Step Counter & Monitoring Activity

LoBaas

Hello friends,

I am using the MFP app on my iPhone 5s, and it has been using my phone's built-in activity monitor to record my daily steps. MFP then gives me these steps as excercise. For example, yesterday I took around 10k steps and burned 400 calories doing so, apparently.

Does this mean I should not be logging any exercise that I do? Yesterday I went for a two mile jog, and then went about my day, and spent the evening beachcombing. Do I log any of that? It seems that the steps I took while jogging wouldn't be equivalent to the steps I took while walking the beach, but MFP seems to be treating them as equal.

Also, I have been using the Map My Fitness app to record my jogs, and none of this data seems to be importing into the MFP app, as I have it set to do.

As of right now, I just don't feel like I am keeping an accurate record of my activity.

Help? Advice? Insights?

Thanks.

TeaBea

Steps on your phone.....step based exercise. Yes, there is a risk of double counting if you add the entire jog separately (unless you turn your phone's step counter off). Did you burn more calories while jogging, than a leisurely walk?.....Likely so. You might manually add a bonus for that.

As far as using 2 synced apps simultaneously......? Not sure how to remedy that. BUT calorie burns are estimates; heart rate monitors, apps, activity trackers....they are all estimates. "Accurate" is a little bit like wishful thinking.

LoBaas

Thanks for the response TeaBea.

Do any of you use an activity tracker, such as a FitBit? I so, do you recommend it? I have my eye on the Misfit Shine, does anyone have experience with it?

TeaBea

LoBaas wrote: »

Thanks for the response TeaBea.

Do any of you use an activity tracker, such as a FitBit? I so, do you recommend it? I have my eye on the Misfit Shine, does anyone have experience with it?

You might look for the group.....so many models to choose.

I have a FitBitOne. I like it. By cardio is step based so it does a decent job counting that. It monitors sleep....not a big deal to me. Many people in maintenance swear by it's accuracy (fingers crossed). The One is worn clipped to clothing (I washed it once)....but it still works. Trackers not worn on the wrist seem to track steps better. Some trackers have been known to track driving. No heart rate component, but my workouts are never huge anyway.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users

This is going to depend upon what your expectations are. For some people it's a temporary gadget that gets tossed in a drawer a month later.

BWBTrish

I have a Misfit Flash
Like it and it seems...i repeat seems...to be a 100 calories above my TDEE.

So a bit overestimated
But its a nice gadget I like the app
And for me important it is waterproof
My Polar watch FT7 only gives a higher amount for my calorie burn for swimming

So in a way i like it...but still testing it

But know that you always get an estimate and with those estimates you work towards what you really lose/eat and burn.
Matter of calculating.

atypicalsmith

My personal advice is don't link any apps with MFP. Log that separately. Electronic devices do not know what you ate, do not know what your stride is, and do not possibly know how many calories you burned. Log in everthing on MFP and as long as you are losing, keep doing what you are doing.

jeepinshawn

I have a fitbit charge and like it, helps keep me accountable to myself for daily movement. I only have 2 issues with my fitbit charge, occasionally it gets "stuck" where it stops recording steps, and the wrist clasp sucks and is fairly easy to come undone on accident...

louise5779

Mine records my steps and adjusts my calories but if I record any exercise like running or gym cardio through runkeeper app which is linked to my mfp it then removes the steps. If I don't record any exercise on a day off it records my steps. Quite clever really.

I also use runkeeper record my weight and it also records lbs and oz's, which my mfp doesn't but it does copy the weight over as pounds and oz's.

StaciMarie1974

I have a Fitbit One. It is an activity tracker - and estimates my total daily calorie burn based on BMR and how much/often I move. I have MFP & Fitbit synced. I do not log exercise unless its non-step based. If you do use an app (like MapMyWalk) the nice thing is that the devices do work together, to only use one data source at a time. Such as if have Fitbit synced to MFP and also use MapMyWalk from 1pm-2pm, then MFP does NOT count the Fitbit data from 1pm-2pm. I personally have had glitches with trying to use too many apps at once so don't have MapMyWalk connected these days. I honestly think its a problem with my phone/service.

MFP assumes I will burn a certain # of calorie each day, based on my stats & activity level. When it communicates with Fitbit, MFP receives info from Fitbit about how much I've actually burned. (Well, according to Fitbit of course.) If the Fitbit # is higher than the MFP projection then I get extra.

I don't know if your phone app works in the same way. Does it have an all day calorie burn estimate based on your age/height/weight/gender and activity? If so then it probably does work the same except of course I can easily wear my One all the time and your phone only picks up activity when you're carrying/wearing it. (Otherwise it might assume you're sedentary when its not detecting movement.) But if it does not estimate total burn, then MFP is using the phone step data in a different way to convert it to activity.

BWBTrish

were is @heybales when you need him lol

He knows a lot about these kinda things

Liftng4Lis

Jawbone up 24, pretty dang accurate.

catbhn21

I have a jawbone up 24 too i like it well enough although it annoys me that when I'm power walking through Target it thinks I'm working out but never registers my jogs.

I like MFP to log food, but I don't trust it on activity. I link it to the jawbone app which seems to play well with others. The MFP syncing seems funky. For example, it seems to count my steps from my device but not workouts I log on the Jawbone app and when I linked Map my Fitness, the Jawbone step counter disappeared again.

LoBaas wrote: »

I am using the MFP app on my iPhone 5s, and it has been using my phone's built-in activity monitor to record my daily steps.

Have you looked at the Apple health/fitness app? I don't have an iphone, but it might be a good place to collect data from various apps.

heybales

atypicalsmith wrote: »

My personal advice is don't link any apps with MFP. Log that separately. Electronic devices do not know what you ate, do not know what your stride is, and do not possibly know how many calories you burned. Log in everthing on MFP and as long as you are losing, keep doing what you are doing.

If you think those are inaccuracies to be avoided - are you aware of how MFP estimated your daily burn with no exercise?

By your reasoning - MFP should actually be avoided as it's a bigger inaccuracy compared to the devices.

Which you may not be familiar with - every single one of them has a stride length, usually with means to correct if you care to measure.

And of course the devices don't know what you ate - hence syncing them with MFP - where you do log what you ate.

I think you may have a misunderstanding of how they are supposed to be used with MFP.

Blueseraphchaos

If I'm not mistaken, the fitbit, at least, can determine the difference between regular steps and jogging or running, and it calculates my calorie born accordingly. But i don't know how anything apple works, lol

heybales

LoBaas wrote: »

Hello friends,

I am using the MFP app on my iPhone 5s, and it has been using my phone's built-in activity monitor to record my daily steps. MFP then gives me these steps as excercise. For example, yesterday I took around 10k steps and burned 400 calories doing so, apparently.

Does this mean I should not be logging any exercise that I do? Yesterday I went for a two mile jog, and then went about my day, and spent the evening beachcombing. Do I log any of that? It seems that the steps I took while jogging wouldn't be equivalent to the steps I took while walking the beach, but MFP seems to be treating them as equal.

Also, I have been using the Map My Fitness app to record my jogs, and none of this data seems to be importing into the MFP app, as I have it set to do.

As of right now, I just don't feel like I am keeping an accurate record of my activity.

Help? Advice? Insights?

Thanks.

Someone said heybales!?

The MMF workouts don't sync to the MFP app - they sync to your MFP account, which then syncs to the MFP app.

Merely a distinction because it matters. You may see something on your account through web page that hasn't shown up on app yet.

But indeed, the workouts should show up under Exercise diary if the sync is setup right - must not be.

So that's not accurate as it could be, missing workouts.

MFP app and those steps, like another other activity tracker, uses the steps to estimate distance, and distance and time and weight used in walking or running formula are very accurate calorie burn estimates, better than HRM.
If the distance is correct.

From what I saw in someone's account helping with something, the Exercise diary calorie adjustment is just like the other activity trackers - it's not the exercise or the steps - it's the difference between what MFP thought you'd burn with your selection of Activity level, and what the steps indicate you burned for actual activity level.

The MFP activity level already has steps assumed in it - even Sedentary desk job folks move around after all. It's when that burn gets big enough that it surpasses MFP's estimate that you get positive calories.

So you could workout and be lazy rest of the day and get no adjustment.
You could be very active daily and no workout and get a big adjustment.

Whatever you manually log, and you likely noticed the request to input start time and duration - because that's going to replace whatever calorie burn estimate was done initially.
No double counting unless you got the time way off, and both the original workout data and your manual workout data exist together at different times.

But using your phone is much more inaccurate than a real activity tracker, even if it does increase accuracy over using just MFP.

Ever tested it? Pretty simple.
Look at step count - walk 100 steps with phone in normal spot - look at step count. Did it increase by 100?

Walk a known distance noting the current distance before and after to see if it got the distance correct.

Can at least discover if it's accuracy is close or way off.

heybales

Blueseraphchaos wrote: »

If I'm not mistaken, the fitbit, at least, can determine the difference between regular steps and jogging or running, and it calculates my calorie born accordingly. But i don't know how anything apple works, lol

It has a tri-axis accelerometer too - it's attempting to do the same thing. All the smartphones have had them for awhile. They just think they have it tweaked enough to be as accurate as separate device.
I haven't seen the compares yet - but off-handed remarks seem to say there is a bit to be desired.

They all attempt to dynamically adjust each step length based on impact, hang time, and expected impact based on weight and a set stride length. Impact and hang time indicate walking or running to decide which settings and formula to use.

BlackPup

My sister tested the iphone activity tracker against her Fitbit and it was 12.5% under the Fitbit for a thousand steps!
I go for inaccurate- mfp exercise and then only eat back half the calories - it seems to work.

LoBaas

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I appreciate all of the input.

I am a beginner runner, and I am doing my best to be healthy and hold myself accountable for what I eat and how much I move.

Thanks again friends. The MFP community has been a great resource for me when I am in need of guidance or support!