What is in the Food Export?

[MrMarv]

Yes I know it isn't available now. And as a developer, I can wait until they get it perfect.

But for those who have either downloaded a Food Export in the past or a Fitbit employee that has the time to respond...

Pardon me if I am being a little simplistic in my request, I don't know my audience.

What are the column headers in the CSV download (the first row)? Or, if you export as an excel file or immediately load the CSV into a spreadsheet, what are the values in the first row?

Depending on the response, I will either wait for the export function to be back on line, or start building my own database that will have all the information that the export is lacking to satisfy my personal requirements and merge the two.

Thank you.

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hey @MrMarv.

I'll gladly answer your question. When you export the food, you'll get the list of all the food you have logged in a chronological order from latest and then backwards.

I hope this clarifies the situation.

[MrMarv]

**** begin edited portion ****

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@LanuzaFitbit wrote:

Hey @MrMarv.

I'll gladly answer your question. When you export the food, you'll get the list of all the food you have logged in a chronological order from latest and then backwards.

I hope this clarifies the situation.

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Did you read my original post, or just the title of the post before responding.

I suspect just the title. Making both efforts, your response and my reading the response a waste of both of our time.

And yes, I waited hours to post this edit. And I probably wasted more of my time. 

I'll just wait for the fix to the exporter. Or not.

**** end edited portion ****

Thanks for the reply, but...

Maybe a better way of putting it is:

For each of the foods listed, are nutritional facts included?

Or is it just a listing of the food names?

I was hoping that either a Fitbit employee had the CSV column header values, or a user had gotten a download in the past and could post the first line of the file. Having the second line would be gravy.

[LanuzaFitbit · Accepted solution]

Hey @MrMarv.

I absolutely read your whole post, it was just my understanding that was wrong. When you said ' what are the values in the first row?', I thought you meant what was the first item to show up and thus my reply. Hopefully this clarifies why I answered like that.

As for the nutritional values, the export will bring all of the same details that show on the food log page, as such you should also get the nutritional information.

Feel free to reach out with any further questions.

[MrMarv]

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@LanuzaFitbit wrote:

Hey @MrMarv.

I absolutely read your whole post, probably it was just my understanding that was wrong. When you said ' what are the values in the first row?', I thought you meant what was the first item to show up and thus my reply. Hopefully this clarifies why I answered like that.

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And here is where I apologize.

That is pretty much what I was asking for (row information not column where the individual data points, such as item,  are listed). Your answer is not as detailed as I hoped for, but good enough that I will mark you message as the solution and wait for the data export to be fixed and work from there.

I was hoping that all of the information on the nutritional label that pops up when you click on an item in the food log comes up would be in the extract. I'm trying to correlate sodium/potassium intake levels and how I see them work together (or not) when in comes to overcoming water retention - a sign of heart failure.

If sodium is in the extract and potassium is missing, I can always code a lookup to a separate table of potassium values.

And l apologize again. Recently being told I should think about an implanted defibrillator has gotten me a little frustrated when I don't get answers I expect - including from doctors, it seems.

Thanks again.

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hi @MrMarv.

No need to apologize, it was on me. I will be sure to keep my eyes open for any new details about the data export and when if I do get something, I'll be posting it in here. 

About the defibrillator, I can imagine it must be very stressful or worrisome. Hopefully it all goes in the very best way possible for you!

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions or need any assistance. 

[USAF-Larry]

You should be able to test it now, @MrMarv.  I was able to download the XLS files.  I haven't logged any food, but this is what the XLS file looks like:

[MrMarv]

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@USAF-Larry wrote:

You should be able to test it now, @MrMarv.  I was able to download the XLS files.

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Thanks - I went ahead and download both versions for one day. And then for a few days to make sure I wasn't reading something into what I saw.

Whoa - not even close to what I expected. I would have never thought to see separate tables for each day and only calories for each item by meal and then a summary of calories and some nutritional data-points.

What I would do and what someone else would do are sometimes completely different.

And what fits one person's needs doesn't always fit another's.

What I am seeing is not really in a usable form for what I had in mind. It is also missing what I consider some important nutritional information that Fitbit appears to have in its database, such as potassium and sugar and all the vitamins. While potassium is not important to a lot of people, sugar is - especially for pre-diabetic individuals and those trying to lose weight. And contrary to what some may think carbs are not just fiber and sugar, no matter what the nutritional labels say, so you cannot just perform some subtraction to get sugar. I don't understand the relationship because I don't have to at this point, but even Fitbit sometimes mentions "unclassified carbs".

For the rest of the community that uses the exporter and finds it meets their needs, I am happy for you. For the short term, it will still be useful to me in helping audit anything I create for my own use (oh joy, like I don't spend enough time programming as it is).

Best to all.

[MrMarv]

So - ok.

What I was expecting was output that looked like a standard query on a normalized database - think Microsoft SQL or MySql if you can, where you would get something like this (every thing shortened up so it would fit, and some things are left out):

Date     Meal   Food          Cals FrmFat TotFat   Sat Trans Fat Cholest Sodium Potass Carbs Fiber Sugars Protein 

09/01/17 Bkfst  SpecOatmeal   230      30      3     0     0   0       85    80     45     7    18      5       0

09/01/17 Lunch  7-Grain Bread  70      10     1.5                      10   105           14     2      2       2

09/01/17 Lunch  Lunch Item 2

09/01/17 Lunch  Lunch Item 3

09/02/17 Dinner Dinner Item 1

09/02/17 Dinner Dinner Item 2

09/02/17 Bkfst  Bskt & Gravy 

If I have a peanut butter sandwich with some sort of munchie, that is three lunch lines - bread, peanut butter and the chex mix, or I could create a "meal record" for the sandwich and have two lunch lines. But with all the nutitional information filled out for each meal item. Each item has its own nutritional information on the line with item and if summaries are required, Excel has  excellent summary functions. And if the sodium totals for the day are a little out of line it is real easy to identify the culprit. 

Now, the FitBit export does, for my mysterious lunch, have three lines. But the only nutritional details associated with each of the three individual lines are the line's calories. All of the other information is summarized at the bottom of that day's tab with all the information for all items eaten that day. Not very easy to identify that nasty sodium contributor like it is in my way of looking at the data. And the summaries are missing some things they include on their nutritional label pop-ups in the food log.

But, you know something? Even if I don't care for how Fitbit does their output, I can still copy-and-paste each days meal information, ignoring their daily totals. Once the individual meal lines are pasted into my spreadsheet, I can perform lookups into a master listing that I only have to update each time I add a new food. And even if that new food is scanned in using the Fitbit App, the nutritional label is easy to get to in the web dashboard.

Sounds like a lot of work, and it will be. However, eight of the nine items in today's food list are "repeat offenders" over a period of three months, as are seven of nine from yesterday and 11 of 11 from Sunday.

Yes, it is sad that the Fitbit export isn't a little more user friendly by my definition. But as I said in a previous post, what fits one person's needs doesn't always fit another's.

A good evening to all.

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hey @MrMarv and @USAF-Larry.

Thanks for the update @USAF-Larry.

@MrMarv I have to say, I personally enjoy reading your in-depth posts. Most of the time I end up learning something new. It's unfortunate that the export information isn't more accurate to what you'd prefer. I do see how a version like the one you described could be very useful. Perhaps you could look into the possibility of creating a suggestion post about the export data. 

Hope to see you again! Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions.