Fitbit Questions

to keep the sites from getting confused, and to prevent "double dipping", ONLY log food and workouts on MFP. It will sync with fitbit, and fitbit will show that it got info from MFP.

For example....when I do strength...the fitbit only knows that I have walked from machine to machine...so I log 20 minutes of "strength training" under cardio. It overwrites that time period on the fitbit log to show the calories I told it I burned. Same thing with my elliptical time--MFP asks what time I did it, and how long, so it tells fitbit that I burned 200 calories from 1030-11am.

the adjustments are from when you burn more calories, or are more active than fitbit expects you to be. it is sort of like exercise calories on MFP. Does this make any sense?

I log food on MFP only and exercise on FItBit and for most of my activity I rely on FitBits estimate


If I walk intensely wearing a heart monitor, I may use that to overide FitBIt and enter the time, miles and calories

If you do intense calorie burn activity of exercise FitBIt cannot "feel" you may want to enter overrides

info to MFP, but not the total amount of calories are transferring over. Like today, I walked 5 miles and burned 314 calories (according tot he Fitbit website). The only "exercise" that showed up on MFP was a 212 Fitbit adjustment. So, I am not sure what I am doing wrong.

MFP already assumes you'll burn a certain amount of calories a day and gives you credit for it. The 212 is what you earned ABOVE that #...

How does fitbit track sleep and such? I saw that as a feature but it seems a little odd.

How does fitbit track sleep and such? I saw that as a feature but it seems a little odd.

it is worn on a soft wristband during the night. It assumes that BIG movements, such as rolling over in bed, are not done while you are in the deepest sleep level--so that is counted as a "wake up". It seems pretty accurate for me--when I feel like I have had a crappy night of sleep, it will show that I woke up 15 times and only had like 30 minutes between wake ups. When I feel like I have had a great night of sleep, I will look and see that I didn't move for 5 hours, then tossed a few times over 2 hours.

If you don'r do the sleep thing - the FirBir calories will be off and too high

If you aren't walking or sleep it assumes you are awake but not very active and that's a higher calorie burn than lying down sleeping

Okay, I've got a question I haven't seen an answer to, and a cursory search for "fitbit" and "elliptical" in the groups didn't turn up anything.

I've been using my Fitbit while on the elliptical/crossramp machines at the gym, and hit the timer button just before I start. It does come pretty close to the total mileage I put in, although it's usually about 1/3-1/2 mile short of what I actually did. I put the calories burned (from the machine, which I always input my age/weight into) into MFP and they transfer over to the Fitbit site.

Here's my question: is there any way to accurately determine how resistance factors into the mileage/floors? I do the interval program on the machine (Precor), usually a 45 minute program w/ a 5 minute cool-down (3.4 miles or so; I just started so I'm still really out of shape) on crossramp 4/resistance 1. The intervals go up to crossramp 10/resistance 8, then back down to crossramp 4/resistance 1, for 2 minutes each.

Could the resistance be the reason the mileage isn't accurately portrayed, or maybe my stride length? I am surprised it even comes close, with as much as everyone has said it doesn't record ellipticals correctly, but it would be nice if I could tweak the settings to have a slightly more accurate reflection of the work I did put in.