Marking Activity as Exercise

[aleahs123]

Hi!

I went to CycleBar this morning and my FitBit Inspire marked it as active time but I would like to denote that the 45 minutes was for spinning. I dont want to add an exercise and duplicate calories burned. How do I tell it that the 45 minutes was spinning? In the help guide it said the FitBit should recognize the activity on its own but it obviously didnt.

Thanks!

[Julia_G · Accepted solution]

Hi, @aleahs123 , first, you will definitely not get double calorie counting.  The Fitbit program is cleverer than that!

So, there are actually separate categories that are tracked by your app: active minutes, and exercises.  You would not tell the app that the active minutes was spinning... The active minute goal tracks all your minutes throughout the day and gives you credit for them.  

There is no system for saying these active minutes were spinning, and these active minutes were for dog walking...  For that, you have the exercise tile on the app.

For tracking exercise, you have three options.  

1. You can let your Fitbit detect the activity automatically,

2. You can track it with the exercise mode on your Inspire/Inspire HR

3. You can log it manually.

Each option has advantages and disadvantages... Option 1 is "SmartTrack" and works really well especially for step based activities.  For me it tracks my dog walks very faithfully...  But it doesn't work very well for all activities, and for some activities (spinning might be one) it works inconsistently.  So it depends on whether that worries you...  You will still get the calories burned, and, as you have noticed, it will still give you credit for "active minutes"...  And it MIGHT show up on your exercise record as "spinning" (or it might say "sport" or something like that), and it might not record the whole time of your exercise.  This will not affect any of your basic stats .

But suppose you want a record of how many times you went to spinning class last month, or last year, and how long you spent at each class?  Suppose you want a record of the calorie burn estimate for each class... And, if you have the HR version, suppose you want to see a graph?  In that case, you want to go for option 2: track your exercise.  

To do that, first go to your app click on your Inspire icon, and scroll down to  "Exercise shortcuts".   You are allowed to have 6, so if there are 6 there already, and spinning is not there, you will need to delete one exercise and add spinning.  Be sure to sync your Fitbit whenever you make any changes in the app.

To track your exercise, swipe down on your Inspire to see the exercise icon, then swipe up until you come to spinning (or whatever exercise you choose).  When you come to yur chosen exercise, tap to select it.  A short press of the button pauses the activity, and a second short press finishes it.

When you sync your Fitbit you will see details of your exercise on your app.

The third option is to log manually after the event.  There are limitations to this log.  The most important is that it will suppress any data that your Fitbit detected in the same time period, and any data in a manual log will not count towards challenges or your friends leaderboard.

How you manually log using the app depends on which app or Fitbit web based program yu use, so if you would like instructons for that, please let us know your preferred way of accessing your Fitbit data...

Sorry for the essay!  It can seem a little complicated at first, but it is simpler than it sounds once you try it.  The Inspire is small, but it is pretty mighty, and has lots of programming behind it to make it really flexible and working the way you want to use it.

I hope this helps!  Please post again if you need more information.  Welcome to the forums!

[aleahs123]

Wow thank you so much this is helpful!