Fitbit + My FitnessPal + MapMyRun (or similar other multi-app integration)

[WyldHaggis]

I'm still very new to this, and I haven't run through all the calculations yet, so apologies if this got discussed already.

I was wondering about how exact Fitbit's estimate in terms of calories are when going with multi-app integration? Last year, I used to have MyFitnessPal, with MapMyRun integration so that my exercise and therefore its calories would be automatically tracked in MFP. At the time already, I was wondering if I should trust this, since the calories logged in MMR were added, but then MFP also added some 'calorie adjustment' for steps walked, something that made no sense to me since MMR already calculates caloric expenditure based on speed and distance walked.

Today, I tried integrating MFP with Fitbit, because I already a lot of ready-logged meals configured in MFP. And now, when I look at my total calories 'earned' in Fitbit, it seems to be a lot. Like, a lot. Like, 'you can afford to eat 2500 extra calories today' (I'm small and if I want to lose even half a kilo, I need to dip to 1200-1300 calories, so this made me go all 'buuuuh—WHUT?'). And I doubt that walking 14 km today 'earned' me such an extra allotment,—t's just walking, after all, not really intense exercise.

So now I'm wondering it the MMR tracking adds calories to MFP, which also does that 'calories adjustment for steps', then adds it to Fitbit, which in turn also counts the calories from steps tracked with my Alta HR. I'm pretty rubbish at math so I don't trust myself to run through the numbers here, but I suspect it's not correct.

Can anyone confirm?

[RobertoME]

Hi @WyldHaggis, thank you for visiting the Fitbit Community and this is a great question. A lot to talk about your concern.

You are correct when you mention that when you connect MyFitnessPal to your Fitbit account, you'll see a calorie adjustment too, just like you have noticed it happen with MyFitnessPal and MapMyRun. To learn more about calorie adjustment I recommend to take a look at this post: MyFitnessPal, Fitbit and Calorie Counting.

Now the calories you are allowed to eat, at least in your Fitbit account will be determined by the amount of calories you burned plus the food plan configuration you have. Based on your food plan allowance will give you a high amount of calorie intake or if the intensity is high you will have a 1000 calories as deficit. If you want to learn more about how it works the Food plan, take a look at this article: How do I track my food with Fitbit?

Here is the tricky part, as it is possible that you are having a high value of calorie allowance if MFP and MMR are connected to your Fitbit account, creating a loop of information which could duplicate your calories.

Let's say if your are logging exercises in MMR. The information along with calories adjustment will be sent to MFP but if you have MMR connected to your Fitbit account too, the data will be sent here and MFP will sent another log to your Fitbit Dashboard. So as you can see, the same exercise is being shared twice due to the integration with MMR and MFP; hence it will be higher the amount of calories due to this duplicate entry.

To review which third party apps are connected to your Fitbit account, go to your web-Dashboard and access to the following link for the application settings.

Review if this is not the case and let me know if you have other questions.

[WyldHaggis]

Hi @RobertoME, and thank you!

I haven't connected MMR to Fitbit, but MMR was connected to MFP for easy exercise tracking, and I think this was indeed creating a loop of sorts, feeding it the walk/run bits to FB through MFP, while FB was also tracking my exercise intake through steps + bpm, and factoring both in the total calories I burnt.

For now I have disconnected MMR from MFP, and the calories allotment I get on FB looks more normal considering what I know of my body's usual caloric expenditure.

From what I've seen, there's no way of allowing MFP to send only the food log information and not the exercise log to FB, correct? (When I linked MFP to FB, it wouldn't link unless I ticked all authorisations.)

[Bsspectron]

I see your point about integrating Mmr Mfp and fitbit

what I don’t understand is that when mmr and fitbit are not linked and I record the same exercise (like walking four miles) mmr records about a 600calorie burn but the same run recorded on Alta hr records 1000 calories

can you tell me which is more accurate??