Hiking vs Steps Fitbit
dcpassmore
Posts: 21 Member
Should I not add hiking as an exercise in MFP because fit bit is tracking steps and floors climbed?
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Replies
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Correct. Let Fitbit take care of the exercise side and use MFP for the food side. They will correlate everything.2
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Thank you0
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I know this is old, but I've learned over the years that Fitbits are not the most accurate critters when it comes to hiking, and your Fitbit won't take into account whether you are hiking with full backpack for an overnight trip or a sporty little hydration pack that barely fits 1.5L of water. I'm competitive, even with myself, so this makes a difference to me for my own tracking.
If I'm hiking on my own over hills with a bare minimum on my back I use the Fitbit calculations. If I'm leading a group, I have my full kit, so I go into MFP and run the calculation of what hiking with a less than 10lb load would burn. Then I take the difference between MFP's calculations and what Fitbit has reported for the hike and futz around with minutes hiked until I get that difference in calories and add that to my exercise calorie count for the day with a note to myself as to what I did to get to that number. If I have a heavy pack (although I almost never have a heavy pack. I am not a backpacker, I am an Airbnb type of person, even if it means 20 miles over mountains in a day. I like hot showers!) I do the same, but use the 10 to 20 lb over hills figure.
For hiking over relatively flat land, I almost always use Fitbit's calculations, even with a pack.
Anyway, if there is a significant difference between Fitbit's calcs and MFP's calcs, that's how I find a sweet spot.1 -
One suggestion to possibly improve accuracy since you are talking larger amounts of time.
Use Fitbit's database to do the same, and then log the correction there.
They both started with the same exercise database, which is in METS of work done. METS uses your BMR as a basis to the math.
But MFP converted it by way of a common conversion (and not as accurate on the fringes) to a weight based database. (even though they have your BMR too obviously and could have left it alone).
Just a thought. You may be at a pace that exactly matches between them.
You could be very different between them.
Indeed - it would be nice to supply to Fitbit that for this Y block of time, you were carrying X amount of extra weight, and let it re-calculate the distance from the impact seen and expected based on new weight, and get new distance and calories burned.
Wouldn't be too bad, but the device on-body would always show incorrect info while it's going on, requiring post-workout correction.0
