I can't get my calories to add from my Fitbit watch

Greetings, I'll try to explain as best as I can. Each activity level on MyFitnessPal is associated with a certain amount of steps. When you set your activity level, MyFitnessPal gives you additional calories to your daily intake based on whichever level you chose. Active is associated with about 10k steps, while sedentary is associated with about 5k. For example: Your BMR aka the amount of calories you burned doing nothing may be 1700. Now if you choose the active level, then MyFitnessPal will add an additional 400 or so calories to your daily needs as it assumes you're walking a minimum of 10k steps. So for additional burned calories to be added from your Fitbit tracker you have to walk more than the minimum amount of steps associated with that activity level. So if your activity level was set to sedentary which again is 5k steps, you'd have to walk 5.1, 5.5k, 6k, 8k, etc. steps for any additional calories to be added. If your activity level is set to active which is associated with 10k steps, then you'd have to walk 10.1k, 10.3k, 13k, etc. for any additional calories burned to be added from you fitbit. So in conclusion you have to go past the minimum requirements of steps associated with your fitness level. For instance; my activity level is set to active, and I walked 20k plus steps today. However, calories burned didn't start to appear until I got pass the minimum 10k steps associated with that level. Hope that helps.

tennsky wrote: »

Hello. I use the my fitness pal app and have hooked up my Fitbit watch to it, which it does count my steps but its never credits me with calories lost at the MFP app. Can someone tell me why? I have 3714 steps so far today, should it not be crediting me with calories lost?

Your FitBit isn't going to give you calories lost...it will give you an adjustment to your calorie target as a reconciliation between your activity level set in MFP to your actual activity level per your device. Your activity level in MFP is already going to account for a certain number of steps and activity, even if it's set to sedentary...you aren't going to get any kind of adjustment from FitBit unless your actual activity exceeds your setting in MFP. If your activity per FitBit exceeds the setting in MFP you will get an adjustment up...if it is less than what you have set in MFP and you have negative calories enabled you will get an adjustment down...but it isn't going to give you a, "you did X, Y, or Z and it was this many calories"...it only reconciles your actual activity to that which was set in MFP.

ps-in the MFP app, under the day's diary you can click on Fitbit Tracker Calorie Adjustment and then click on the Extra Calories Earned to see details about MFP's projections.

tennsky wrote: »

Hello. I use the my fitness pal app and have hooked up my Fitbit watch to it, which it does count my steps but its never credits me with calories lost at the MFP app. Can someone tell me why? I have 3714 steps so far today, should it not be crediting me with calories lost?

didn't see this. Just asked the same question

When you manually log those workouts in MFP (because Fitbit doesn't send workouts to MFP when accounts are synced) - you force them to be sent over to the Fitbit account, and replace whatever it came up with for calorie burn.

You could be entering the same calorie burn info - in which case you are just causing 2 extra syncs to take place. With syncing issues common that is not really a good thing.

You could attempt to be entering the same info but get the time wrong - in which case Fitbit will be replacing the wrong data (Fitbit is replace only system, not an add-to like MFP is). That could have you partially doubling up calorie burn, or replacing something else that was already correct.

You could be using MFP database entry calorie burn - in which case you could easily be causing Fitbit to replace more accurate calorie burn info.

You could be syncing that data in from yet another source that could be way off on calorie burn, but it'll still have to sync to Fitbit. And if it starts off with incorrect time stamp, more problems.

Suggest that if you want your friends' list to see your workouts - just make a wall post about it - more interesting than a non-descript 1 liner anyway.

Then just use Fitbit to see your workouts - better diary anyway.
The full day calorie burn that includes the workouts still comes over to MFP anyway, it'll make the corrections needed.

Regarding under 4K steps, even if you are set for Sedentary on MFP, that is likely not enough distance for enough calorie burn to get any extra credit over what MFP expected you to get already, without wokouts.

With workouts it knows about, it really isn't enough.

If outside of exercise you really are that inactive (I am!), you should enable in MFP Food settings the option for Negative calories.

That way while you may get credit for the workouts because doing more in that way, you get a debit too from being less than active and doing less for daily stuff.
You'll still get more for the day so you are eating more since doing more, but correctly remove some of them.