Fitbit zip question

juliaky84

Hi all,

I love my fitbit zip, starting to use it more now.

If I wear it all day and don't do any exercise, the calories it showed I burned should match my maintenance amount on MFP, right? Or wrong? My MFP account is set to sedentary,

Now, I want to use the device to track calories burned during exercise. So let's say I do 30 min jog. Will the device show calories burned only during exercise, or lump into all calories burned for the day? If it's all lumped together, how do I know how much exercise to log on MFP?

Thanks! :-)

BarbieAS

If I wear it all day and don't do any exercise, the calories it showed I burned should match my maintenance amount on MFP, right? Or wrong? My MFP account is set to sedentary,

Probably it will be pretty close. It also depends how much just general moving around you do in a day, too. Some people who don't officially exercise get WAY more activity in a day than some people who do exercise. But, if you truly are sedentary (say, less than 4-5K steps per day) then it will probably be close.

Now, I want to use the device to track calories burned during exercise. So let's say I do 30 min jog. Will the device show calories burned only during exercise, or lump into all calories burned for the day? If it's all lumped together, how do I know how much exercise to log on MFP?

It will lump it all together, so that your Fitbit and your Fitbit account will both show the total number of calories you burned for the entire day. You can either log the difference as exercise so that your deficit remains appropriate (MATHS: Your sedentary TDEE as estimated by MFP is 2,000 calories. You have a 500 calorie deficit, so your normal goal is 1,500 calories. At the end of a particular day, your Fitbit shows that you burned 2,200 calories, so you log a 200 calorie exercise to make your goal 1,700 and keep your deficit at 500), or you can not log anything (not recommended if you're burning lots of exercise calories), or you can sync your Fitbit and MFP accounts and your adjustment will flow over automatically and you don't have to do anything (be aware that it can fluctuate up and down during the day, it might take a week or two to get used to so that you don't get to the end of a day and either have a bunch of calories left or have an overage).

rhtexasgal

Yep, Fitbit lumps all physical activity together. However, if you wish to have a good idea of how many calories that jog burned off, look at the chart version of calories burned on your computer or tablet after it has synched up and simply review the timeframe that you jogged. It will give you a good estimate.

I do this when I want to see if the elliptical machines I use for cardio is giving me a fairly accurate interpretation of burned calories. From this, I know which machines at the gym are best to use.

BarbieAS

Yep, Fitbit lumps all physical activity together. However, if you wish to have a good idea of how many calories that jog burned off, look at the chart version of calories burned on your computer or tablet after it has synched up and simply review the timeframe that you jogged. It will give you a good estimate.

I do this when I want to see if the elliptical machines I use for cardio is giving me a fairly accurate interpretation of burned calories. From this, I know which machines at the gym are best to use.

Does the Fitbit Zip have an activity tracker? I use the Fitbit One, and while I know the formula and stuff is the same for all of the models, I'm not sure about the features. One the One and the other models, it's the same function that you use to track sleep (which I know the Zip doesn't do, so that's why I wasn't sure) - the device is absolutely smart enough to tell the difference between an hour on the elliptical and 7 hours of sleep, so if you turn the tracker on when you start your exercise and turn it off when you're done, online you'll be able to see a nice little log of exactly how long you worked out and how many steps you took/distance traveled and calories you burned during that time.

juliaky84

Thanks so much...and I assume you're supposed to the fitbit as soon as you get up until you lie down for bed? You don't wear it to bed right?

StaciMarie1974

If your Zip is synced w/ MFP you won't need to log any activity/exercise assuming it is step based. Your total calories burned (Fitbit) for the day will be more or less than MFP estimates you'll burn depending on how well you selected your activity level in MFP.

MFP uses your stated activity level & stats and says: you should burn X calories per day.
When you sync with Fitbit, it gets a reading from Fitbit about what you've burned. If you're burning more, MFP gives you extra calories because you're more active than expected.

WalkingAlong

Thanks so much...and I assume you're supposed to the fitbit as soon as you get up until you lie down for bed? You don't wear it to bed right?

It doesn't track sleep so no need to wear it to bed. Wear it all day, though. It's not detecting your heart rate or anything, just your overall activity level. If you get up and forget to wear it for 2 hours but all you did was sit at a desk, it's not going to matter much. It was just sitting there, you were just sitting there. If you go run errands all day and forgot to wear it, it's going to miss a lot of activity. It just uses an accelerometer, which detects the motion of your torso and guesses what you're doing-- walking 4mph, running 5 mph, etc.