fitbit calories burned vs myfitnesspal calories burned

jjhert
jjhert Posts: 6 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Does anyone know why my fitbit says I burned 200 cals during my workout this morning but myfitnesspal says only 82? Yesterday I added the exercise to my fitnesspal, but by the end of the day I had over 400 "extra" calories I could have based on my activity level from my fitbit..maybe I would be better off to not sync them? Or am I suppose to still add the cardio in myfitness pal? Just sems like it was double credit for exercise.

Replies

  • thankyou4thevenom
    thankyou4thevenom Posts: 1,581 Member
    Your fitbit measures your TDEE (total daily expenditure) including any step based exercise. So firstly make sure you've got all your height, weight and age details correct in both MFP and FitBit. Once you've done that set MFP to sedentary and allow negative adjustments.

    As long as your exercise is step based let the fitbit take care of the burn. MFP is known to be more inaccurate for burns as it doesn't take into account effort, age or height.

    Anything you log in MFP overwrites the Fitbit burn for that time. So no double logging.

    Hope that helps.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    Your adjustment from Fitbit on MFP is to correct your full day calorie burn.

    MFP expects you to burn a certian number of calories before the day is over. This number is based on your stats and the activity level you selected.
    Fitbit sends over it's calorie burn for you as of the last time it synced. So each time you sync Fitbit it will update your adjustment on MFP.
    MFP divides it's calorie burn down to hours and minutes. It takes your Fitbit calorie burn and adds the calories from it's activity level estimate for the remainder of your day. This number becomes your projected Fitbit burn or what MFP expects your Fitbit to report as of midnight. The difference between this number and MFP's original estimate for your calorie burn is your adjustment.

    Example:
    Based on my stats and Lightly Active setting, MFP expects me to burn 1851 calories per day before exercise.
    This breaks down to 77.12 per hour and 1.28 per minute.
    As of 7:55 am, Fibit has a 465 calorie burn for me.
    If my math is correct there is 16 hours 5 mins left in my day.
    77.12 x 16 = 1233.92
    1.28 x 5 = 6.4
    465 + 6.4 + 1233.92 = 1705.32
    So then my adjustment gets calculated like this:
    1705 - 1851 = -145
    I am currently losing calories. As the day goes on though my adjustment will be recalculated with updated calorie burn information from Fitbit.
  • blwillia
    blwillia Posts: 3 Member
    I don't know but, I've noticed the same thing. My fitbit calories burned seems extremely high so I feel more comfortable going with the calories mfp says I've burned.
  • jjhert
    jjhert Posts: 6 Member
    Thank you all for the replies! I appreciate you taking the time to help me out!

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