another fitbit question

You should get an adjustment in the exercise section of MFP.

The amount will be determined by:

Fitbit tracked Calorie Burn - MFP estimated daily burn = adjustment*

*adjustment can give you calories, take away calories**, or be 0

**if negative adjustments are enabled you could lose calories for the day. It will only take them away if negative adjustments is enabled though.

edit: The 2 sites don't always communicate correctly. Sometimes you have to resync them to get it to work, other times you have to wait for the tech teams to fix it.

That won't cause any problems between the 2 sites. The only thing that means is that you will need to sync your fitbit with a PC (lots of users have to).

Mine wasn't syncing with MFP today, had to disconnect and reconnect in a.m. and in evening, and this is like third day in a row with this issue.

It happens a lot. Sometimes I debate just logging on fitbit, but then I think I would miss the food database and barcode scanner from MFP.

MFP takes your stats (height, weight, etc.) and your activity level (sedentary, lightly active, etc.) and estimates how much you'll burn in a day. Call it X. Then MFP takes your weight loss goal and subtracts 500 calories for every pound. So if you're trying to lose at the rate of 1 pound a week, MFP tells you to eat X - 500.


Fitbit estimates your total burn as of the last time you synced, factoring in your personal stats/bmr and how active you've been so far during the day. It factors your # of steps per minute in estimating your burn. It also guesses at how many you're burn in the rest of the day, and I've found that it often overestimates. Never have figured out what it based this on. MFP gets info from Fitbit as to how many you've burned so far.

When MFP reads the burn as of last sync from Fitbit, MFP compares the burn # to what MFP thinks you should be at for this time in the day based on X. If Fitbit says you've burned more, MFP says you're ahead of schedule and gives you extra calories. If not, then it either has a 0 adjustment or takes away calories depending on your settings.

How I use them together: I have a goal set in Fitbit for how many calories I am to burn each day. Presently its set to 2150. I move enough thru exercise and activity to make sure I hit that #. I can tell if I'm on track by estimating my bmr for the rest of the day. I know my bmr is roughly 60 calories per hour. If I'm behind schedule I move more. I don't end my day until I'm destined to hit my burn #.

Since I know Im going to burn at least 2150, I eat in the 1400-1600 range. This gives me a 500 deficit per day - Plus a little extra to spare. I like having the extra because the burn rate is just an estimate. I don't log food in Fitbit. And I don't log any activity either. (If I were to ride a bike or something non-step based I'd log that I suppose.) I don't log strength training because it does not burn a significant amount of calories ahead of what normal activity would burn.

To estimate your BMR for the rest of the day, google to find your BMR and divide it by 24 for your hourly rate.

i'm not sure i'm entirely impressed right now with my fitbit. I had class last night for about 3 hours, and it says i walked over 200 steps......I already have my fb set to my dominant had even though its not on a non-dominant because i use my hands alot...im kinda fidgety, especially when i'm bored. any other suggestions?

200 steps is nothing, over 3 hours, even if you never stood up the whole time. For perspective, that's about 2 minutes of walking. Fidgeting burns calories, too.

A Flex will have more erroneous steps than the clip-on models but it shouldn't matter much, if your goal is a general idea of your activity level and trends over time.

The two sites' food plans won't match often for many reasons, including Fitbit has no 1200 floor like MFP has.