iphone steps and fitness app at the same time?

fgleiser
fgleiser Posts: 16 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
hi. I got myself an iphone 6 which has an step tracker. so far, i've been using runtastic for tracking my runs and I've never bothered to track my steps.

question is, can I use the step tracker and runtastic at the same time? or will the calories from my runs be counted twice (one from the step tracker and another from runtastic)?

thanks for your help

Replies

  • Domicinator
    Domicinator Posts: 261 Member
    I've been using an iPhone 6 as well as an Apple Watch to track workouts and calorie burn. I find it to be more or less accurate for steps and calorie burn--the problem seems to be in MFP itself. It wants to give me double credit for steps. What I mean is, if I walk for an hour, it counts those steps as part of my 60 minute workout for calorie burn, but it also counts them again as part of my daily total. The iPhone and Apple Watch know that they're one in the same, but MFP doesn't seem to know that.

    Long story short, I turned off step tracking in MFP. I just have it read whatever workouts I do on the Apple Watch and have it subtract those from my total calories for the day.
  • owensy12
    owensy12 Posts: 88 Member
    I set MFP activity level to sedentary, and then log my steps. If I do any meaningful exercise (jog, run, power walk etc) I will log it in MapMyFitness and it auto syncs it into MFP.
  • fgleiser
    fgleiser Posts: 16 Member
    edited September 2015
    Domicinator wrote: »
    I've been using an iPhone 6 as well as an Apple Watch to track workouts and calorie burn. I find it to be more or less accurate for steps and calorie burn--the problem seems to be in MFP itself. It wants to give me double credit for steps. What I mean is, if I walk for an hour, it counts those steps as part of my 60 minute workout for calorie burn, but it also counts them again as part of my daily total. The iPhone and Apple Watch know that they're one in the same, but MFP doesn't seem to know that.

    Long story short, I turned off step tracking in MFP. I just have it read whatever workouts I do on the Apple Watch and have it subtract those from my total calories for the day.

    yes, that's what i feared. I'd get double credit, one from runtastic and then again from steps. maybe l'll just switch it on during non-workout days and off on running ones
  • fgleiser
    fgleiser Posts: 16 Member
    owensy12 wrote: »
    I set MFP activity level to sedentary, and then log my steps. If I do any meaningful exercise (jog, run, power walk etc) I will log it in MapMyFitness and it auto syncs it into MFP.

    But does it count the steps from the workout twice or just once?

  • circae
    circae Posts: 17 Member
    I've noticed that if I input exercise (and enough of it) it will subtract from what calories I've earned from my steps. Sometimes I have left over but most times it drops the steps. I've noticed I have to restart the app sometimes to let it catch up though and for a little bit it'll try to count both at the same time.
  • SimoneBee12
    SimoneBee12 Posts: 268 Member
    When I input my run it asks for the time, and eventually it will sync and minus the steps from that half an hour and not count them twice. Restarting the app like the poster above suggested works too. But you have to put the correct time and wait for it to sync. If it doesn't sync by the end of the day, I delete the "steps" data from my exercise and just leave the running data because I don't eat them anyways. I just make sure it never counts it twice.
  • fgleiser
    fgleiser Posts: 16 Member
    I tried using both at the same time and MPF does count it twice, then it does some adjustments but it is still overcounting them.

    before I went to start it reported I had 10000 steps and like 400 cals.
    then I went for a 7.5km run (about 500 cal) and when I checked MFP it said I had spent 500 cal from the job and the adjustment for steps was about 700 cal, giving me a total of 1200 cal.

    if I understand correctly, I shoul've ended with 900 cal, the 400 I had earlier plus the 500 i got from running

  • Clarewho
    Clarewho Posts: 494 Member
    Mine doesn't double-count exactly but it does seem to give a bit of extra credit if my run is long enough to move me out of sedentary. So for example the other morning a 3 mile run was about 6000 steps, that took me into the lightly active category which MFP thinks is 5K+ steps/day. I can't remember the exact figures but it gave both the extra calories I earned during my run, plus a bit extra for the extra steps. That's with MapMyRun plus iPhone 5S. Whether it is right or wrong I haven't bothered to calculate but it's worth keeping an eye on it to make sure nothing's being double-counted.

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