YAFT (yet another fitbit topic)

GauchoMark

So, I just got myself and my wife a fitbit ultra and an aria scale. This is the first day I have used it, so I am still figuring it out (I like how it ships with no manual and the manual on the website is... ahem... slim). I have managed to link my fitbit and MFP accounts and it synced at lunch today, but I am wondering a couple things:

1) If I log into the fitbit site, I can see my food log from MFP, but if I log into MFP, I don't see my activity calories from fitbit. Is this normal? Does it maybe just do it once daily or something (since I am only 1/2 a day in)?

2) When I start using the aria scale, will it weigh me in on mfp automatically?

3) I have been reading about using the stopwatch function for sleep and exercise at the gym (elliptical), but does it give you the option to adjust calories burned during the stopwatch period? In other words, I burn about 740 cal on an elliptical in 45 minutes - if I use the stopwatch to monitor that 45 minutes and fitbit says I burned 500 (or 1000) calories, can I manually adjust it to 740?

I'm sure more questions will come up, but this is what I have so far!

sgall123

i don't use the stopwatch feature at the gym i just note the exact start and finish time and enter into MFP and the calories they estimate are pretty close to the gym machines and fitbit.. you'll only see a calorie adjustment if you have been more active than stated in your MFP settings.. sometimes it can take up to a couple of hours for the info to come across to MFP like it did for me last night. i prefer to go with MFP calories for my workouts as id rather underestimate but I've found that fitbit adjusts them accordingly if i have underestimated anyway

chi18

I don't have the scale so I can't answer those questions. But as far as the information going from the fitbit to your fitbit dashboard to MFP: your fitbit only uploads your info the the fitbit dashboard when it's near or connected to the base which is plugged into your computer. So, for instance, if you keep your base at home and are at work all day the fitbit will record everything but none of that info will go onto your fitbit dashboard until you get home. And the MFP synch takes the data from your fitbit dashboard. So if you're not near your base, your info is not going to your dashboard and consequently not going to MFP.

Yes, you can enter your calories manually when you use the stopwatch function. Use the stopwatch at the gym for your workout. When you get home and the data uploads to your dashboard via the base, you can go into your activities and it will show an activity was logged for 45 minutes or however long you set the timer for. This is kind of weird, but if you hover your cursor on the box that displays the timer info you should see a couple of little icons pop up on the upper right hand corner of that box, one of which allows you to edit and one of which allows you to delete. Click the button to edit and you can title the acitivity. There will be a link there to click that says something like, "I want to manually input my calories burned." Click that and you can enter the calories. I hope this helps! Good luck!

mcarter99

I don't know the answers to your first two questions but #3 is YES. You can manually log your calories from a workout. The reason people like to use the 'timer' function is then they can overwrite that exact period of whatever the Fitbit recorded, I think. So you'd go to Log Activity, enter "elliptical" or whatever, pick an option, enter your times and you could choose the "manually enter my calories" on the bottom, if you wanted. I believe the next time you wanted to log that activity you could just select from your own short list of prev. logged activities, not go back through the database. I don't log activities, though, so I could be wrong.

or what was said above! ; )

GauchoMark

Thanks. Exactly the info I was after. I guess I'll just have to wait an see if the activity ever shows up on MFP.

chi18

It's kind of weird, the calories burned will show up as "fitbit adjustment" on your exercise page and will be added to your daily calorie goal. But it won't post in your feed anymore, so if you set your timer and log on your fitbit dashboard that you did 45 minutes on the elliptical the calories will be adjusted but your friends will no longer see, "barreira burned 400 calories on the elliptical."