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MyFitnessPal Community

Do You Care about Exercises or Just Adjustment?

Luke_rabbit

I'm trying out an old Fitbit (Alta) that has some issues - it turns off for no reason - but I'm using it to decide if I want to get a new one.

One concern I have is that before I linked the Fitbit to MFP I had a record every day of my exercises, so I could see a history of what I'd done. With the Fitbit, I just get a calorie adjustment for the day. I've tried telling the Fitbit app that I started and finished an exercise (yoga, for example), but, afterwards I don't see that exercise on either app, so I can't go back and see which days I did yoga and how long.

It's possible that I'm doing it wrong, or that my older Fitbit doesn't properly support this feature.

The only work around that I've thought of is to list my exercises under notes on MFP.

So, help me out. Am I using it incorrectly? Do others only care about the calorie adjustment and not having a history of activities? Am I missing something? What do you do?

TIA

Replies

SkinnyGirlCarrie

Even if you log your exercises in Fitbit, you will have to view them on your Fitbit account. Only the total daily burn is going to go over to MFP. You could try a HRM (like a Polar F7) and use that with an app that syncs to MFP and then the exercise will show in your exercise log on MFP.

heybales

Why do you want the workouts to show up in MFP?
As mentioned above - they are being accounted for as calories, in the math that is done.
So you are getting the calorie adjustment - merely combined with rest the day.

So if a workout really wore you out, you may get say 400 more from it - but then you did less activity than expected and lost say 200 of it.
Wouldn't you like to know about those details, rather than correctly eating more when you do more - but in that case too much more?

Is it really a better Exercise Diary than what Fitbit provides?
It's only Date and calorie burn and generic description.

Fitbit you can edit the Activity Record to be anything useful, besides adding notes, and contains more info about that chunk of time - especially if you have HR device.

Luke_rabbit

heybales wrote: »

Why do you want the workouts to show up in MFP?
As mentioned above - they are being accounted for as calories, in the math that is done.
So you are getting the calorie adjustment - merely combined with rest the day.

So if a workout really wore you out, you may get say 400 more from it - but then you did less activity than expected and lost say 200 of it.
Wouldn't you like to know about those details, rather than correctly eating more when you do more - but in that case too much more?

Is it really a better Exercise Diary than what Fitbit provides?
It's only Date and calorie burn and generic description.

Fitbit you can edit the Activity Record to be anything useful, besides adding notes, and contains more info about that chunk of time - especially if you have HR device.

1. I don't seem to have any exercise diary or activity record on my Fitbit app (Android). Any exercise I enter just changes my calorie burn but vanishes as far as a history/record. Plus, I kinda thought that Fitbit was supposed to figure out that I was exercising automatically but it doesn't do that either. It just gives me a total number of steps and active minutes. What I wanted was a record that I could go back and check. When I just entered my workouts on MFP, I could look at previous days and figure out easily how many days/minutes last week I did yoga, walks, rowing, etc. All I get now is a record of steps and exercise calories. Maybe I want something that nobody else cares about?
2. For me the calories aren't proving to be helpful. I would maintain/gain weight if I ate that total. My body is apparently very efficient at extracting calories. I have 4 months of data showing that I lose .5 lbs/week eating 1350 calories - with Fitbit's calculation, I would be eating more like 1600. (And, yes, I weigh my food in grams.)
3. I do think the tracker is useful* and encourages me to be slightly more active. I'm just not sure if the 2 apps work together in a helpful way for me.

* Or would be if I had one that didn't crash every day at 9900 steps! I lose a lot of my steps if I can't plug it in to reboot immediately.

Luke_rabbit

For some weird reason I don't have an edit button on my previous post!

I just also wanted to say "Thanks!" for the responses.

heybales

boldknee wrote: »

heybales wrote: »

Why do you want the workouts to show up in MFP?
As mentioned above - they are being accounted for as calories, in the math that is done.
So you are getting the calorie adjustment - merely combined with rest the day.

So if a workout really wore you out, you may get say 400 more from it - but then you did less activity than expected and lost say 200 of it.
Wouldn't you like to know about those details, rather than correctly eating more when you do more - but in that case too much more?

Is it really a better Exercise Diary than what Fitbit provides?
It's only Date and calorie burn and generic description.

Fitbit you can edit the Activity Record to be anything useful, besides adding notes, and contains more info about that chunk of time - especially if you have HR device.

1. I don't seem to have any exercise diary or activity record on my Fitbit app (Android). Any exercise I enter just changes my calorie burn but vanishes as far as a history/record. Plus, I kinda thought that Fitbit was supposed to figure out that I was exercising automatically but it doesn't do that either. It just gives me a total number of steps and active minutes. What I wanted was a record that I could go back and check. When I just entered my workouts on MFP, I could look at previous days and figure out easily how many days/minutes last week I did yoga, walks, rowing, etc. All I get now is a record of steps and exercise calories. Maybe I want something that nobody else cares about?
2. For me the calories aren't proving to be helpful. I would maintain/gain weight if I ate that total. My body is apparently very efficient at extracting calories. I have 4 months of data showing that I lose .5 lbs/week eating 1350 calories - with Fitbit's calculation, I would be eating more like 1600. (And, yes, I weigh my food in grams.)
3. I do think the tracker is useful* and encourages me to be slightly more active. I'm just not sure if the 2 apps work together in a helpful way for me.

* Or would be if I had one that didn't crash every day at 9900 steps! I lose a lot of my steps if I can't plug it in to reboot immediately.

1 - you have to be looking in the wrong place then - they have a great Exercise Diary.
You may not have the settings on the device correct for auto-workout creation - it does have to see enough steps and/or HR for long enough to make that decision. That's why the manual button press is usually safer.
MFP's isn't nearly as useful once you've found the Fitbit version.

2 - This may mean some tweaks on Fitbit would be beneficial - because as seasons change and activity level changes - it is nice to have those changes in the eating level correctly.
Ever walked a known distance for 1/2 to 1 mile and confirmed Fitbit saw it correctly?
Do you have a medical condition or take meds where your HR is artificially higher than required?
What model do you have?

3 - The actual Fitbit device? Or Fitbit or MFP app?
If Fitbit get a call in to support, if no hard reset or firmware upgrade to fix it - they should send new one.