Do I want to connect my Fitbit to MFP?

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reginaswork
reginaswork Posts: 26 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm sure this has been discussed before. But I'm new. I wear the charge HR2. I do not have it connected to MFP. If I did it would add calories and I'm not sure that I wouldn't go over my daily #'S as most people advise not eating back but a few of their exercise calories.
So if you like it connected please tell why, if not same

Replies

  • ladyhusker39
    ladyhusker39 Posts: 1,406 Member
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    They work extremely well together. I love having mine connected and it works well. Very convenient.

    You may find that your's overestimates, but you can always adjust how much you eat back as time goes on if you're not getting the results you expect.
  • sofchak
    sofchak Posts: 862 Member
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    I have mine connected. Fitbit definitely overestimates calories burned, so as long as you keep that in mind, you should be okay. As a rule of thumb, I only eat back half the “exercise” calories Fitbit gives me.

    If you go this route, set your activity level to sedentary so that you don’t end up double counting your calories burned.

    If you don’t like the approach, you can always unpair the apps - never know what can optimize your journey unless you are willing to try something new.

    Best of luck.
  • pogiguy05
    pogiguy05 Posts: 1,583 Member
    edited November 2017
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    Well I have the Fitbit Ionic and it is connected and I have no issues and so far I like it. the one thing I learned early on is when you log your food do it on MFP ONLY. If you try on both it will double your caloric intake. You will notice when they sync my fitbit app shows what I log on MFP as SUMMARY for each category logged.

    When I exercise I let my fitbit sync the calories to MFP and usually I do not eat back all the calories I burned during exercise. Now I did notice that the numbers look a bit off. meaning if my fitbit says i burned 1300 calories, it does not show as 1300 calories on MFP. Usually it is lower, but I am not to worried about that issue.

    I plan on staying with it the way i have it sync'd.

    You will find some who say you should eat back the calories if you exercising cause you need to nutrients and calories to build muscle and stay healthy.
  • ladyhusker39
    ladyhusker39 Posts: 1,406 Member
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    pogiguy05 wrote: »
    Well I have the Fitbit Ionic and it is connected and I have no issues and so far I like it. the one thing I learned early on is when you log your food do it on MFP ONLY. If you try on both it will double your caloric intake. You will notice when they sync my fitbit app shows what I log on MFP as SUMMARY for each category logged.

    When I exercise I let my fitbit sync the calories to MFP and usually I do not eat back all the calories I burned during exercise. Now I did notice that the numbers look a bit off. meaning if my fitbit says i burned 1300 calories, it does not show as 1300 calories on MFP. Usually it is lower, but I am not to worried about that issue.

    I plan in staying with it the way i have it sync'd

    I did that too at the beginning, but they actually "talk" to each other. Once I started letting them work it out, the data became much more accurate. MFP for food; FitBit for activity.
  • HollyPFlax
    HollyPFlax Posts: 79 Member
    edited November 2017
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    pogiguy05 wrote: »
    Well I have the Fitbit Ionic and it is connected and I have no issues and so far I like it. the one thing I learned early on is when you log your food do it on MFP ONLY. If you try on both it will double your caloric intake. You will notice when they sync my fitbit app shows what I log on MFP as SUMMARY for each category logged.

    When I exercise I let my fitbit sync the calories to MFP and usually I do not eat back all the calories I burned during exercise. Now I did notice that the numbers look a bit off. meaning if my fitbit says i burned 1300 calories, it does not show as 1300 calories on MFP. Usually it is lower, but I am not to worried about that issue.

    I plan on staying with it the way i have it sync'd.

    You will find some who say you should eat back the calories if you exercising cause you need to nutrients and calories to build muscle and stay healthy.

    Fitbit's calories burned include your TDEE, while Myfitnesspal does not. That's why your calories burned are so much higher than on your Fitbit app. Fitbit also has an annoying feature where it adds your TDEE as the day wears on. You only start out with like 600 burned, but it will increase to your TDEE by midnight if you don't exercise. I think this really misleads people into eating too much. That's why I have the apps synced up. I use my calorie goal on Myfitnesspal and eat back half the calories burned that show on the myfitnesspal app.
  • cs2thecox
    cs2thecox Posts: 533 Member
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    It might be a Premium feature, but I have mine linked but the calorie adjustment turned off.
    I can still SEE the calorie adjustment at the bottom of my diary screen, and I can see my food in my FitBit app, but it's up to me to choose how to use those numbers.

    I mostly do it that way because my trainer sets my calories and macros, and after more than a year of tweaking we've hit on something that works with my level of activity. I find it easier to have my standard activity "pre-included" rather than my goal changing as the day goes on because I exercised.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    I have had mine linked since mid-2015 and I do eat back my activity adjustments. It works very well for me.
  • Fitnessmom82
    Fitnessmom82 Posts: 376 Member
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    I have my FitBit linked to MFP. They seem to work well together. I don't eat back much of my exercise calories, if any. And if I am running on the treadmill or using the elliptical I don't enter that as exercise into MFP because I figure it's already logging those steps. I only log classes or circuit training type stuff. FitBit for heart rate, sleep monitoring and steps. MFP for food. This is working well for me so far!
  • whitpauly
    whitpauly Posts: 1,483 Member
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    I have mine linked and eat back part,seems to be pretty accurate for me as far as calls burned

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