Fitbit Question - Help

dleivis87

For those of you on MFP using a fitbit, could you answer a question for me? I noted that on some days, My Fitness Pal will make a calorie adjustment and other days it won't. And oddly enough, it will give me credit for calories burned on days i have less steps. For example, yesterday I logged 8300 steps and it gave me credit for burining 217 calories yet two days ago i logged 10,200 steps and there was no adjustment. Does anyone know why it woud do that?

I'm thinking that it may not give me credit for steps on days I log significant exercise minutes since it would be essentially 'double counting' as it logs steps during my workouts. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!!

airangel59

Best bet is checking out this MFP Forum: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users

ahoier

You are exactly right. If you are logging your exercise into MFP, which syncs with FitBit, it will only give you calories burned if it's less than the projection that Fitbit calculated. If you have the app on your phone, you can click on the Fitbit Exercise entry, and it'll give you the breakdown.

For example, today my total exercise calories burned between the elliptical and Fitbit was 958...

Elliptical I burned 450
Fitbit calculated I burned 508...(from a tally of 13,792 steps I've done all day)

Since I logged the start and END time of my "ellptical session" Fitbit knows not to "give me" any "extra' calories burned for that session, since I've already "overwritten" it with my values (which was actually an average, between my chest strap HRM, and the machine, divided by 2)

So, those other 508 exercise calories Fitbit "gave me" were from the "other activities" that I performed during the day, to include my 50 minute weight lifting session (I didn't bother logging that today).

But if you click on the Fitbit Tracker Calorie Adjustment and then click on Extra Calories Earned it'll explain further how it came to this conclusion:

Fitbit Calories Burned 3422
Full day Projection based on 2977 calories burned as of 739pm

MyFitnesspal Calories Burned 2914
including the 450 calories from my "logged" exercise



If that makes any sense....lol, it's hard to explain

ridge4mfp

To me, it's much less confusing to log all food in MFP, and all exercise in Fitbit. Enable negative adjustments in MFP to cover a lazy day or when you are ill, and let them just do their thing. It has been quite accurate for me, as I am losing at the expected rate. I also use Drivebit to log my driving time to Fitbit, so I don't get false step counts.

heybales

Ditto's to above.

Except with HR-based devices now, only workouts to manually log are Weights or circuit training really, everything else is covered well enough. Well, except pool stuff.

Read through this a couple times.

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

k80flec

Ditto all of the above.
I log all that I eat and drink with MFP and all that I do on Fitbit. Otherwise is gets messy!!

yarwell

dleiviska wrote: »

For those of you on MFP using a fitbit, could you answer a question for me? I noted that on some days, My Fitness Pal will make a calorie adjustment and other days it won't. And oddly enough, it will give me credit for calories burned on days i have less steps. For example, yesterday I logged 8300 steps and it gave me credit for burining 217 calories yet two days ago i logged 10,200 steps and there was no adjustment. Does anyone know why it woud do that?

I'm thinking that it may not give me credit for steps on days I log significant exercise minutes since it would be essentially 'double counting' as it logs steps during my workouts. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!!

It's an accelerometer not just a step counter, so steps of running and steps of walking clock up different calories and distance.

If you log exercise on here with clcok times then the Fitbit calories for that time period are ignored, to avoid double counting.

dleivis87

Thanks to everyone for this information ! Very helpful!!

jnunez1963

Also, pay attention to your active minutes. You can walk 10k steps without any active minutes (sustained walking).

Say you walk 2 miles, roughly 4k steps, in 30 minutes, burning 150 calories. Another day, you walk 6k steps in total, but only for 2 to 3 minutes at a time, crediting only 4.

Personally, I don't add in any of my other exercise. I just take credit as it's given. It works for me, but may not for you, just answering how I manage it.