Could someone explain how the fitbit and MFP sync works?

LAMCDylan

Hello,

I have a Fitbit Blaze and recently synced it with MFP. I am getting some sort of calories adjustment when I look at my exercise log. According to my Fitbit, today I burned 520 calories doing an exercise. However, when synced with MFP it made an adjustment and said I earned 247 extra calories. I am just really confused how this all works. Prior to this I understood that the calories burned that is shown on the fitbit is total calories (BMR plus activity). I always ignored this. Plus I think the BMR calculated on the fitbit and here on MFP are different amounts. Can someone explain this better?
Thanks

LAMCDylan

No one knows?

janejellyroll

There are lots of threads on this so you may want to search for past discussions.

Basically, the sync works with the estimate MFP makes for your daily burn given your stats and the activity level that you chose when setting up your account. Let's say you tell MFP you are "lightly active." You get an default number of calories each day based on the assumption you will burn a certain amount. If you move more than this, you begin to "earn" extra calories, which are then shown on your account. These are the 247 calories that you saw on your MFP account.

If you have negative adjustments enabled on MFP, it will also subtract calories if you more *less* than MFP would assume you would.

The adjustment is why you don't get the exact amount Fitbit gives you for an exercise -- some of those calories are already accounted for in your daily estimate from MFP and this protects you against "double dipping" into them.

LAMCDylan

Thank you