Log active mins vs. log exercise in Lose It & when to wear my FB Charge.

[WNYPortGirl]

Hi-new here. I log food & exercise to Lose It then link to FB. If I log in LI & I've used active minute setting on FB during workout, does that count as double dipping? Meaning, am I logging stuff twice & getting credit? Seen people post about elliptical counting as steps etc. If I'm using the elliptical vigorously shouldn't it count? Also if I'm cycling doing a 30-40 mile bike ride, should I not be wearing FB? It does track & skew my steps while Endomondo is posting the ride. Im confused by reading everyone's posts.

[Yaro67]

Personally I have a Fitbit Surge which monitors my heart rate and can track a lot of different exercises.  So if I was in your situation and adding my exercise would definitely be double dipping.  But if your case since your Fitbit is not tracking your heart rate then if you want a closer track of your true calories that you are burning I would add the exercise manually.  Your Fitbit shouldn’t be gaining that many steps on the elliptical and or when you take your bike ride.

I could be wrong but that’s just my two cents.

Jerry

[Heybales]

If by "used active minute setting" (which there really is not one) you mean you started an activity record by pressing the button, then that is merely a time stamp to see the Fitbit stats that were already seen.

It's a snapshot of the block of time.

As soon as you log the workout in LI and it syncs over, it replaces the calorie burn on Fitbit stats as a workout record.

Steps and distance aren't touched (unless Fitbit has step syncing with them, rare).

So that activity record isn't even showing the new calorie burn from your workout coming across, but the original stats.

And it's not double counted. The activity record is merely a snapshot of the stats and is done first.

Sure the elliptical will count some steps likely - but it's not step based, so depending on how you move, it may not see impacts that count as steps.

And if you have the Charge but not Charge HR, then the formula used to estimate calorie burn from steps and distance is only for walking and running - not elliptical anyway. Just like biking.

You can wear the device during these other workouts if you want your daily step count to include what is actually non-steps, and then the manually logged workouts in either Fitbit or syncing over to Fitbit will replace the calorie burn with hopefully a better estimate.

[WNYPortGirl · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the input. I find when I'm on the elliptical I'll hit my step goal in 30 minutes (I'm a recovering runner using elliptical/cycling to keep my endurance up while my achilles heals) and with cycling I not only hit my step goal in an hour, but it tells me I've climbed like...75 flights of stairs! TECHNICALLY with the ellitical, the movement is like walking assisted right as far as distance goes but the effort is certainly the same as running when I do it (by heart rate and effort/distance). When I do it I just take the steps with a grain of salt but notice the calories burned is *reasonably* accruate. Thanks!

[Heybales]

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@WNYPortGirl wrote:
Thanks for the input. I find when I'm on the elliptical I'll hit my step goal in 30 minutes (I'm a recovering runner using elliptical/cycling to keep my endurance up while my achilles heals) and with cycling I not only hit my step goal in an hour, but it tells me I've climbed like...75 flights of stairs! TECHNICALLY with the ellitical, the movement is like walking assisted right as far as distance goes but the effort is certainly the same as running when I do it (by heart rate and effort/distance). When I do it I just take the steps with a grain of salt but notice the calories burned is *reasonably* accruate. Thanks!

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Technically, even leaving missing steps out of the picture - the formulas for walking calorie burn are no where near correct for elliptical - not like walking at all because of the huge variance of options for how a person does it.

I'm sure someone could find exactly the right settings that caused the distance and pace the elliptical handed out along with mass to equal the same pace walking or running.

But that would be unusual.

There has never been a study that could find a good formula for elliptical calorie burn like there has been on treadmills and stationary bikes.

And even the great formula for treadmills loses accuracy as incline goes up, because personal difference on doing incline enters the picture.

Which is along the same lines as elliptical.