Logging exercise with FitBit Charge HR
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Interesting Discussion. I am new at this and I have been letting fitbit exercise calories pass over to MFP without recording specific exercise work-outs.
Can you tell me if I am missing out on accurate information by doing this? Should I change my approach?
Thank You
Nope, you're fine. I like to be able to take a closer look at things like heart rate, steps, etc. from an exercise session, so I log it in FitBit. Usually by holding the button on my Charge HR until it vibrates as I start and the holding the button until it vibrates at the end. That causes it to create a workout record and take heart rate measurements more often. Then, I can look at it later, if I want. Or, I can simply look back and see when I exercised each day.
Some people do things that burn significant calories but that can't be measured by their FitBit (swimming, weight lifting, yoga, etc.) and they need to log those separately. I'm just starting to do a little weight lifting, so I don't do enough to worry about at this point. Most of my exercise is either Zumba (at home, using my Wii) or walking and the FitBit tracks those just fine.0 -
Interesting Discussion. I am new at this and I have been letting fitbit exercise calories pass over to MFP without recording specific exercise work-outs.
Can you tell me if I am missing out on accurate information by doing this? Should I change my approach?
Thank You
Nope, you're fine. I like to be able to take a closer look at things like heart rate, steps, etc. from an exercise session, so I log it in FitBit. Usually by holding the button on my Charge HR until it vibrates as I start and the holding the button until it vibrates at the end. That causes it to create a workout record and take heart rate measurements more often. Then, I can look at it later, if I want. Or, I can simply look back and see when I exercised each day.
Some people do things that burn significant calories but that can't be measured by their FitBit (swimming, weight lifting, yoga, etc.) and they need to log those separately. I'm just starting to do a little weight lifting, so I don't do enough to worry about at this point. Most of my exercise is either Zumba (at home, using my Wii) or walking and the FitBit tracks those just fine.
This is great information for me. Thank you for sharing, both of you. I was wondering how to do all of this and now I can finally take it in and use it. I have had my HR for a couple of weeks now and attempting to find my way around the device, app and websites. Holding the button is what I need to do. I was carrying my phone, starting either MapMyFitness or trusting that it would all log.
I like the idea of knowing when I exercised and now I understand that my heart rate will be monitored more closely if I do press the button or turn on the "track exercise" in the app.
Much easier than wasting my cell battery due to GPS tracking.
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Thanks so much for your informations - i've grabbed them and wrote it into my blog post http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/GlobalhawkDE/view/first-steps-with-fitbit-charge-hr-729467
- Tomorrow i can tell how the feeling is to log exercise for exercise (without renaming them
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No.
If you go and create an activity record for that start and end time, it pulls the stats out from the daily stats for just that block and displays them.
If you pushed the button to create an activity record you did exactly the same thing.
If you both, they should match if you manually entered the correct time.
Now, go and Log Activities, where you provide start and duration time, and either enter your own calories as option, or leave whatever Fitbit came up with.
Well, if you don't manually enter your own - of course what Fitbit keeps is going to match.
If what you say is true, then FitBit did lie to us about counting HR in the activities. Because the Activity mode shows the same calorie burn for activities that I manually logged (after I washed my One) weeks before I got the HR.
But if I go look at the HR chart for that same time period, it does show more calories burned.
If the step count didn't go high enough with the HR, it's assumed that higher HR is NOT from exercise - therefore the HR based calorie burn is not used.
This would actually be a correct assumption, compared to not doing it, and getting a totally inflated calorie burn for something that wasn't that active.
And it still doesn't totally make sense as to where you are seeing these differences.
So to be clear - you start an activity record on your Charge HR per the button press, and end it the same. Then you sync.
You then go and look at the stats on that workout record, and notice the calorie burn given.
It happens to match the calorie burn given to your One in prior workouts.
No manually logging is involved in this.
You then look at the daily graph of steps and calorie burn, and looking at calorie burn, you add up the 5 min sections and come up with a calorie burn higher than the activity record.
And this is all via the app, or web account?0 -
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I don't log the elliptical, mines counts steps on it!0
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Hungry_Annie wrote: »I don't log the elliptical, mines counts steps on it!
Sadly steps walking and steps elliptical does not match for effort, meaning the formula for calorie burn are not nearly the same.
Also, you ever counted the steps taken? Many do the elliptical smooth enough it may catch impact of one foot going down, but not both, much like bike riding.
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Hi,
Sorry if this is not the right place! I'm doing a short survey on how people incorporate physical activity into their daily lives.
I would really appreciate your help since it's an important milestone of my Master's program. It will only take you 5 minutes.
https://academictrial.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_ensogIPDxL1jPBH-1 -
Question how do you turn it off?
Go to dashboard, settings. It will ask if you want HR auto, on or off. I chose auto and it is on all the time. Turn it off. On your app, tap the Charge HR (top one), look for heart rate tracking. You can change here too.0 -
Question here... I tracked a hike with the fitbit app on the phone. It has created a record of that workout, now how can I log that on MFP? I know the calories pass over, but I want it to show in my status. Will calories double if I do this?0
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Fitbit exercise, burns & steps do not show up in your MFP newsfeed. Just post a status update.
Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time.0 -
Question here... I tracked a hike with the fitbit app on the phone. It has created a record of that workout, now how can I log that on MFP? I know the calories pass over, but I want it to show in my status. Will calories double if I do this?
FitBit only sends the calories to MFP. The best thing to do, if you want it to show in your status, is to post your own status update, with whatever details you want to include (not just calories as MFP would generate, but where you hiked, how long, etc.).
If you really want MFP to generate the status for you then you can log it in MFP. Just enter the starting time, duration and calories that FitBit has. It won't double count.0 -
No it won't. But if you just want a status, just create a wall post - check out my profile for example.0
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I need help... ON my fitness pal I am not showing the calories burned from my run which I did by pressing and holding the button on my Charge HR. Seems like the fitbit should sync that over to MFP. Also my steps aren't correct on my fitness pal and the fitbit is showing me to have more calories to eat than MFP.. So confused please help me.
also I do not show extra calories I have gained backFood, water intake on mfp, exercise on fitbit. The food, water intake will transfer to fitbit, same as any weight adjustments done on mfp.
Your total exercise for the day will transfer over from fitbit to mfp. So you really don't need to track your exercise on mfp.
I now use both apps lol!
It took me a week to adjust not logging my exercise on mfp. I like the website over the app for fibit!
If you have any other questions just send me a message. I have the charge hr as well.
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missmariah18 wrote: »I need help... ON my fitness pal I am not showing the calories burned from my run which I did by pressing and holding the button on my Charge HR. Seems like the fitbit should sync that over to MFP. Also my steps aren't correct on my fitness pal and the fitbit is showing me to have more calories to eat than MFP.. So confused please help me.
also I do not show extra calories I have gained back
First, if you haven't, read the FAQ. Here's a handy link: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy/p1
Your run will not show up as an exercise entry in MFP. MFP only gets steps and calories burned from Fitbit. It merely displays the step count - it doesn't actually do anything with it.
To see what it does with the calories burned number go to the exercise tab (web site) or diary (phone app) and look for the Fitbit Calorie adjustment entry. On the website, click the little 'i', on the phone app, touch the entry and then touch again. That will get you the math that MFP is using. It will also tell you when the last sync between MFP and Fitbit was. (If you don't see the Fitbit Calorie Adjustment then your accounts aren't linked.)
If your steps are way off, chances are good they haven't synced recently. You can try to "force" a sync by entering something (such as a food item or an exercise) in MFP (you can delete it after you've confirmed that the sync happened). If it has been excessively long, and forcing a sync doesn't work then you might need to do a disconnect/reconnect procedure (disconnect in MFP, revoke access in Fitbit, wait a while..... reconnect in MFP). Edit: Also, in the phone app, look under Steps to make sure it is set to use Fitbit for steps.
Fitbit may be showing that you have more calories to eat than MFP either because you have Fitbit set to the "personalized" setting in the Food Log tab (which is fine, if that works for you), because it hasn't synced since you entered food in MFP (see disconnect/reconnect above), or because your weight loss settings are different between the two programs. However, keep in mind that MFP and Fitbit use very different approaches to the calories remaining calculation and so they'll basically never agree until the end of the day (i.e midnight, not bedtime). I don't pay a lot of attention to the calories remaining in Fitbit. I use MFP for food, Fitbit for exercise.1 -
Just an FYI. You don't need to enter food to force a sync.
You can make it sync by pressing sync in the "More" section, at the bottom.
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Does that force MFP to sync with Fitbit or force the MFP phone app to sync with the MFP website? Or both? I don't use the phone app that much, so I tend to think in terms of how to get the web site to do things.0
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Does that force MFP to sync with Fitbit or force the MFP phone app to sync with the MFP website? Or both? I don't use the phone app that much, so I tend to think in terms of how to get the web site to do things.
Actually, I'm not sure. I know things all look correct if I open the Fitbit app and let it sync first, THEN open/sync the MFP app.0 -
That's the phone app with your account.
MFP has record of what it last synced to Fitbit - and doesn't just sync if no changes. To much traffic. It doesn't take the responsibility to determine if something new on Fitbit.
Fitbit syncs over to MFP after your daily burn has gone up 100 (unless recently changed) or a device sync has updated a workout or such.
When MFP does sync something new over - it will get new daily burn and step data though (last time I tested).
But I have forced a Zip sync with computer and to Fitbit account before the calorie count went up by 100.
Fitbit showed the new higher amount - it did not sync over to MFP.
5 min later when the count was high enough to make 100 above the last shown received on MFP - fresh sync.0
