Manual calorie goal works on web, not app?

[rattiemomma]

Hi!

I set a manual calorie goal in my food plan following instructions I found here in the forums. It seems to be working ok on the web-based dashboard, but not on the app.

I made the change yesterday evening and as of lunchtime today, the app still doesn't reflect the change. All I have a food plan tile that says "Start a Food plan" with a red oval "GET STARTED" button. Before I made the change, the tile did reflect the Fitbit Food Plan I had been using.

As a side note, I posted another topic saying that my logged activities appear in the web dashboard's Activity History, but not in the Recent Activities tile of the web dashboard.The app exercise tile will keep saying "Track you exercise" and "No excerise logged" even when I added the activity from the app and I can edit and see it on the web dashboard. I don't get credit for meeting my exercise goals. Could this issue be related? My calories come in from MFP, my steps from FB (usually) show up in MFP, I see calorie adjustments in MFP and the app shows my step in near-real-time, so it doesn't appear to be a general "it's not syncing" issue.

Thoughts? Thanks!

[HelenaFitbit]

Thank you for your participation in the forums @rattiemomma! There seems to be some miscomunication between your web dashboard and your App. In this case I recommend logging out of the App and force quitting it. After doing this, please restart your mobile device. Once you log back in, your information should be updated. 

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions

[rattiemomma]

Hi, Helena!

Thank you for taking time to answer me! I have restarted a few times. I have actually uninstalled and reinstalled the app more than once while trying to get the calories thing and activity thing to behave. I have also had a problem with my Flex lights telling me I've done more miles than the dashboard tells me, but it seems to have only happened for a few days and now I can't recreate the problem. I am still a little paranoid about trusting the calorie burn Fitbit is giving me, though.

I know the calories in/calories out feature doesn't work with a manual calorie goal, but I think the app should still show me how many calories I have left until my manual calorie goal, yes? The web dashboard still shows it. Or do I have to hide the app's food plan tile/bar on the app because it just can't be used with a manual goal and I just can't see remaing calories on the app?

Even if that is true, I'm still not getting credit for logged activity. Only something I accidentally logged through My Fitness Pal showed up in my Recent Exercise tile and gave me credit for activity that day. Do I just need to keep adding activity through MFP? That seems odd, since Fitbit is for tracking activity! I also have a question about Active Minutes. I thought manually logged activity didn't count toward active minutes, but activities logged through MFP give me active minutes. Am I just using Fitbit entirely wrong and expecting it to work a certain way that it isn't meant to?

Thanks for your help!

Rattie

[HelenaFitbit]

Aha! We've found the problem. 

I have seen this situation happen whenever both accounts don't have the same caloric budget to work with; so I recommend to disable Fitbit's Food Plan and add your MFP caloric budget as a main calorie goal.

I'll show you how to do it from my profile information. 

First, you'll need to go to your Food log page and click on the arrows on Food Plan until you see the option "Edit Plan".

After you've done this, click on "Set a new Goal" 

Add your starting weight and your desired weight and click next.

Instead of choosing the food plan options provided by Fitbit, click on "Set my own Calorie Target".

Now on MyFitnessPal, click on Goals and (unless you have an specific nutrition goal) click on "View Guided Setup"

Now on your Diet profile, add all the information required.

Now, you will get a Net calorie target for the day. Please bear in mind that mine is low because of my settings, but yours will be different. 

Now, go back to your Fitbit Screen and add the Net Calorie target you were given for the day and click on Done. 

Now you're set! The food you log in from MFP will automatically edit your Fitbit caloric values for the day and it will reflect on your MFP calorie budget for the day. 

A couple things to consider about this: 

1. The accuracy of your Fitbit Log will depend on the accuracy of your MFP food logs.
2. All exercises and non-step based activities must be logged through Fitbit, otherwise MFP will count them as double. 

 Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions

[rattiemomma]

Hi, Helena!

Actually, that is why I have a  manual calorie goal. I set it to match my MFP calorie goal because the shifting target of the Fitbit/TDEE-deficit style plan was giving me anxiety. 🙂 I wanted just one net number to shoot for and always know what that number was.

I set the goal using those same directions that I found here in the forums.

I made a test activity record:

Here are my web and app dashboards, showing only the relevant fields. I deleted the food in MFP so Fitbit would show my target, which is indeed my MFP goal, and you can see the tile that acknowledges I have a manual calorie goal. Other than not showing Recent Activity, everything looks OK. When I accidentally logged activity from MFP (when I first linked accounts), I learned that MFP-logged activity would give me Recent Exercise, Active Minutes and appears on the little dot-and-check calendar on the app and counts toward my Weekly Exercise Goals. My manual FB activities don't.

My app dashboard still wants me to exercise and make a food plan.

I am being a slug with my kids, who are on school vacation, so don't laugh too hard at my activity today! lol!

Is there anything obvious I am doing wrong?

Thanks so much for your insight!

-Rattie

[rattiemomma]

@HelenaFitbit

There appears to be a thread over in the Flex category about at least part of this issue:

Thread name is "Recent Exercise tile isn't showing most recent exercise?"

I'm not sure if it is exactly the same issue, but I thought I would make a note of it here.

[HelenaFitbit]

Thank you for trying this out @rattiemomma! Here's what's happening on your account: Since you've disabled Fitbit's Food Plan and prioritized on MFP's Food plan,  your In vs Out gauge will be disabled. This is because your caloric information will be displayed on MFP's screen: 

As long as all of your workouts are logged through Fitbit and all food/water items are logged through MFP; your information will sync seamlessly between both apps. 

Let me know if you have any questions!