Fitbit vs Myfitnesspal

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nurseygirl66
nurseygirl66 Posts: 25 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I love my fitbit, but I still use this site for food tracking because they have more choices and menus. What do you all do about activity tracking? In the past I've manually put in my excercise on myfitnesspal- now the fitbit sends over information, but it seems to add any types of activities I do, like the stairs and such at work which I don't count as excercise. So I end up taking out what it sends over and just putting in my true excercise, like treadmill, etc. Today I worked out for about 330 cals on the treadmill, but had an overall busy day activity wise (house cleaning, chores, shopping and that sort of thing) and fitbit is giving me over 600 activity calories. What do you all think, and how do you use these tools together?? Thanks for the insight :)

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  • thursdaythunderstorms
    thursdaythunderstorms Posts: 6 Member
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    i have a fitbit too and what i usually do is just let the 2 sync... i know the fitbit sometimes doesnt track things as well as a heart rate monitor or something would but i let the numbers stay as they are

    i take kickboxing a few days a week and it burns prob 800-900 calories according to my heart rate and my fitbit usually only gives me like 200-300 calories burned for it.. but i figure id rather think ive burned a lot less than i have...

    but thats just me.. i know if i think ive burned a lot more than i will eat a lot more.. and i dont wanna do that..
    if you let yourself think you burned less you end up losing faster :)
  • nurseymama
    nurseymama Posts: 33 Member
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    I think the idea is the fitbit adjusts for your overall activity level that you enter when setting up your goals on MFP. So if you are set for sedentary it gives you a lower goal than if you are set for active but if you are truly active based in the fitbit it adjusts your calorie goals upward accordingly. Sometimes I eat some of the calories back and sometimes not, depending on how I feel. Even though you don't count it as "exercise" active days still burn calories and maybe your body needs a little extra healthy fuel
  • Docjoque
    Docjoque Posts: 2
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    "i have a fitbit too and what i usually do is just let the 2 sync... i know the fitbit sometimes doesnt track things as well as a heart rate monitor or something would but i let the numbers stay as they are

    i take kickboxing a few days a week and it burns prob 800-900 calories according to my heart rate and my fitbit usually only gives me like 200-300 calories burned for it.. but i figure id rather think ive burned a lot less than i have...

    but thats just me.. i know if i think ive burned a lot more than i will eat a lot more.. and i dont wanna do that..
    if you let yourself think you burned less you end up losing faster :) "

    I like the way you think. I'm curious which heart rate monitor you're using. 800-900 cal is an awful lot for an hour kick boxing class, even if it's high intensity. By taking the lower number from your fit bit, I think you're doing yourself a big favor. :-)
  • ghartleroad1
    ghartleroad1 Posts: 51 Member
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    My BFF gave me the clip on FitBit a number of months ago. It was great to help me track distance, especially when I'd lose count of my laps at the track. However once I started using MFP this summer, I've all but stored my FitBit since I run on a track with known mileage. I accidentally lef the FitBit I. My purse for a week and was annoyed it gave me points just for walking from the parking lot; I ended up manually deleting all of them out of MFP. Now if I'm out and about or on an active vacation, I make sure to have the FitBit on at all times since I don't know the distance.

    Now that I'm running I use the Nike+ app because I love all the data! Yes I have to manually put my workouts in MFP, but it gives me a sense of accomplishment.

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