Fitbit zip and exercise

nooshi713

Hi. I recently synched my fitbit to MFP. I asked this question in the general community boards and they referred me here. I'm under the impression that I'm supposed to log my exercise calories and eat some of them back. Yesterday, I logged 1/2 my exercise. I then noticed that fitbit gave me some extra calories too. Do I eat those back also? If I'm using fitbit, do I still need to log exercise calories? The day before yesterday, I exercised and fitbit didn't give me any extra calories. I'm not sure what to do.

heybales

There is a FAQ in the stickies to answer those questions.

I'll comment specific to the Zip - since it is only step-based for calculating calorie burn - logging workouts on Fitbit depends on what the workout is.

Non-step based workouts need to be manually logged (Fitbit is best for more options of intensity, unless MFP has an exercise not in Fitbit's database) - like swimming obviously, lifting, stair/mountain climber, elliptical, spin/bike, ect.

Step based like walking/running/aerobic classes is fine for Fitbit's estimate of calorie burn.
If you want to see what that was - you'll have to note your start and stop time.
On Fitbit app - create an Activity Record - it'll show you the stats for that chunk of time that are otherwise buried in the daily stats.
It's nice for review later - you can add other info too like distance, how you felt, ect.

What syncs over to MFP is the daily burn - MFP does math to correct itself, and that's the Fitbit adjustment.
It's not just exercise, it could be no exercise actually, mere more active than MFP was accounting for.

For logging a workout on Fitbit, if you want your MFP friends' list to see the workout - just make a wall post of the interesting details - no need to log it in exercise diary - you'll use Fitbit's diary which is nicer anyway.

And it's best to eat that full adjustment back - because again - it could be regular activity that would have been a part of MFP math in the first place - and you would have eaten more if it had been hidden from you in the first place.

Enabled Negative adjustment too - just in case more lazy than MFP was accounting for.

islandpiper

It sounds like you are one of the lucky few who has a FitBit Zip that actually works.

heybales

I've found most with Zip's say they work great, because it isn't doing much, very simple.
And then with known limitations of terrible calorie estimate on non-step based workouts.