Active minutes aren't exercise?

[Heather3879]

I'm trying to learn how to use my new Fitbit Charge. It appears that my "active minutes," even when in over my goal of 30 for the day, don't count as "exercise" toward my three workouts a week. Is this correct? Will it be remedied if I use the timer next time?

[RobertoME]

Hi everyone including @etana_f and @franceslewis. Welcome aboard to the new faces around also as @pdepape, @Comomegs.

The basic form of Active minutes as @MikeF mentioned before is the intensity of your exercise. Is not a different measurement as this is connected with all your stats. To put in a simple way, if the exercise is very intense > you burn more calories > as the rate of calories burned  increase > more chance are of getting active minutes. 

The frustration comes from those exercise that are not like a regular walking or running as I've seen some of you mentioned here. For this type of exercise is more complicate due to there is not a pattern of motion that accumulate steps. This issue is less probably when the tracker has Heart Rate as it will pick your BPM to compensate the missing movement that you have when you are walking.

Its important also to brought here, that if by a small chance you interrupted the exercise, the active minutes count will be reset back to zero, in other words if you don't complete a whole minute with the same pace, or intensity that minute wont count for the totals.

The best on this situations is to use the exercise mode, which consist in pressing and holding for a couple of seconds the side button of the tracker. This will improve the caloric burn as well. Now if none of your scenarios apply to what I'm saying, we can consider there is a problem in the way the algorithm is picking your exercise. So try to perform a restart on your tracker. If you need the steps I will left the steps for a Charge tracker which apply also to the Charge HR, but if you need the steps for other type of tracker let me know.

1. Plug your charging cable into the USB port and insert the other end into the port on the back of your Charge. Your Charge will begin charging. 
2. Press and hold the button for 10 to 12 seconds until you see the Fitbit icon and a version number of the firmware
3. Let go of the button. 
4. Unplug your tracker from the charging cable.

I'll be around and hope this helps.

[sup909]

I have been having this problem for the past year after Fitbit changed their web interface on how minutes and exercises are tracked. I'll played tennis one evening for may be 70-90 minutes and I get all of the actie minutes record, but as others have mentioned, it doesn't show up as an exerise. Even when I use hte "activity tracker" that time does get recorded in my activity tracking, but still is not recorded as as an exercise unless I were to go in and manually input it.

here are some screenshots that explain and illustrate why I think people are frusted. On the iphone screenshots you will see a day over 100 minutes from a tennis match. That is not recorded as an "exercise". On the iPhone that activity tracker entry that I started on my tracker doesn't even show up, but on the website that is clearly recorded. It seems only manually inputted activities, regardless if the tracker was activated or not show up on the phone and get locked as exercises.

It just comes as a sloppy abd poor way for fitbit to handle the activity tracking.  

Moderator edit: format

[Mmmwaffles]

Restart the app on your phone. That worked for me. The app can be painfully slow at syncing, if it syncs at all.

[G_Denzil]

I seem to miss an Exercise Day every now and then too. About once or twice in a month I do what apperas to be a full day's exercise but it doesn't show in my Goal. I've tried looking at any differences in the day, but I can't spot anything.

[MarlenS]

Hi @sup909, @Mmmwaffles, @G_Denzil, it's great to see you here!

@sup909 Based on the picture you've attached, I saw that you have a Fitbit One. The One does not have the smart track feature, the only way that this Fitbit is going to record the movements as activities is by holding the button until the stopwatch shows in the display before starting the workout. Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Welcome @Mmmwaffles. Thanks for the advice, I'm sure this will help other users to fix their issue!

@G_Denzil It's nice to see new faces here! It's odd that your Fitbit does not record the activities in the exercise graph. I suggest to log out from the Fitbit app, restart your Charge following the steps provided by @AlejandraFitbit, log back in and check in the next days if this happen again. If so, please let me know so I can provide further assistance.

I'll be around if you have questions. 

[cyp7]

In response to MikeF:

Active minutes absolutely are "associated with a specific period of activity", that being at least 10 active minutes. Less than 10 minutes will not count toward active minutes, so 4 periods of 9 active minutes each would normally equate 36 total active minutes, but FitBit does not sum this way. FitBit will give 0.

[MarlenS]

Hey @cyp7, awesome to see you as a member of our Community! You're right! The active minutes are rewarded after 10 minutes of continuous moderate-to-intense activity, this means more strenuous activity than regular walking. This is following the recommendation from the Center for Disease Control's (CDC’s) and their concept “10 minutes at a time is fine”.

Let me know if you have questions. 

[Sfgirl64]

Today when I was in the treadmill I tracked my session by holding the button. It tracked it fine and it showed up in active minutes as well but then a few minutes later, after the session had ended the active minutes went from 32 to 7.  Does anyone know  what's going on? 

[Condy222]

Yes exactly! Going for a 30 minute plus walk as a form of exercise should be credited towards meeting your weekly goal. It's different than just getting steps in throughout the day doing normal walking. 

[Taos]

After I jog for a full hour, my Fitbit acknowledges the active minutes but the activity tracker still shows zero of five days with workouts...

[Maggiemay616]

Hi,

I just recently came across a page where my Fitbit had recorded some auto recognized exercise...I still don't really know how to use this new one and didn't know it did this.  Two things...One day it recorded that I had done 30 minutes of outdoor biking and I was actually walking briskly with my Yorkie in her stroller...Can you explain...Also after finding out about auto recognize after doing a brisk walk of 40 another day it didn't record anything at all...Lastly will you please tell me how to manually make sure my exercise is recorded...Than you...

[Lianec77]

With regards to your walk with your dog in a stroller being recorded as a bike ride - I had this with my pushchair. I can only assume it is the jiggle of your wrist when holding the handlebar that is similar to the movement of a bike handlebar. I have also had a swim recorde when all I have been doing is hanging out the laundry to dry 😂

[srshaver1029]

I participated in an intense 45 minutes workout at gym this morning and my Fitbit has recorded exactly ZERO active minutes.  I don't get that.  

[Emoney33]

Not sure why a manually logged walk doesn't count towards active minutes but if you log the activity as something different like hike it will count for both. 

[schoapst]

I agree this is very frustrating and doesn't make sense. I play tennis several times a week for at least an hour, and start the fitbit tennis timer. However when I'm done, the fitbit does not record any active minutes. This seems contrary to the notion that having 30 minutes at least a day constitutes a healthy level of activity for many health models.

[G_Denzil]

Yes, it's still happening with me. A brisk walk or treadmill is fine, but do weights and it doesn't count as active minutes. Maybe you have to keep pulse rate above a certain threshold, as any pause seems to stop active minutes. Seems counterintuitive.

Sent from my iPhone

[schoapst]

I agree. I am now going to see if I can delete active minutes from my activity panel. If it is so non rewarding and non-reponsive, I don't care to look at it or think about it anymore. It does not reward you for recording an exercise. Again, I play tennis 3-4 times per week. If this does not count as active minutes, then I don't even want to look at it anymore.

Stephanie

[G_Denzil]

Apparently Fitbit changed an algorithm a few months back to a model that means you have to maintain an elevated heart rate all the time for it to count as exercise. My wife just found an article in The BMJ dated 20/1/2017 by Muaddi Alharbi @muad11

Sent from my iPhone

[LuluMishari]

Hi!

I am aiming to walk for 10,000 steps a day to lose weight.

I train at the gym 3 days a week - 50 minutes circuit/hiit training, and walk on the other days.

However on gym days, i get 0 active minutes, and not that much steps counted at the end! Howcome ??

[MarlenS]

Hello everyone, hope you’re enjoying the forums. 

As mentioned in previous posts, the way our tracker measures the active minutes is using metabolic equivalents (METs). METs help measure the energy expenditure of various activities. Because they do so in a comparable way among persons of different weights, METs are widely used as indicators for exercise intensity. For example, a MET of 1 indicates a body at rest. Fitbit trackers estimate your MET value in any given minute by calculating the intensity of your activity. You earn active minutes for activities at or above about 3 METs.

For more information about how the active minutes are calculate please check this article.

See you all around the forums!