A stupid question
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arya8
Posts: 316 Member
When I track my exercise through the exercise mode on my fitbit, does the calorie burn it gives me in the end include the calories you burn just by being alive or is it just the calories burned during exercise? If it's former, does that double count when I input that into mfp? Sorry if this sounds confusing!
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As far as I am aware, it includes the calories you burn just by being alive. You can put the exercise into MFP for your friends to see but make sure you put in the correct time you started and finished your exercise so that it doesn't double book1
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Almost everything that gives estimates of exercise calories includes the BMR.
Only exception is a bike that shows watts and gives calorie burn, that is not on top of whatever you were doing anyway. Purely the energy to overcome resistance. Doesn't even include upper body energy spent if standing a lot, so it's underestimated.
So when you log a workout on MFP - that includes the underlying calories too - so when it syncs across and replaces Fitbit's estimate - it's correct.
As long as you got the start time right, and duration.
And why are you logging workouts on MFP and replacing what may be a better estimate (that depends on model and workout though)?
Might want to read the FAQ in the stickies, first section.0 -
I track my exercise calories in fitbit but manually add into mfp because I'm not syncing my steps with mfp. I find that it overestimates my calories burned that way when it transfers to mfp and then I end up with mfp asking me to eat about 500 extra calories then I would normally do with only mfp. Thanks, it makes sense that it does.0
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Since you didn't know how this worked, that fitbit adjustment that happens to be put into Exercise diary - isn't just exercise.
You could be active and no exercise and have an adjustment - most discover that when they start wearing it.
It's the difference between the Fitbit reported calorie burn being on you all day long, minus your guess of non-exercise level of activity.
Big adjustment merely means you guessed wrong, and MFP is trying to correct itself with a better estimate than your guess.
Syncing steps over to MFP has no bearing on the amount of calorie burn Fitbit reports to MFP to use in it's math.
Just ask yourself why you trust your guess of 4 obviously rough levels compared to infinite levels of a device that goes with you and sees what you do.0 -
Yesterday I experimented with ONLY Fitbit for my exercise adjustment and NOT inputting the exercise on MFP. I was careful to do virtually the same workouts - 20 minutes elliptical and 1 mile walk. I even walked the same route. In the end, I had about 300 more overall steps. Here are the results of my experiment.
When I did NOT put it in MFP, I showed 259 calories burned for my walk and 172 shown for the elliptical on Fitbit. In the end, I had 523 exercise calories. My Fitbit adjustment was +523. I then retroactively logged in the exercises. MFP gave me 174 calories for my walk and 402 for the elliptical. In the end, I had 523 exercise calories. My Fitbit adjustment was -64.
So, whether you input your exercise (at least cardio) into MFP or not, your exercise calories will remain exactly the same. I can't for the life of me figure out the math...but it happens. The only reason to put it in MFP is to have a record here, where the status shows up on your wall. But if you don't, you still get the same exercise adjustment.1 -
It's because when you put it on MFP using the MFP figures for calorie burn (which are probably worse estimates) for that block of time - it syncs over and replaces the Fitbit figures - with the newer worse estimated calorie burn.
All you are doing is increasing the odds of having a syncing problem and messed up numbers, and using worse calorie burn figures.
Just make a wall post about your workout - do you actually look at the exercise diary on MFP for review of anything with their brief non-notable records?
Have you looked at the Fitbit activity diary before you have the MFP workouts syncing over cluttering up the works.
Here's the math. Oh - you must have used the wrong exact start times and durations and didn't have an exact replacement. Also, your initial math is wrong: 259+172 = 431. The 523 adjustment is NOT just workouts, but the daily life.
Fitbit reported calories burn - MFP estimated daily - exercise calories = adjustment
Base eating goal + adjustment + exercise calories = new eating goal
So what you had for your experiment day was:
say Fitbit 2523 - say 2000 MFP = 523 adjustment
eating say 1500 + 523 = 2053 new eating goal (500 cal deficit).
Logged the workouts in MFP:
Fitbit 2668 - 2000 MFP - 576 exercise = 92
1500 + 92 + 576 = 2168 (500 cal deficit)
The reason for the difference using your figures is you had some minutes pass before doing that change, and using MFP calorie burn for exercise instead of Fitbit. For cardio, not a good idea. (unless you have HR device and taking meds that effect the HR)
Which points out why the FAQ says do NOT log workouts in MFP, doesn't do anything beneficial in the end - except keep you on MFP so you see the ads for revenue selling by MFP.0 -
. Also, your initial math is wrong: 259+172 = 431. The 523 adjustment is NOT just workouts, but the daily life.
That's not my math. I didn't do any math. Those are the numbers that showed up, period. I assumed the additional steps that are not included in the workouts account for the fact that the two workouts do not equal the adjustment.you must have used the wrong exact start times and durations and didn't have an exact replacement.
No, I didn't. I know you have to have the right start times and durations and so I put Fitbit on my phone and MFP on my tablet so I could simply copy the exact same figures on MFP as showed on Fitbit.
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Exactly - most people think the Fitbit Adjustment that happens to be under Exercise is the exercise component, that is exact proof it's not - you had 92 more calories at that point attributed to being more active than MFP was giving credit for, unrelated to exercise.
So I thought you were speaking with the misunderstanding most have.
What you and I meant was you had 523 Fitbit adjustment calories. Most happened to be exercise. It happens to be listed under exercise.
Initial adjustment:
Fitbit X - Y MFP = 523
After MFP entry:
X - (259+172 initial workouts replaced) + (174+402 replacement calories) - Y = -64 adjustment
-64 adj + 174 workout + 402 workout = 512 exercise calories
The fact is was showing 523 tells me it's math was off, probably not getting the latest Fitbit sync, or something else.
Since the difference is 11, that probably means 2 digits were switched somewhere in the math, since that's what happens.1 -
So I changed my activity level on mfp from sedentary to active since I do on average 12000 steps a day and lo and behold it gave me the right number of calories when it did fitbit adjustment. Thanks heybales!0
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So I changed my activity level on mfp from sedentary to active since I do on average 12000 steps a day and lo and behold it gave me the right number of calories when it did fitbit adjustment. Thanks heybales!
Just pay attention to todays numbers on mfp tomorrow morning. When i was set to lightly active averaging 15-20k steps a day, i lost near 200 calories every night between bed and midnight. I go to bed early, so anything higher than sedentary usually ends up getting taken away again. Example: I got an extra 250 calories when i switched from sedentary to lightly active, but i lost 200 of those calories every night, so changing my activity level was pretty pointless.1 -
Christine_72 wrote: »So I changed my activity level on mfp from sedentary to active since I do on average 12000 steps a day and lo and behold it gave me the right number of calories when it did fitbit adjustment. Thanks heybales!
Just pay attention to todays numbers on mfp tomorrow morning. When i was set to lightly active averaging 15-20k steps a day, i lost near 200 calories every night between bed and midnight. I go to bed early, so anything higher than sedentary usually ends up getting taken away again. Example: I got an extra 250 calories when i switched from sedentary to lightly active, but i lost 200 of those calories every night, so changing my activity level was pretty pointless.
That's really interesting. I just recently switched to lightly active from sedentary and still get a 500+ adjustment at the end of each day. Even on days I go to bed at 8:30-9 I only lose 80-100 of those calories which often still leaves me with at least 400+ adjustment at the end of the day (when I check the next morning). And I am almost always under 15,000 steps and have never hit 20,000.0 -
Christine_72 wrote: »So I changed my activity level on mfp from sedentary to active since I do on average 12000 steps a day and lo and behold it gave me the right number of calories when it did fitbit adjustment. Thanks heybales!
Just pay attention to todays numbers on mfp tomorrow morning. When i was set to lightly active averaging 15-20k steps a day, i lost near 200 calories every night between bed and midnight. I go to bed early, so anything higher than sedentary usually ends up getting taken away again. Example: I got an extra 250 calories when i switched from sedentary to lightly active, but i lost 200 of those calories every night, so changing my activity level was pretty pointless.
So I went to bed around 10pm and this morning I noticed I lost about 40 calories. I'll be watching it carefully for the next few days to see how it goes when I do more exercise. For yesterday it was right on. I think I do have to be careful on nights when I go to bed earlier and leave a cushion.0 -
It's easy to do the math to see the difference that will occur.
Fitbit is going to report the next morning that your time was at BMR level burn basically when no steps seen.
MFP is going to keep estimating at BMRx1.4 for Lightly Active, BMRx1.6 for Active, compared to Sedentary at BMRx1.25.
So take the time you hit the couch and become pretty inactive, until midnight, in minutes.
BMR say 1600 / 1440 x say 150 min = 167 for BMR burn.
Take BMR x your current setting multiplier - BMR 1600 x 1.4 / 1440 x 150 min = 233.
You'll lose 233 - 167 = 66 calories.
Leave that much in the green, since it'll be removed the next day.
In reality, since Fitbit only syncs when the daily burn is 100 higher than prior sync, and that can take 1 hr or more - you could view your eating goal right before another sync is going to happen to correct things better, and get the worst possible difference.
Then again, do the math, not talking a lot of calories for an extra 75 min.0 -
I pretty much stop moving by 6pm. I have dinner between 5-6 then sit on the couch to watch tv and go to bed between 7-8pm (i watch tv in there). I get the majority of my steps in early in the day. So i pretty much have 6-7 hours of being very sedentary every night. Whereas MFP expects you be lightly active/Active or whatever you have your activity level set to til midnight.
Now at sedentary, i lose around 40ish calories every night.0
