Monday, April 29, 2019

MyFitnessPal Revelation

This is probably a big "duh" moment for some people, but this is something I only just worked out for myself in a bit of an experiment.

I decided to start tracking some numbers again in Excel, thinking that seeing the numbers visually might have an impact on properly (re-)forming my habit of food entry in MyFitnessPal (spoiler alert: so far, it's working). Here is my full set up:

  • Samsung Gear S3 Frontier smart watch
  • Samsung Health (integrates with MFP for step count / exercise data)
  • MyFitnessPal
  • Happy Scale (on iPod)
  • Excel spreadsheet

Here's a brief snapshot of my spreadsheet setup for May

I realize there is a lot of duplication of data here - and a lot of devices - but I like having access to more data. Also, you're not the boss me.

At first I thought that my numbers in MFP were slightly off, but I made some adjustments (see spreadsheet) and realized that everything was bang on. The reason I thought there was a difference was because MFP adjusts your 'exercise' calories based on projected burns - so I thought that there might be some slight differences. But when I subtract what MFP says I burned from my calorie total, the net difference is the same as if I didn't touch the calories in at all.

In retrospect I realize that it makes sense that this should be the case - MFP and Samsung Health are technically supposed to be 100% synced at midnight every night, so they should be matching.

Ultimately, this doesn't really mean anything to me. This is just a curious thing that clicked in my head. The main takeaway I have is that it's helping me re-form the habit of logging everything properly.

tl;dr: I doubted that MFP numbers were accurate compared to the data I was feeding it from Samsung Health, but that's not the case. Everything calculates the way that it should.

Note: This doesn't necessarily reflect on my weight loss. Just because the numbers & calculations work out doesn't mean I will automatically lose or gain weight; I have to make sure the data I'm entering is accurate first.

submitted by /u/broomlad
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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2vrKWl5

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