Question about fitbit being linked to MFP and exercise……..

edbk35
edbk35 Posts: 13 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I have had my fitbit for over 2 years. I am STILL confused about it being linked to MFP. I know others that have theirs linked but I also see them LOG exercises because it shows up as a post. So….if I have mine linked and say I walk outside 2 miles or I do a 3 mile Leslie Sansone dvd, am I to also log that exercise if my fitbit is already LINKED and giving me credit. Should I just NOT linked it and just log exercise sessions each day?????? TIA

Replies

  • CyberTone
    CyberTone Posts: 7,337 Member
    I think some people might log their step-type exercise as a "phantom" exercise so that it posts to their news feed, then delete it from their Exercise Diary, and let the Fitbit adjustment close out the day.
  • SueInAz
    SueInAz Posts: 6,592 Member
    CyberTone wrote: »
    I think some people might log their step-type exercise as a "phantom" exercise so that it posts to their news feed, then delete it from their Exercise Diary, and let the Fitbit adjustment close out the day.
    I have done this from time to time. I think there are others who simply create a status message that looks like an exercise post.

    You could theoretically log your exercise in MFP if you really wanted just be sure you have negative calorie adjustments turned on. Fitbit will then subtract double counted calories because it knows how many calories you burned during that time. I'd avoid logging walks, though. There's simply no need. If you really wanted your friends to see that you walked you could just as easily log that as a status message instead of an exercise.

    Anything that is not step based should be logged through the Fitbit, though, not MFP.
  • editorgrrl
    editorgrrl Posts: 7,060 Member
    edited September 2015
    If you want your Fitbit exercise to appear in your MFP feed, post a status update. That way you get the best of both worlds—an accurate TDEE + likes.

    No need to log any step-based activity—your Fitbit is tracking it for you. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit or in MFP—never both. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time, so there's never any double dipping.

    You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users
  • Gavin_Campbell
    Gavin_Campbell Posts: 41 Member
    When I had my fitbit I noticed MFP had some smarts to not double count calories. For example, if I played basketball and had my fitbit on me, I would then log the basketball session and it would actually subtract it from my fitbit calories. So I eventually would see two entries, 1 for basketball and another for the fitbit steps from the rest of the day.

    Its also doing that for my apple watch step logging as well.

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