Another Fitbit question...am I logging activitiy correctly

kaustin515
kaustin515 Posts: 18 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
My husband got me a Fitbit for Christmas and I was SO excited! I wanted one but never mentioned it to him and he knew I was trying to lose weight and saw it so he got it for me. I have a Flex. I like it and have enjoyed seeing my activity in a day. Anyway, I have some concerns about how to properly account for activity as I am afraid I might be logging too many exercise calories burned. How am I supposed to enter workouts? For me I am currently alternating between two "workouts." I either do my elliptical (which I know the Fitbit doesn't accurately record or I do a Zumba fitness video that I also got for Christmas. Once the weather warms up and the days are longer (I work fulltime and it's too dark when I get off work) I plan to start up C25K again. What I have been doing is wearing my Fitbit all the time (except showers even though it says you can I just don't see the need) and then log my workout on MFP with the appropriate start time and duration. But I notice each evening I will have my workout logged and still other calories from my Fitbit Adjustment. I just feel like I'm doing something wrong. I will end up with say 250 calories burned from the elliptical and then a Fitbit adjustment of another 300 calories. Seems like too many to me. Any tips?

Replies

  • Sarebear007
    Sarebear007 Posts: 2
    It might be because fitbit allocates your total calorie burn for the day? I'm always worried about adding my exercise in. Maybe just note your exercises and let the fitbit account for the extra movement. But 300 sounds right for exerciseoso I think its accounting correctly :) add me if u need a buddy Sarebear007 on here. Not sure what I am on fitbit lol . I'm excited I got my fitbit for xmas too ! Sarah
  • Sarebear007
    Sarebear007 Posts: 2
    I just played around with adding exercise. The fitbit adjustment is the calories burned from walking and everyday activities. To avoid doubling up you could not wear fitbit during exercise. (Which was something my dietician suggested when I trained for sports heavily)just manually add the exercises so u know what u burned :) hope that helps
  • teabeeten
    teabeeten Posts: 15 Member
    I log exercises two ways with my fitbit, depending on the activity. I want to track my total time that I've dedicated to exercise during the week, so I log exercise even when it's something I know the fitbit will track more accurately.

    For walking, which the fitbit tracks well, I manually created an exercise that just gives me 1 calorie. When I log with that exercise, I set the clock time that I started at a time of day when I know I wasn't actually doing anything, like 3 a.m. That way it doesn't overwrite what the fitbit would calculate for that period of time.

    When it's an exercise that the fitbit doesn't calculate well, I log the actual exercise and the starting time correctly. This should knock out whatever the fitbit would calculate as your calorie burn for that time. I haven't found that if I log, say, 350 calories from circuit training and accurately input the starting time that I'm also given 350 calories from the fitbit. Actually, it usually takes away any other calories it may have given me throughout the day if I haven't been particularly active the rest of the day.

    Does that make sense? In my head it does. ;)
  • AlMonkey
    AlMonkey Posts: 258 Member
    I usually take my fitbit off during non walking exercises. I work in a clothing store and have caught it giving me step credit for clothes folding…
    that said, when i first got it I tried entering some exercises and with time entered, the activity overwrote what the fitbit tracked as steps, but i entered it on MFP not in fit bits activity tracker.

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