjustments turned on).

Ultimately, as long as you have it recorded accurately on your fitbit account, what you do elsewhere won't matter, as it will all balance out on MFP in the end.

heybales

Actually, to your scenario of MFP screwing something up thinking you burned more in exercise - it would send that exercise over to Fitbit and overwrite the calorie burn for that chunk of time.
If Strava provided MFP that workout with screwed up burn, same effect - Fitbit is overwritten.
Now Fitbit has that extra 3000 calories and sends a new higher TDEE right back to MFP.
So actually it's not corrected.

There is a misunderstanding about negative calorie adjustment too. That is merely if your daily burn estimate per MFP is lower than what Fitbit reports. To your example of exercise being involved, having negative enabled wouldn't matter.

Now, if you manually logged it in Fitbit, then yes nothing else will change it, I think.
I'll have to find my test from the other night where I did Fitbit manual first, and MFP second, to see if Fitbit was really maintained.

But if you are using the Fitbit calculated - and Strava directly or via MFP, or anything else through MFP, writes a workout with changed calories - it overwrites the Fitbit calories for that chunk.

So if I had Strava synced to Fitbit, uploaded my Garmin (with good calorie estimate) to Strava and it wrote it's own badly underestimated calorie burn to Fitbit, I'd be under by 1200 calories for the day.

Now, in my specific case using Fitbit Zip, it was already way under because not correct usage for bike, so Strava would actually be slight improvement.

But if I had Charge calorie burn and pretty good estimate - Strava would wipe that out, either coming directly or via MFP, and lower my TDEE badly.

And it would be on MFP with that same bogus burn. There would be no correction to it until I corrected it on MFP or Fitbit by wiping out the bogus workout and entering my own more correct info.

I'll have to go back and compare my runs to see if they totally come up with their own calorie burn, or use the HR info then.
Because true, they do have it for the bike rides too, but they seem to use their own formula for incline, weight, speed, ect. Just not good ones I've seen elsewhere that actually match up better.

clairmonaghan

Oh gosh I'm so confused! I am new to all this. Thank you everyone for the info. So to take this back to a beginners level.
When I have used mfp for my food and then a heart rate belt with endomondo and then my exercise has synced over to give me the relevant calories to what I earned in a set timed activity wether this be walking or cycling and copies under exercise in my fitness pal, are you talking me this has been giving me an incorrect calculation for the last 5 months?

Now I am using my surge for my daily steps and the exercise function for a timed walk and yet I won't be able to accumulate my calories earned for making the effort to walk? So where is my incentive to walk when I could easily earn my 10,000 steps pottering around the house?

To walk for an hour and earn 400cals and then continue my busy walking day and still only end the day on 300cals of exercise seems very different to how I have been using mfp for the last 5 months. Can I also
Add that using endomondo and mfp has worked as I have now lost to date 16kg.

clairmonaghan

editorgrrl wrote: »

clairmonaghan wrote: »

When using the surge in exercise mode using gps to track a 6km walk, in which I earned 400 cals, this is not the passed to my exercise in mfp!

That's not how it works. Your Fitbit burn is TDEE (your maintenance calories). MFP estimates your burn by 11:59 p.m., compares that to your MFP activity level, and adjusts your calories accordingly.

Enable negative calorie adjustments: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

If you want your Surge exercise to appear in your MFP newsfeed, post it as a status update.

Thanks for the info I still
Do not understand? If I am tracking a walking activity and earning cals why are they not adding to mfp exercise? I understand it calculating etc but surely using a heart rate belt in endomondo and tracking a walk which then added my earned cals and using heart rate watch (surge) and tracking a walk should send the same info? Why is endomondo and a belt calculated different to Fitbit and heart rate watch? What am I missing here?

heybales

Huh, just checked, Strava doesn't even have the HR data from the Garmin for the runs, well, they got it, but they don't display it like they do for bike rides, and I'm guessing don't use it for calorie estimates.
And they actually estimated calorie burn high by 50 cal for 30 min on a recent run.

Run at HR of 69% HRR (under mid-aerobic) was 15.9 cal/min, compared to
Bike at HR of 73% HRR (over mid-aerobic) was 9.3 cal/min.

And I am matched between biking and running for VO2max and LT levels, so calorie burn at same HR's is the same.
And the bike was much harder than that.

But their biking estimates are just insane. For sure proprietary formula, that doesn't follow any of the normal conversion or formula's for biking.
Even their watts to kj to calories doesn't use any of the normal conversion rates.

cyronius

heybales wrote: »

Actually, to your scenario of MFP screwing something up thinking you burned more in exercise - it would send that exercise over to Fitbit and overwrite the calorie burn for that chunk of time.

I use a Surge, and I can tell you first hand, it does not do this. It creates a *duplicate* activity on Fitbit, rather than over writing it. Delete that, and you have no problem.

Which is exactly why I suggested you do it that way

If Strava provided MFP that workout with screwed up burn, same effect - Fitbit is overwritten.
Now Fitbit has that extra 3000 calories and sends a new higher TDEE right back to MFP.
So actually it's not corrected.

Except it doesn't overwrite it, so once you delete the duplicate on Fitbit, it *is* corrected.

There is a misunderstanding about negative calorie adjustment too. That is merely if your daily burn estimate per MFP is lower than what Fitbit reports. To your example of exercise being involved, having negative enabled wouldn't matter.

No, you've got a misunderstanding I'm afraid.

If MFP underestimates your burn compared to your measured Fitbit burn, then you get a *positive* adjustment on MFP.

You get a negative adjustment when MFP is overestimating your burn compared to the measured burn on your Fitbit. Which is exactly the scenario you would encounter in the example I gave of MFP over estimating your calorie burn

Now, if you manually logged it in Fitbit, then yes nothing else will change it, I think.

We're talking about a Surge here. There is no reason to manually log anything...

But if you are using the Fitbit calculated - and Strava directly or via MFP, or anything else through MFP, writes a workout with changed calories - it overwrites the Fitbit calories for that chunk.

Again, from direct first hand experience using a Surge, Strava and MFP, it does *not* overwrite your Fitbit activity

So if I had Strava synced to Fitbit, uploaded my Garmin (with good calorie estimate) to Strava and it wrote it's own badly underestimated calorie burn to Fitbit, I'd be under by 1200 calories for the day.

I know nothing about the Garmin. I'm talking about the Surge, because that was what the OP was asking about...

But if I had Charge calorie burn and pretty good estimate - Strava would wipe that out, either coming directly or via MFP, and lower my TDEE badly.

No, it doesn't. At least, not with a Surge...

And it would be on MFP with that same bogus burn. There would be no correction to it until I corrected it on MFP or Fitbit by wiping out the bogus workout and entering my own more correct info.

I'm sorry, but you're using second hand information here, or information from another device. Because it categorically does not work that way.

Huh, just checked, Strava doesn't even have the HR data from the Garmin for the runs, well, they got it, but they don't display it like they do for bike rides, and I'm guessing don't use it for calorie estimates.

That's not the case with the Surge either. It bring HR data across just fine for cycling, running and walking.

cyronius

clairmonaghan wrote: »

Thanks for the info I still
Do not understand? If I am tracking a walking activity and earning cals why are they not adding to mfp exercise?

They are, however they're not listed as an entry in your diary. It's just part of the calorie adjustment.

If you want it to be listed in MFP, you've got to do it manually, or follow the steps I listed above with linking to a third party app like Strava...

I understand it calculating etc but surely using a heart rate belt in endomondo and tracking a walk which then added my earned cals and using heart rate watch (surge) and tracking a walk should send the same info? Why is endomondo and a belt calculated different to Fitbit and heart rate watch? What am I missing here?

There's a couple of reasons. Firstly, they will measure slightly different heartrates, because neither are perfect. More importantly, they use a formula to calculate your burn rate based on your heart rate, gender, weight etc. Those formulas are likely not exactly the same.

NancyN795

clairmonaghan wrote: »

Oh gosh I'm so confused! I am new to all this. Thank you everyone for the info. So to take this back to a beginners level.
When I have used mfp for my food and then a heart rate belt with endomondo and then my exercise has synced over to give me the relevant calories to what I earned in a set timed activity wether this be walking or cycling and copies under exercise in my fitness pal, are you talking me this has been giving me an incorrect calculation for the last 5 months?

Now I am using my surge for my daily steps and the exercise function for a timed walk and yet I won't be able to accumulate my calories earned for making the effort to walk? So where is my incentive to walk when I could easily earn my 10,000 steps pottering around the house?

To walk for an hour and earn 400cals and then continue my busy walking day and still only end the day on 300cals of exercise seems very different to how I have been using mfp for the last 5 months. Can I also
Add that using endomondo and mfp has worked as I have now lost to date 16kg.

Generally, the advice for a new Fitbit owner is that you should not overthink it, trust your Fitbit for a few weeks (while logging food as accurately as possible) and then reevaluate whether it is giving you an accurate TDEE.

I would usually get more than a 177 calorie adjustment for a day with 10,000 steps (referring back to your original post here). But, I have MFP set to a Sedentary activity level. (Over the last week, I've averaged 17K steps and around a 900 calorie adjustment.) So, it may be that your MFP activity level is so close to your actual activity level (including exercise) that you're not seeing a big adjustment. Some people like that - it makes planning easier. Some people don't - they prefer to set their MFP activity level to what is accurate for non-exercise activity. When you have a Fitbit, getting your MFP activity level correct isn't that important (assuming you have negative calorie adjustments enabled). However, I think seeing either a big or small adjustment can make a big difference psychologically. For me, I prefer to start the day with fewer calories to eat and then get a bigger adjustment when I am active. It reminds me that I need to fight my natural tendency to be sedentary if I want to eat enough to not be hungry.

heybales

@cyronius - so are you saying that different than the other devices - whatever Fitbit has in their stats for a block of time - there is no overwrite from a workout being synced from another source?

Or must it be an activity record showing already and then it's not overwritten?

I just want to confirm there is the known difference between Activity Record which indeed is snapshot of stats and is NOT changed when a manual workout comes across, but the daily stats are indeed changed.

And a Workout Record which is a change of stats that Fitbit already had.

Because if you use the button on the device, it creates an Activity Record, and now the stats that Fitbit had are shown. This is not a Workout Record though.

You can then manually create a workout in Fitbit, or MFP that syncs over to Fitbit, or Strava that went to MFP then to Fitbit, that changes the daily stats - but it won't change the snapshot of stats in that Activity record.

So it will appear that stats did not change from that Activity Record - but they actually did.
This can be confirmed or denied by merely changing the name on the Record, as soon as that is done, the new stats contained within the daily are used and shown.

Or when you do a sync with existing Activity Record, there is no Workout record from other source that is even allowed to be logged?

But I notice that you said in scenario of screwed up record on MFP adding a 3000 cal workout - you would have to manually delete the workout on Fitbit to correct - so not really any auto-correct.

And yes, the original Fitbit stats are muted you might say, not used in any totals, but not deleted. They are replaced in all calculations by Workout Records, either manually in Fitbit, or synced as workouts from MFP or other sources.

Because there still would be reason to manually log on Fitbit - if doing strength training where HR-based calorie burn is incorrect application of formula, or where Surge missed chunks of HR reading and was deflated average, ect.

And yes, I did write the neg cal adj direction backward.

But I've helped 2 people with confusion on their Surges, and logging in to their web accounts seemed to do everything I already expected them to do regarding Activity Records and Workout Records.
Now that was couple months ago, and I guess Fitbit could have changed things. I'm just curious though.

cyronius

heybales wrote: »

I just want to confirm there is the known difference between Activity Record which indeed is snapshot of stats and is NOT changed when a manual workout comes across, but the daily stats are indeed changed.

Ok, I'm not sure of the terms, so I won't use them and potentially confuse things further. What I'll do is describe how I do things and what happens.

Lets say I decide to go cycling. I select the cycling activity on my surge, get a GPS lock and go. I ride around for an hour, come home and stop the activity.

At this point, Strava automatically imports my cycling session, and the session also appears in my Fitbit activities.

Once I review the Strava session and confirm it, it syncs to MyFitnessPal automatically, and MyFitnessPal in turn creates *another* cycling activity on my Fitbit. I trash the one from MFP, and everything is done.

But I notice that you said in scenario of screwed up record on MFP adding a 3000 cal workout - you would have to manually delete the workout on Fitbit to correct - so not really any auto-correct.

Yes, but I made that clear. You need to delete the duplicate on Fitbit. Once you do that, everything works out, and the numbers auto correct.

And yes, the original Fitbit stats are muted you might say, not used in any totals, but not deleted. They are replaced in all calculations by Workout Records, either manually in Fitbit, or synced as workouts from MFP or other sources.

There is no reason to use a manual weights activity if you use a Surge. You can select it as a session on the Surge itself, which then creates the activity on the site automatically, and uses a different calorie calculation for it.

Because there still would be reason to manually log on Fitbit - if doing strength training where HR-based calorie burn is incorrect application of formula, or where Surge missed chunks of HR reading and was deflated average, ect.

The only reason to log weights manually in MFP is if you want to record it as a strength training session, and include reps, weight amounts etc. The calorie calculation side of things is already handled by the weights activity on the Surge...

heybales

Ok, what you are doing is what I thought you were doing.

Workout start/end function (button press on others) creates an Activity Record on Fitbit. Mere snapshot of the stats during that block of time that Fitbit came up with.

Strava has their own calorie burn calc for the stats it gets from Fitbit, and it syncs that to MFP as a workout.

MFP then syncs that workout to Fitbit which replaces (mutes) the stats that Fitbit first saw - the ones you can see in the Activity Record.

Now, a workout from MFP is merely the calorie burn, so that is all that got replaced/muted in those stats.

So if you liked the calorie burn estimate from Strava, do nothing, the calorie burn that Fitbit came up with gets replaced.

If you like the Fitbit calorie burn, indeed delete the MFP workout that came in.

But what you are doing by no means eliminates automatically the potential for an incorrect calorie burn value to replace whatever Fitbit came up with - if you like the Fitbit calorie burn better. That round-robin process can cause it easier if not watchful and have a process down.
Also, if that workout on MFP gets tweaked in anyway, extending the time 1 minute or calorie burn - it'll get synced back over to Fitbit again.

But why leave an MFP workout with a calorie count you don't like enough that you delete it on Fitbit?
The existence of a workout record and activity record both does not mean calories are doubled up, so that's not a concern. But if they are the same or close - indeed no need for it.

So I'm guessing Strava is your place for logging the workouts for review later, at least rides/runs, MFP you just want auto-announcement of the workout being done to FL, and Fitbit you want the good calorie burn logged.

I still can't find anything on Fitbit where selecting weights as the workout on the device changes the calorie burn estimate - only the words in the activity record. Same for any of the other workouts that can be put on there, some just enable GPS, some don't.
Because neither HR-based calorie burn nor step-based calorie burn are correct for weight lifting.
There is no correlation between HR and calorie burn when doing anaerobic exercise that is non-steady state.
Now if doing 15 min only 2 x weekly, big whoop. But 3-5 x weekly for 60 min, ya, that's a big difference.

cyronius

heybales wrote: »

Workout start/end function (button press on others) creates an Activity Record on Fitbit. Mere snapshot of the stats during that block of time that Fitbit came up with.

The cycling activity demonstrates that's not the case. In addition, turning on activity tracking on the device itself increases the sample rate of the Heart Monitor to give you a more accurate calculation.

It's not a simple snapshot.

Strava has their own calorie burn calc for the stats it gets from Fitbit, and it syncs that to MFP as a workout.

MFP then syncs that workout to Fitbit which replaces (mutes) the stats that Fitbit first saw - the ones you can see in the Activity Record.

Now, a workout from MFP is merely the calorie burn, so that is all that got replaced/muted in those stats.

Yep. However, critically, it doesn't literally replace the activity on your fitbit account. It simply lists both activities, allowing you to delete one. Which is why I suggested that approach.

I didn't look in to whether both activities count the calories, or which one mutes the other, as the plan was always to delete the one imported from MFP.

So if you liked the calorie burn estimate from Strava, do nothing, the calorie burn that Fitbit came up with gets replaced.

But what you are doing by no means eliminates automatically the potential for an incorrect calorie burn value to replace whatever Fitbit came up with - if you like the Fitbit calorie burn better.

Sure, but it would be a strange person that bought a Surge (with HR monitor) and then ignored the said data to use MFPs guesstimation.

That round-robin process can cause it easier if not watchful and have a process down.
Also, if that workout on MFP gets tweaked in anyway, extending the time 1 minute or calorie burn - it'll get synced back over to Fitbit again.

Agreed. But there's no reason to edit the MFP version at all. It's only there so it appears on your diary. The calorie counting information is irrelevant, as it's getting balanced out by your Fitbit data.

But why leave an MFP workout with a calorie count you don't like enough that you delete it on Fitbit?

Because I want my workouts to appear on MFP, and I prefer the process being automated to manually typing it up as a diary entry.

So I'm guessing Strava is your place for logging the workouts for review later, at least rides/runs, MFP you just want auto-announcement of the workout being done to FL, and Fitbit you want the good calorie burn logged.

I only use Strava because I have friends that use it. The auto import to MFP was a bonus. Fitbit and MFP together are my main sources of truth.

I still can't find anything on Fitbit where selecting weights as the workout on the device changes the calorie burn estimate - only the words in the activity record. Same for any of the other workouts that can be put on there, some just enable GPS, some don't.

As I said above, cycling is an example of an activity that does more than simply change the name of the record.

And they all increase the HR sample rate.

I'm *assuming* that the weights activity uses a custom calculation to make it more accurate than simple HR measure. Whilst it's not going to be perfect, it's absolutely possible to improve it over "measure HR and treat it as aerobic exercise", so I'm assuming that the weights activity does this.

I have nothing to support that though...

heybales

Yes, starting the Activity on on HR based devices starts per second logging, so calorie burn is based on finer data.

But the activity record is still a mere snapshot of the data that Fitbit has. It is not adding it to the daily stats.
Delete a record, you'll see that the daily stats stay exactly the same - nothing is lost.

The terms that MFP and Fitbit both use are "replace" in regards to a workout - in the sense that whatever stats Fitbit had, are no longer used when a workout is manually added or synced across. They are not doubled up or increased by that amount, they are replaced in the daily calculations.
True, they are not truly replaced for a time period.

Last year I actually found out when going back to remove a workout to see original Fitbit stats, that after a certain period of time the original Fitbit data is not retained, so eventually it was really replaced.

But only by a workout, not the activity record snapshot.