Adding manual exercise zeroes active minutes

[Carryliner]

After adding exercise which can't be tracked to my account manually, the dashboard is setting my active minutes to 0. If I set the exercise to the wrong time (I.e. not the time active minutes were recorded) it works fine, and doesn't double up the time. What's going on? 

[LanuzaFitbit · Accepted solution]

Thanks for stepping into the Forums @Carryliner!

So that I can better understand the situation I'd like to ask you a question. Is the activity that you're manually logging during the same period of time that your Fitbit recognized active minutes? 

If so, it would explain why the active minutes are being overwritten. Manually logged activities regularly override information recorded by the tracker.

I hope you find this information useful! Look forward to your reply.

[Cayde-6]

Is there anyway to reacquire lost active minutes, after manually entering an exercise? I ask because it also caused me to loose tracked calories burnt as well. I use a Versa. 

[Colinm39]

@Cayde-6As soon as you delete that Manual Activity the calories hence Active Minutes will be restored.

Many of us use the Workout option on this type of Fitbit to accurately track our activity and rename the Workout when completed.

One proviso..... You must already have the Custom Activity created in your PC and then synced to your phone.

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@Cayde-6 wrote:

Is there anyway to reacquire lost active minutes, after manually entering an exercise? I ask because it also caused me to loose tracked calories burnt as well. I use a Versa. 

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[LanuzaFitbit]

Hello @Cayde-6 and @Colinm39.

Thanks for posting that @Colinm39! Glad to have you around helping.

@Cayde-6 As mentioned above, if you delete the activity you should get the active minutes back to your account.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

[Cayde-6]

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@LanuzaFitbit wrote:

Hello @Cayde-6 and @Colinm39.

Thanks for posting that @Colinm39! Glad to have you around helping.

@Cayde-6 As mentioned above, if you delete the activity you should get the active minutes back to your account.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

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Unfortunately I’ve done as such and said minutes did not come back. And yes I know about the exercise functions of the versa, it was impromptu exercise. Perhaps functions for future OS builds could include a residual backup of active minutes/calories burnt and intensive walks, much like there are if you say accidentally delete a sleep log, it’s not completely deleted or overwritten. 

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hello @Cayde-6.

Thanks for letting us know.

We appreciate the time you took sharing your feedback on the matter and your experience. Be sure to post about one of our Discussion boards, lots of different topics to talk about with other users.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

[LeeCM44]

What’s the solution if you want to hit your exercise goals and want your active minutes to be accurate? This override seems like a bug to me, but I can understand the code misfire. 

Worth noting the back button on my blaze doesn’t work, so initiating exercise on my device isn’t a very easy solution. 

[Colinm39]

@LeeCM44   Because a manual record averages the calories over the exercise period, many times it then erases your active minutes.  It also assumes a calorie amount based on the type of exercise you have selected

That's because the calories/minute are lower than 3 times your BMR for the Active Minute.  Also you may have had burst of the minimum of 10 minutes to record active minutes and the leveling affect erases that as well.

One method I have found may work, is to use the Activity record (it's just a copy of your data) to give you the accurate calorie burn for your activity.  I have found logging the Manual Activity through the App gives a much lower calorie count for the activity.  Especially if it's a standard Fitbit Manual activity.  Logging it on the Web Dashboard wants the calories and sometimes the distance.

Then record the Manual Activity using these calories. I just did a test on yesterdays activity and it increased my Active Minutes because the leveling effect averaged the higher activity counts

This method may help, extra work but you having to have a recording of the activities in your App Exercise wheel.

The Activity record giving the calories I used above does not show up in that Exercise wheel.

Finally.. If you want to use your own Manual Activity that you have named you will need to create it in the web first and then sync your device to have it available in the App..