Fitbit app help

Determinedtoloseliz
Determinedtoloseliz Posts: 89 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So i have just gone on a 45 minute walk, tracked it on the fitbit app on my phone, will it automatically transfer on mfp? I have the apps connected and i read on the instructions to add exercise through mfp only but how am i supposed to know how far i went if i did that?

Replies

  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    Fitbit will send over your total steps and total calorie burn for the day to MFP. It doesn't send individual exercise logs, but since they are included in your total calorie burn it's not that important.

    MFP says to log exercise here since Fitbit doesn't send the individual exercise reports. The only benefit to logging it on MFP is that it will show exactly what you did in your exercise diary and it will show on your newsfeed for other users to see.

    Personally, I use MFP for food and Fitbit for exercise. I don't worry about MFP having the individual exercises I did showing in my exercise diary, because I know that it is accounted for in my Fitbit adjustment.
  • kristieshannon
    kristieshannon Posts: 160 Member
    Your Fitbit only counts the number of steps you walked and number of active minutes. If you want to know the distance in miles/km you walked you can us an app like Map my Walk or Runkeeper. If your Fitbit & My Fitness Pal apps are synced properly you should see your step count on your MFP home page and on your diary page unde exercise.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited April 2016
    kristieshannon wrote: »
    Your Fitbit only counts the number of steps you walked and number of active minutes. If you want to know the distance in miles/km you walked you can us an app like Map my Walk or Runkeeper. If your Fitbit & My Fitness Pal apps are synced properly you should see your step count on your MFP home page and on your diary page unde exercise.

    @kristieshannon - the Fitbit app has a gps track feature to track distance and map your route (works no matter what model you have). If you have your stride length set correctly your Fitbit can also come pretty close to getting an accurate distance based on the number of steps you take. The blaze model can connect to a compatible phone and use the phones GPS to map your route/distance. The Surge model has a built in GPS.

    The OP in this case was talking about using the Fitbit apps GPS feature. No need to download MapMyRun/MapMyWalk/Runkeeper when Fitbit can do the same thing from within the app.
  • kristieshannon
    kristieshannon Posts: 160 Member
    Hmmm...I guess I should have specified which model. My flex doesn't have the gps feature.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited April 2016
    kristieshannon wrote: »
    Hmmm...I guess I should have specified which model. My flex doesn't have the gps feature.
    @kristieshannon
    Go into fitbit app
    tap exercise
    tap the stop watch in the top right corner
    welcome to Fitbit Apps GPS tracking (available to use with any Fitbit model)
    dbyalzmto9fn.jpg


    If measure your stride length and put that into the settings (has to be done from website I think), your flex will come pretty close to accurately tracking your distance based on steps alone.


    I've owned Zip, Flex, Surge and am currently using the Blaze.
  • Determinedtoloseliz
    Determinedtoloseliz Posts: 89 Member
    Thanks for your help, looking at buying a fitbit, is the zip any good or is it the same as apedometer as and the moment i dont want to spend to much as i dont know how much use it will be for me(dont exercise all that much). I do exercise dvds would it track that?
  • kristieshannon
    kristieshannon Posts: 160 Member
    Well look at that, you learn something new every day! Thanks @shadow2soul :)
  • rsclause
    rsclause Posts: 3,103 Member
    Lots of apps out there but when I am going to run or a serious walk I let runtastic on my phone log it. If just being active I let fitbit do it.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    Determinedtoloseliz wrote: »
    Thanks for your help, looking at buying a fitbit, is the zip any good or is it the same as apedometer as and the moment i dont want to spend to much as i dont know how much use it will be for me(dont exercise all that much). I do exercise dvds would it track that?

    Fitbit's are all day activity trackers and meant to be worn all day (not just during exercise). The Zip is a very basic model and pretty much a clip on pedometer. It doesn't do much outside of steps, distance, and calories burned. One is a clip on model as well, it adds sleep tracking and "floors" (to encourage stair use, but it measures air pressure so even going up hills or a really windy day will add floors. Thankfully floors is just a fun feature and not counted towards calories). The Flex is at the same price point as the One. It is wrist worn and only adds sleep tracking on to what the Zip does (does not count floors). The Charge is the next model after that which does everything the One does, but is worn on your wrist, has a display (flex doesn't), and I believe gets call notifications. Then there is the Charge HR which adds a HRM to the Charge.

    Anyway, because Fitbit is an all day activity tracker, you won't see an adjustment on MFP until your Fitbit calorie burn is larger than MFP's estimate of what you burn through day to day activity. So if you only use it during exercise, chances are you would never get an adjustment since Fitbit would be giving you only BMR level calorie burn the rest of the day.
  • Determinedtoloseliz
    Determinedtoloseliz Posts: 89 Member
    Thanks for all the info, yes the reason im interested is because i add exercise on mfp but am not all that active the rest of the day so i doubt i would have burnt enough to eat my exercise calories back. I dont want everyone to see i have a fitbit though so would the One be good to go for?
  • Pretty_Jewelz
    Pretty_Jewelz Posts: 29 Member
    I do live my debit hr but some things on it just don't work perfect lot. I guess nothing is perfect. I run a lot and I've noticed my fit it and run app there is quite a difference. And info know the distance is correct on my run app for sure. I've been dunning the distance for over 2 years. So anyways its more than a 1/4 mile off
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,562 Member
    Determinedtoloseliz wrote: »
    Thanks for all the info, yes the reason im interested is because i add exercise on mfp but am not all that active the rest of the day so i doubt i would have burnt enough to eat my exercise calories back. I dont want everyone to see i have a fitbit though so would the One be good to go for?

    The Zip and the One can be clipped to your bra or the inside of your pocket so nobody will see it.
  • cityruss
    cityruss Posts: 2,493 Member
    Pretty_Jewelz wrote: »
    I do live my debit hr but some things on it just don't work perfect lot. I guess nothing is perfect. I run a lot and I've noticed my fit it and run app there is quite a difference. And info know the distance is correct on my run app for sure. I've been dunning the distance for over 2 years. So anyways its more than a 1/4 mile off

    If you're using exercise mode on the fitbit (as opposed to using the phone based app to GPS track runs), change your stride length for the fitbit.

    My chargeHR measured 4.1km for a 5km (measured course) until I did so.

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