My struggles with Fitbit - I wish you could export activity only NOT total calories

[ddn1981]

Hello,

I've been struggling with Fitbit and MyFitnessPal (MFP) for quite some time now. I've logged my food in MFP for over a year, took a break, got discouraged, and now have started again. The one thing that drives me nuts is how this Fitbit data gets exported to MFP.

I don't understand why Fitbit decided to count the total calories you burn in a day and export the entire amount. It extremely unpleasant to deal with. I've had Fitbit Surge watches for almost 2 years, and eventually bought a Blaze. Fitbit, while glued to my wrist for my life now for the past 2-3 years tells me that I'm burning about 3500-4000 calories in a 24 hour period. So why am I getting fatter, heavier, and more out of shape if I don't intake nearly that many calories ?!

What drives me insane, and to the point of thinking this entire Fitbit thing is just a gimmic, is that for 99% of the time, I have never put into my body anything close to 3500-4000 calories. If my body is burning more calories than I'm taking in - shouldn't I be losing weight ?

I've gained weight over time. There are periods in the last few years where I've decided to "eat cleaner" go on "diets", do "transformations" where I stick myself in a regimented manner to a diet plan, such as higher protein, and strict workouts 5x / week with only recovery days in between 2 or 3 consecutive days. And yes - when I'm in those strict phases, or working out 4-5 times a week and increasing my protein content, and my calories are around 1400-1600 intake, then i lose weight. In a year it seems I can yo-yo about 20 lbs, and 10 lbs quickly in a matter of a week based only on what I put into my body. Losing the weight on the other hand is very hard. It takes me 3-4 weeks of calorie counting, increasing my activity levels to lose 5-7 lbs, and then if I continue calorie counting but stop working out (due to injuries for example) then wham, 6-10 lbs comes back on.

I'm 6'2", 257 lbs, 35 years old, male, and the Aria scale says I'm 36% body fat. One fat loser.

I've gone in and manually changed the calories in/out to match each other in Fitbit and MFP, I've tried simply not linking my accounts and just manually entering the data into MFP (which is really tedious, and frankly - that's why I bought a fitbit !).

MFP has the industry leading database of food, there's no doubt about that. Which is why I use it to track my food. 

Fitbit seems really cool. But does it work ?

I absolutely hate the fact that Fitbit says I burn 3500 calories in a total day and then shoots that 'adjusted' value.

I'll give you an example... right now MFP calorie goal is set to 1800, because I want to try to make sure I eat less than the daily recommended adult amount of 2000. I had been in a weightlifting phase a few weeks ago, so my calorie content was set to 2500 with a focus on trying to get higher protein content. Anyway, that's not the point what I want to illustrate is my frustration with how all the math is done..

MFP calorie goal was set to 2500

I ate 1711 calories that day

Exercise claims I did 1329 calories

So the balance was: 2500 - 17111 + 1329 = 2118 remaining calories

Sounds awesome doesn't it - that means theoretically I've put out 2118 calories today ? Well I call bull**ahem**.

What's in that 1329 Exercise category ?

Fitbit Tracker Calorie Adjustment for 15 395 steps in a day is 1329 extra calories earned ! How is that calculated according to Fitbit?

Full day projection of 4011 at 11:59 PM

MyfitnessPal Calories Burned says 2,682 for my height,weight, age etc

So the balance is 1,329

If I go and look in my Fitbit App at the actual activity I did that day, I was on the treadmill for 56 minutes. A slow pace, to try to burn fat, and while on the treadmill, walking at an incline, Fitbit says I burned 525 calories. I believe the calories burned is accurate on the watches. It tracks my heart rate, knows my demographics - I'll buy that it claims I burn 525 calories.

So why the hell can you simply not export burned 525 calories to MFP in stead of this retarded calculation of 1329 ?!

I don't get it.

Is there a way to simply have Fitbit export my activities only, and not the daily amount?

My own weight issues is complex, I don't understand them yet, but I'm trying, and hopefully in trying different things I'll figure it out soon. But one thing that I wish would get fixed in all this is this inaccurate portrayal of calories burned that Fitbit is exporting to other apps.

In my mind, it would simplify things for me knowing I want to limit myself to 1800 or 2000 calories in a day, I plug my food in, I see how much I eat. Now with the advent of technology - can Fitbit please simply not just upload my calories burned through activity ? So that I can have a realistic and useful frame of reference for my calorie counting?

Does anyone know how I can do this, or do I really have to unconnect both apps, and always manually enter the calories burned into MFP ?

[AlejandraFitbit]

It's great to see you around @ddn1981. If you are curious about how Fitbit is measuring your calories and how it exports your information to MPF, I recommend taking a look at this post, where you will be able to find more information about it and some tip for it.

Catch you later.