How to Connect your FitBit to Myfitnesspal

The FitBit is a useful wearable that tracks your day to day activity level as well as the quality of your sleep.

It can give a more accurate estimate of the number of calories that you burn each day, compared to the estimates that you would get from a simple formula such as the Harris Benedict, which is based on your height and weight.

>> Lose Weight Quicker and More Efficiently Without Diet and Strenuous Exercise

If you track the calories that you consume in MyFitnessPal, then knowing your real calorie burn is useful, because the formula that MyFitnessPal uses for exercise calories tends to over-estimate how many calories you burned – therefore you would be better off if you used an external source for that data.

To connect a FitBit to MyFitnessPal, you must first set up the FitBit and have it tracking calories in its own online app.

You then log in to your MyFitnessPal account, and go to the apps page, and add FitBit from there.

You will be asked to authorise MyFitnessPal to access the data provided by FitBit, and when you confirm that this is OK, MyFitnessPal will start pulling calorie and activity data from FitBit, and will use that instead of the information that you have provided to MyFitnessPal.

The data doesn’t sync in real time, it will sync at random time throughout the day – so you won’t always see “well, that run I just did burned 400 calories so I can have that cookie!”, but you can still view information about your calorie burn in the FitBit app – and keep track of your exercise that way.

>> Lose Weight Quicker and More Efficiently Without Diet and Strenuous Exercise

The main reason to have the information in MyFitnessPal is so that, over a long enough period of time, you have information about how many calories you are burning versus how many you are consuming, so that you can accurately judge how your weight is likely to move over time.

These online tools are amazing for helping people to lose (or indeed gain or maintain) their weight. However, they will work only if you enter accurate data into all of them, and only if you are proactive about following their recommendations.

You cannot expect to be able to manage your weight if you do not keep your FitBit charged, or do not log your food intake in MyFitnessPal.

It is essential to weigh and measure your food while you are learning what appropriate portion sizes are. It’s important to be honest about your exercise levels too, and to pay attention to what you drink (yes, liquid calories count!).

If you are struggling to sync your FitBit, contact their customer service team.

If you are having issues with MyFitnessPal, then try disconnecting the ‘apps’ that you have connected, and then re-connecting them – if you have had other devices in the past then it’s possible that you may have the wrong one connected, which is why you may not be getting the information that you expect out of having the apps connected now.

>> Lose Weight Quicker and More Efficiently Without Diet and Strenuous Exercise