Do I log my exercise even though my Fitbit is tracking my steps...

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TanyaVirginia
TanyaVirginia Posts: 1 Member
in Getting Started
Hi, I have been doing MFP for some time but just started exercising along with healthy eating. I just went to log my exercise for the day and thought about how my Fitbit and MFP are linked and MFP already calculates my calories based on my steps. So do I just go by my steps and use that as my exercise/calorie adjustment or do I do both? Thanks

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  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
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    I actually log my exercise on the Fitbit site (or depending on what model you have it may automatically pick up what you are doing and log it for you). That way Fitbit takes into consideration the steps it credited me for during the workout so that I don't get double credited. Then it all comes over when it syncs with MFP by way of the calorie adjustment.

    I'm not saying you can't log exercise on MFP instead, just that I wasn't sure if there wouldn't be something double counted so I've never done that :smile:
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    TanyaVirginia wrote: »
    Hi, I have been doing MFP for some time but just started exercising along with healthy eating. I just went to log my exercise for the day and thought about how my Fitbit and MFP are linked and MFP already calculates my calories based on my steps. So do I just go by my steps and use that as my exercise/calorie adjustment or do I do both? Thanks

    MFP calculates your calories based on a figure of total daily calorie burn from Fitbit, not from steps which is merely another figure sent over. (obviously Fitbit uses steps to get distance to get calories, along with HR-based estimates)

    That figure is total calorie burn - any workouts you did are already in it - whether manually entered on Fitbit site, automatically seen as a workout, or merely buried in the daily stats, or synced to Fitbit from another site, like if you entered it on MFP.

    Whatever you enter on MFP will go over to Fitbit and replace what they had - which could be the same, or a valid correction, or a worse estimate.

    So no need on MFP to enter workouts unless you just love their exercise diary more than Fitbit's.

    If you want friends to see your workout - just make a wall post with more interesting info about it.

    And since the adjustment is MFP's correction regarding the total day's difference which could be totally without exercise - yes you follow MFP's suggestion which is using that already.
  • sarabushby
    sarabushby Posts: 784 Member
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    If you want to see your exercise logged in MFP for record keeping you could also log it with 0 calorie burn.
  • JohnnytotheB
    JohnnytotheB Posts: 361 Member
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    sarabushby wrote: »
    If you want to see your exercise logged in MFP for record keeping you could also log it with 0 calorie burn.

    I would normally not log my exercise into MFP because of the way it adds it to your daily total of calorie intake but now that I saw this comment I may reconsider. I like the MFP site because it's easier for logging versus Fitbit which I feel is clunky.
  • lilithsrose
    lilithsrose Posts: 752 Member
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    Like kimny72 said, I would suggest tracking extra exercise inside of the Fitbit app to avoid doubling up. The app adjusts your calorie burn for that activity and then syncs to MFP. This is how I do it and it works pretty well for me.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    What type of exercise? Is it step based? If so I wouldn’t log it. If it’s not, like circuit training or something, you could log it to have that record (I do, and I log mine in MFP and haven’t had issues with too much of a calorie override).
  • Polydactylkat
    Polydactylkat Posts: 31 Member
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    If you want to log your exercises in MFP ( personally, I like to do so) then you can take the calorie burn from your Fitbit (if you tracked it as an exercise) or the burn from MFP or another method, just be sure that when you log your “25 min treadmill” (example) workout, you put in the correct start time. Then, Fitbit will adjust the calories burned during that time according to what you manually enter. It won’t log double so long as you are sure to log the start time and the correct length of the activity.

    If you log with 0 calories, it will overwrite the Fitbit calories with 0and instead of a “double” log, you will actually lose the calories burned from the exercise. So if you log it in MFP, log the time and calories and you will be fine. :)
  • Daveybaseball
    Daveybaseball Posts: 24 Member
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    Just turn on negative caloties tracking thing and you can log in mfp without issue
  • sarabushby
    sarabushby Posts: 784 Member
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    Ooops, well apologies for giving duff advice there! You learn something new every day.
    Personally I don’t link my Fitbit to MFP so did not realise this little nugget. Sorry!
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    Daveybaseball wrote: »
    Just turn on negative caloties tracking thing and you can log in mfp without issue

    That doesn't have the effect you think it does.

    It has absolutely no bearing on being able to log in MFP.

    It's ONLY purpose is if your Fitbit reports you are burning less than MFP figured you'd burn - then you get negative adjustment since less active.
    You do less, you eat less.

    Same as when it adjusts up because you did more than MPF figured - you do more you eat more.
    Life lesson for weight maintenance.

    Plenty of people log workouts on MFP for some reason syncing with Fitbit, with negative calorie adj disabled.

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