Using MyFitnessPal With A Fitbit Device

Hello everyone! Today is my SITS day! I'm very excited to be featured on their website. I'm hoping to get some new followers and in turn, find some new blogs to follow!

Today I wanted to share something that has helped me along my weight loss journey, I hope you enjoy!

I always have people ask me about my Fitbit. I always tell them how much I love this thing! I got it back at the first of April. I got it as a gift to myself for losing another 5 pounds. I wasn't sure what I was getting into, but I absolutely enjoy it.

When I talk to other people who love their fitness tracker, they always agree with me, that it's sort of life changing. It's hard to explain, but when  you're wearing a device that constantly knows what you're up to, it's amazing what you learn about your habits.

I have a Fitbit Flex. It's a small bracelet that you wear on your non-dominant wrist throughout the day. I only ever take mine off to shower, swim, or charge it. It has a small gaget inside of it, that has a sensitive monitor in it. It knows if you're just walking or doing something strenuous, for the most part. It's got a battery life of about 5 days, and it just plugs into a USB port to charge, taking only a couple hours to do so.

It can also track your sleep. I am always interested to look at my sleep log in the morning. If I feel tired when I get up, there's usually a good reason. It's usually because of my sleep-talking husband.

You can use the iPhone app to track your food intake and other things as well. I use it to track my water intake daily.

One of the most handy aspects of the Fitbit is that you can sync it to MyFitnessPal. At first, I wasn't sure how this would work, but I'm very comfortable with it now.

Let me show you what I've learned!


First of all, when you go into the More tab at the bottom of the screen, and go to Goals, I always have my Activity Level set to Sedentary. No, I am not actually sedentary, but there is a reason behind this. To me, it's better to be under your calorie goal than over it. So, setting this limit to sedentary, and then putting my weekly goal to lose one pound a week, I have been given the goal of 1350 calories a day. This way, if I have a weird day and don't do much, I can still come in at my calorie goal and continue to lose weight. 

To do that, I always shoot to have my Food number as close to my Goal number as possible. I'm not going to lie, I'm almost always a bit over, BUT that's okay, because of the next photo! 


That exercise number is what my Fitbit gave me for that day. I walked almost 15 000 steps that day. Plus what I added myself for when I went for a fast walk with my dog. 


So, I do tend to ignore the Remaining number, because I don't want to eat my calories that I have burned from exercise. It's like being on Weight Watchers and trying not to eat your activity points. Sometimes you have to dip into them a bit, but my goal was always to not use them if I didn't have to. This usually results in a bit better weight loss. 


And the Fitbit will even show you what it has added to your MFP. I added the walking myself, because it was a deliberate exercise. I do the same if I run or do yoga, but again, I try not to eat those calories. If I wanted to be super accurate, I would wear my Heart Rate Monitor with my Polar FT4 during my other exercises, to see just how much I'm actually burning, but since I don't generally eat what I burn, it's less of a big deal. 

At the end of the day though, as long as your Remaining number is still green, you're set to lose weight, as long as you're tracking truthfully! 

Using my Fitbit has helped me to break a plateau that I was dealing with back in March. Obviously, the Fitbit didn't lose the weight for me, but it was the motivation I needed to push through and beat it, plus drop another 20 pounds since then! 

I hope I've been able to help! If you have any questions about this, I will gladly answer them if I can! 



Comments

  1. Awesome post! I totally loved my Fitbit when I had it too!

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  2. I love my fitbit too. Great explanation on how it works!

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  3. This is a really great explanation. I actually have the Fitbix Flex and used My Fitness Pal (haven't logged in in awhile, to be honest...) but I didn't realize you could actually link them together. PERFECT! I hate having to look in multiple places and it seems like this is a really effective way for you to track your activity and stay on top of your fitness goals (which I want to be more mindful of, too). Thanks for this and happy happy SITS day!!

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  4. Congratulations on your journey to a healthy lifestyle. I want to run out and buy the Fitbit now! Your explanation is great and it sounds like a fantastic tool. Happy SITS Day!!

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    1. Thank you :) I highly recommend a fitbit! They're great!

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  5. I didn't even know I could sync my fitbit with MFP!? Thanks for sharing!!!

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