Fitbit One Driving/Steps/Daily Calories

gabalabs

Hello everyone!

I've recently started wearing my Fitbit One again. I know that to erase steps (or prevent them) while driving, you either log your driving time in the Fitbit or plug it in to charge it while you're driving.

My question is about calories. When I put the drive time in, my calories seem too high, but when I plug it in it gives me negative adjustments...I think it ignores the fact that I'm alive and functioning still if I plug it in, but I think it counts the base calories PLUS driving calories if I log driving time. Any ideas?

Kimsied

My One rarely counts significant steps for me in a car, so if I log driving it would raise my calorie burn. I think that is a good sign it isn't adding too much if that is happening. I don't generally log non-exercise activity to my fitbit account, but I don't think their activity database is especially inflated. It has lower calorie burns than MFP for a lot of activities. It is based on accepted MET values for the activity, I think multiplying a minute of your RMR by the MET for the activity. This method does include BMR + the activity. I am not sure why you are seeing negative adjustments though, you are not logging it on MFP, are you? I would not suggest logging driving on MFP, I think you would only want to log it to fitbit to correct your steps and calorie burn (if you are getting false activity credit in the car). If your fitbit calorie burn decreases when you log driving, that is a sigh that you probably should log it. If it increases, you probably don't need to. If it stays about the same--whatever you prefer (log it if you want to correct the steps). I guess you might see a negative if your fitbit thought you were active, then you logged it and the activity was corrected. That is only because you were not as active as MFP expected at that time. MFP is only comparing what it expects you to have burned (from your BMR, activity level and MFP logged exercise) to your total fitbit burn. Since fitbit and MFP's BMR estimate are pretty similar, it should be that a higher Fitbit burn means you were more active but not the case if the higher burn came from "false activity" like riding in a car.

my_2_cents

I'm not sure what type of mobile device you have, but I use an app called drivebit. I just hit start when I start driving and stop when I stop. It automatically logs driving as the activity. I only log longer drives like 20 min or longer.

Driving actually takes more calories than you might think. I suspect a large number of the calories used are your brain thinking. The difference between being present and involved in decision making as opposed to utterly sedentary is quite significant. I'd trust fitbit on this one, and if you don't agree, then only eat back part of your exercise calories.

gabalabs

Thanks!