Recording ALL calories burned from a fitness device

TheLazyNomad

Hello all,
I'm new to MFP and I love it so far, but I'm having an issue that I'm hoping you can help me with.

I have a fitbit which tells me my daily calories burned and I would like to just enter that information directly into MFP once a day as a single entry so I can see how I'm doing towards me weight lose goal. Problem is that MFP adds background calories, so it thinks I'm burning like 5000 calories a day (told me I would lose 35 pounds in 35 days!). I know that in the future MFP is going to integrate with the fitbit, but I'm switching to a Jawbone UP soon and who knows if they'll integrate that.

It would be great if I could just set the background burn to zero, but I can't... anyone know how I can manipulate my goal or other numbers to get this to work?

Thanks in advance.

smpreston

I would just use MFP to log your calories eaten and do the math yourself. Use your fitbit thing to get you calorie burn and subtract that from your calories eaten number. You'll get the same result. Just put it in an Excel spreadsheet at the end of the day. Calories eaten as one column, calories burned as another and the difference as a calculated column. You get the same result and can do anything with those numbers including graphing, trending, etc.

TheLazyNomad

Couldn't I just add "x" amount of calories to my daily calorie goal? X being the number of calories MFP calculates as my daily background burn?

Edit: Nevermind that doesn't work

TheLazyNomad

After 2 hours and a "duh" moment I figured it out.

All I have to do is log an exercise routine that's the difference between what my device says and my normal daily activity according to MFP- which I'll just make as low as possible to make sure I cross that threshold:

Added Routine = (Device reading - 2180)

Tada!

ginzu

don't get the jawbone up. i got it this weekend and compared it with my fitbit...the jawbone was waaayyy off. i wore it to sleep and it logged 1400 steps by the time i woke up. stick to the fitbit if you want to lose weight.

spinnc

Re: the jawbone up- did you have it set to sleep mode? Are you wearing it on the non-dominant arm? just asking. I'm reading a lot about the troubleshooting for the UP! (on the UP! community user forums, etc) and I'm trying to get a good read on whether or not some of the issues can be addressed. (I ordered one & am trying to read as much as possible before it comes)

dad106

MFP will always add your exercise calories to your goal.. It's just how the program works since it assumes everyone is at a deficit.

What I would do is go to goals and customize goals.. put in what fitbit tells you, you burn in a day as your calorie goal and then make a mental note to eat 500 below that each day to lose a pound a week, 250 below to lose .5 etc..