Calories on MFP and Fitbit do not match, which to go by?

[bebopbean]

I am a little confused. I track ALL my food intake through MFP and let Fitbit make the adjustments based on my activity. What confuses me is that MFP is NOT continuously tracking my activity, heart rate, etc so theoretically Fitbit is taking into account more calorie expenditure than MFP is. Right?? When I log a workout, I will see a Fitbit calorie adjustment reflected in my totals on MFP app and usually I will have only earned a few extra cals to burn. Does it adjust based on everything my Fitbit is tracking or only recorded workouts?

That said, when I am checking how many calories i have left, there is usually a large discrepancy between the two apps. Right now according to MFP I have 1,076 remaining and my Fitbit says 637. How can that be if the Fitbit has recorded more calorie burn?? 

Before you mention it... I looked up the calorie discrepancy earlier and found a how-to based on a similar question, he tracks food in MFP and activity in Fitbit. 

I followed the steps provided in the reply on how to set a food goal manually in Fitbit, so that it matches the data in MFP. I assumed this would result in both apps determining the same remaining calorie balance but nope...now I am just confused about what I am looking at even more.

Furthermore, on my Fitbit app, it says "637 cals in 563 cals left" but if I click on it, it says I am under budget (I know)- 637 cals in - 1,621 cals out 476 calories left in your budget. Ugh??

Then I look on the Fitbit dashboard online from here, my laptop, and it previously said it cannot show cals in/out guage while in a manual plan. I  just logged in again in another window and now it says: 563 left to eat. Ughhhh?? 

This whole thing is very confusing. I am perpetually under or over budget and making matters more complicated to me is how the data varies between the twp apps so much. Which brings me back to my initial question, which calorie budget should I follow and why is MFP's remaining calorie budget so much higher?

I don't look like I have lost any weight at all though my scale says I did. Very frustrated. I don't want to force myself to eat more when I don't feel hungry but then I am not meeting my minimum!!!!!!

[RobertoME]

Hello @bebopbean, good to see you around the Fitbit Community. I see you are having some questions in the way the calories work along with the integration of MFP. 

When you set a Food Plan in Fitbit.com it will have a calorie deficit that you chose, the calorie deficit will be deducted from the total amount of calories burned and those will be the calories that you're allow to eat. If you're more active during the day, it will change and will allow you to eat more calories, this will be the same if you're less active. At the end of the day it will make a Fitbit calorie adjustment in MFP based on how many calories burned you have in MFP.

I believe the following post will give more details about your concern: Calories between MyFitnessPal and Fitbit. Also for more information, you can also check the MFP help article about the same topic: Why am I not getting a Fitbit calorie adjustment?

See you around and take care!

[SaraBL]

I think I have a similar question. Thanks for your post. If I'm tracking in MFP and on my FB2, am I doubling up on calories burned and I'm not getting an accurate calorie burn? Should I do one or the other? 

[RobertoME]

Hello @SaraBL, welcome aboard to the Fitbit Community! It will depend if your tracker is recording automatically your exercise and you are logging the activity on MFP. In this case it will duplicate your numbers. It will have the same result if you are logging in both account the same exercise.

Some users prefer to leave MFP specifically for food logging and Fitbit for exercises with the intention to avoid any duplicate entries with the integration. When you log food in MFP this will be share to Fitbit and it will happen the same whit exercise logged in Fitbit.

Hope this helps and let me know if you have more questions.

[SaraBL]

Thank you for your response. I have the same issues as bebopbean, above. I figured out how to make my FitBit steps appear on MFP, but the "calories burned" don't sync with MFP (just the calories burned from steps, not from the rigorous exercise I did). I'll follow your guidance to only track food in MFP and let FitBit track my calories burned from exercise since I wear my FB on a regular basis. But how can I get those calories burned to show up in MFP? Mine are all over the place, too, like the post above. Thank you!