Newbie q: Fitbit Goals and MFP

shaboogie56

I recently started using a Fitbit Zip for the first time and I'm confused about syncing and how I should adjust my settings.



Previously, I was using MapMyWalk and logging walks with MFP. I am 'sedentary' on MFP and when I was going for longer and faster walks, I was logging them on MapMyWalk and 'earning back' calories on MFP.



Since getting my Zip, I've unsynced MapMyWalk (it was starting to feel kind of obsessive to keep logging and syncing for walking, and to be continually thinking about whether my walking was 'exercise' or not). My Fitbit Zip is synced with MFP. Now, however, I'm confused.



My questions:

1) Do my 'goals' on FitBit (calories burned, steps) affect the adjustments in MFP?

2) Do my steps as logged by FitBit never show up as 'exercise'? Are my days of earning back calories over? :-0 Unless I manually enter 'exercise'?

3) I'm trying to integrate the use of these app's smoothly into my life so I'm not thinking about them too much. Still, I can sync several times a day without a problem. Am I correct in thinking it would be more accurate to have negative adjustments enabled?

heybales

1 - No

2 - No

3 - Yes

Now to explain.

The only thing that comes over from Fitbit that MFP uses is your total daily burn up to that point, or if you have Fitbit - Settings - Calorie Estimation enabled, what Fitbit _thinks_ your burn that day based on historic averages and then calculated to the hour of the sync to MFP. Best to disable that option though, in which case it syncs over an expected Sedentary calorie burn for the day until you actually do more, then it gives MFP the bigger figure.
MFP takes the Fitbit daily burn minus what it thought you'd burn with no-exercise setup as Sedentary daily activity level.
If Fitbit was more - positive adjustment. If Fitbit was less - negative.
That bigger burn may or may not be because of exercise walking, could purely be more active. You could also do a workout, be more tired, sleep 3 extra hours, and get an negative adjustment despite the exercise.

The only exercise you need to log is where Fitbit estimate will be bad because it wasn't step-based workout - swimming should be obvious, rowing, lifting, biking, elliptical, or walking and running with extra weight or incline (Fitbit assumes flat and your entered weight).
You can log that on MFP and it'll go over to Fitbit and replace their low estimate, or enter it directly on Fitbit, and you'll get whatever adjustment on MFP that happen to cause to the day.

So yes your daily goal will still go up, so yes you still eat to the new goal amount.

You may even discover decent sized positive adjustments on non-workout days, and workout days are really big - indicating you likely aren't Sedentary on MFP for your non-exercise daily activity. Increase to Lightly Active to plan your days better.

shaboogie56

Thank you very much.