MyFitnessPal, The Band, and You

[bigskytool]

Thanks for the reply. However I already have the two apps connected through Microsoft Health. Others have said that they were able to add the Band to MFP as the step counter. The WP app for MFP does not seem to have this ability that I have found and that was what I was seeking help for.

Update on my post earlier - I went on a mtn biking ride today and used the Run app on the band. Once I arrived back home the run also imported the exercise to MFP where before the last 2 runs did not. This is a nice feature, just wish the ability to add the Band as the step counter in MFP app was available it seems to be for people with iOS.

 

[foofighter#AC]

when I did my run yesterday it showed up on MFP as that but i did 3-4 hrs of yard work and moving stuff around racking up what the band said I did 4.5miles worth of steps it didn't show up on MFP. Maybe when I do such things I need to start the "workout/activity" on the band so it'll start tracking and update MFP?

 

[rickhan]

Give it a few weeks. The Microsoft Band was a highly secret project, so features are missing. Most of the people working at Microsoft didn't hear about it until the public release. Health Vault and SDK work is in progress -- I couldn't get an ETA. I do expect quick progress, especially now the secrecy is lifted.

 

[foofighter#AC]

Give it a few weeks. The Microsoft Band was a highly secret project, so features are missing. Most of the people working at Microsoft didn't hear about it until the public release. Health Vault and SDK work is in progress -- I couldn't get an ETA. I do expect quick progress, especially now the secrecy is lifted.

i'm hoping so, as popular as it has been

 

[gadgetrants]

Give it a few weeks. The Microsoft Band was a highly secret project, so features are missing. Most of the people working at Microsoft didn't hear about it until the public release. Health Vault and SDK work is in progress -- I couldn't get an ETA. I do expect quick progress, especially now the secrecy is lifted.

rickhan, thanks for the sensible comment. Still, if everyone will indulge me, I'd like to rant for a second as a new owner (and hey "rant" is my middle name):

First, I can't believe how unbelievably bad the MFP website is. I have probably a dozen complaints and would share them at the MFP forum, but if you've seen the mod's/engineer's replies you know that's not going to lead anywhere. The site itself looks nice, but functionally it feels like it was designed by a couple of high school kids. Examples? Why on my Android phone can I view the home page (including both food/exercise plus net calories) and travel forward/backward through time, but on the website the same view is only available for today? Weird. Why is the "Daily Streak" simply the number of consecutive days I've logged on to the site (really???) and not something more meaningful, like number of consecutive days that my net calories are negative? Or better yet, whatever streak metric I want to define (e.g., salt intake, sugar consumption, weekly hours exercised, etc.)? And as my last complaint: have you ever browsed the user-generated list of food items? Finding the "right" match to what I just ate (20 Doritos, a medium-sized apple, one Oikos yogurt...) is like a guessing game and to make matters worse the literally 100's of possible matches are not even alphabetized. It's crowd-sourcing truly run amok!

And second...and I realize this is likely to get fixed in a few weeks...why do I bother wearing a device on my arm almost 24 hours a day, which estimates total calories burned, and yet MFP insists on assigning me (based on the highly questionable metric, "How would you describe your normal daily activities?") a fixed number of calories burned? In other words: the Band reports my ACTUAL daily burn rate -- why doesn't MFP use that as the true value? At the moment, the MS Health app on my phone is feeling far more useful.

Anyway, thanks everyone for listening. Based on the "intelligence" of the MFP website I'm very, very skeptical that we'll see a much higher level of integration between them and the Band. It feels very half-baked and I don't think the reason is because the Band is new, but rather because MFP seems to be jumping (here comes the pun!) on the fitness/healthy lifestyle Band-wagon. LOL

I promise despite my screen name I'm a pretty pleasant person, and don't normally get so irritated. Please take it as a sign that MFP is pretty awful (as far as I can see) and not an indication of my personality!

-Matt

 

[BlackSheriff84]

I am using the iPhone MFP app and it has a section of the menu called steps.

Is there a way of accessing it through MFP webpage?

 

[gshifrin]

I've been using MS Band for a couple of weeks now. I got it to replace my Pebble watch and my Fitbit (which died after the second time I accidently left it in my pants during the wash cycle). So after using it a while, I love it! I'm surprised that one of my least favorite companies could do such a good job. I wear it at night to track my sleep and keep it on most of the day to count steps and pay attention to my HR. I've tested it by comparing it to my own mental step counts and the elliptical machine's stride counts and it's 99+% accurate. I found that it's not accurate when doing cardio at the gym unless I put it in my pants pocket.

Of course, I like getting the same notifications and weather I was used to on my Pebble and the Band's screen is a lot more readable. It can even send one of my canned responses to text messages.

Only complaint is that the battery only lasts a day or so and if I forget to charge it before heading out (only takes 1/2 hour) I lose most of my step counts that day.

MS was smart to enable it to work with Androids and iPhones but they're still evil at heart in only allowing the voice recognition to work with Windows phones (though I doubt I'd actually ever use that function even if I could).

Anyway, it's a very cool device, works well, looks good, and feels comfortable .

 

[lostlogik]

in only allowing the voice recognition to work with Windows phones (though I doubt I'd actually ever use that function even if I could).

Actually it is pretty handy. Use it quite a lot to quickly set up reminders in my calendar.

 

[Gman-28]

Has anyone been having sync issues lately. I've had my Band set up with MyFitnessPal for about a week and it was correctly syncing the calorie burn from my exercise. Then yesterday (11/21/14) it stopped. Any suggestions?

 

[webrown71]

Mine synced yesterday, but it's not showing on mfp today.

 

[rschaefe]

Mine stopped syncing yesterday - at least the overall calories burned. I didn't have any exercises, so I can't speak to that.

 

[statrixbob]

Same here. I stopped seeing Band steps and exercise in MFP on Friday 11/21.

 

[Meghan_C]

oddly enough through the MFP App I see nothing :unhappysweat: but when I go to the actual site, I see:


so it adjusts my calories allotted for the day:


what's weird is none of those adjustments show up in my FOOD diary on the mobile app.
Not very happy about that....

 

[Christian Matthew]

What exactly is the Microsoft health Calorie adjustment?

 

[gadgetrants]

What exactly is the Microsoft health Calorie adjustment?

Short answer: when the amount of calories you burn, according to the Band, exceed those estimated by MFP, the calorie adjustment "supposedly" is added to your total calories on MFP. Except, I consistently get an adjustment of 0, regardless of whether the Band total is higher or lower than MFP. See below for a longer answer!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The concept is pretty simple in theory...but in practice, not so much. Here is a basic example:

Imagine that I've registered at MFP, and it tells me that my daily calorie burn is estimated at 2000 calories (based on how active I am). Now, imagine that today I do a bit of running and lifting, and the Band then reports that my total exercise calories = 1000. The good news is that the 1000 figure gets uploaded to MFP, which then tells me, "Good job, you can eat 2000+1000 = 3000 calories today and keep even with your goals."

Now HERE is where it gets interesting: let's add to the scenario that I have a hectic day, run around a lot, and at midnight the Band reports, "You've burned 2800 calories total for today." Including the exercise, of course. So the Band says I burned 2800, but MFP says my "ideal" burn is 3000 for the day (also including the exercise).

What should happen (see my little rant above) is that the Band should "win" and MFP should record the Band value as the true amount of calories I burned for the day. Instead, we have "negative adjustments" blocked, which means: MFP doesn't want you to log 2800 calories burned (the true amount) if it's less than 3000 (their estimated amount). Strange.

OK, one last twist. What if your Band-reported calorie burn is higher than MFP's daily estimate? Tweaking my example above, what if you ran around a lot, and your total burn exceeds the MFP estimate of 3000? Say it's 3500, for example. In that case, you would expect the Band value to trump the MFP estimate, in which case you would then see a positive Microsoft Health calorie adjustment (in other words, the number of calories you burned over and above what MFP estimated for you). Again, that's the concept.

However, check out my ACTUAL data from yesterday:

MFP daily (fixed) burn amount: 1980 calories
Band-reported exercise calories: 908 calories
Microsoft Health calorie adjustment: 0 calories

TOTAL MFP estimate = 2888 calories

versus

TOTAL Band estimate (for the day, including exercise): 3196 calories

However the adjustment works, whether or not the Band reports lower or higher daily burns than MFP's estimate/goal, I'm consistently seeing an adjustment of 0. I'm thinking/hoping that this is a programming fluke and we'll see something that makes more sense, soon!

​-Matt

 

[Christian Matthew]

@gadgetrants Thanks buddy.... I was lost on that one. I have been emailing MFP and they have been kind of enough to reply and be very responsive to what it was I couldn't figure out. You just explained it again perfectly. I will post my conversation below to highlight what it is they are saying and give some context to why there is a zero and not the ability to place in a negative value.

===============================================================
Christian
To: MyFitnessPal Support

I don't get two things.

1. I'm using windows phone and I don't see how my band throws mfp my overall calorie usage. I see micro health gives my exercises but not my steps. I cant see how my total calorie burn is there for incorporated into my mfp net calories.

2. What does it mean when the exercise has try is Microsoft health band offset thing. What is that and how do I adjust it or is this on its own

MFP wrote:
NOV 26, 2014 | 04:22PM PST
Thanks for getting back to us. For the band giving you extra calories for steps, it will do so when you have burned more calories than what MyFitnessPal has estimated to would burn based off your profile data.

Currently there is data coming over from Microsoft Health, but since the calories are less than your MyFitnessPal Calories Burned, it defaults to 0.

Details about the calculation of any adjustment can be viewed by clicking the small "i" next to the adjustment in your Exercise Diary (on the full website), or by tapping the adjustment itself in the Exercise Diary of the MyFitnessPal on the apps (you may need to tap the adjustment in the diary and then again on the next page depending on your app version).


As for your second question, my apologies but I do not quite understand what you mean. Could you let me know where in MyFitnessPal you are referring to?

MyFitnessPal

Christian 7:30 PM
To: MyFitnessPal Support

You actually answered both of them. So what or where are the calories that mfp is guestimating? If I burn more than that would add a positive amount in calories yes? And if I use less then mfp will bring in a negative amount?

So here is another question. Because I have windows phone. Or in general. Do I have to tell mfp that I am using steps from micro band? If so how?

MFP wrote:
NOV 26, 2014 | 04:44PM PST
MyFitnessPal will use your profile information to estimate what you would burn on a normal day. This can be viewed online at Free Calorie Counter, Diet & Exercise Journal | MyFitnessPal.com by clicking My Home>Goals and looking under Your Diet Profile. Your number looks to be around 2790.

This number will be part of your MyFitnessPal Calories Burned along with any manually added exercises. So on a day with no added exercises, you'll need to burn more than 2790 calories to receive an adjustment. If you add in an exercise that burns 100 calories, then your MyFitnessPal Calories Burned will increase to 2890 and you'll need to burn more that that to earn an adjustment. If you're under, than the adjustment will stay at zero.

We use to offer the Negative Adjustment option with Microsoft Health, but we noticed that when enabled, the adjustments were always off. We are working on fixing this issue currently.


As for the Steps, currently Windows phone don't support the steps feature, but you should still see a line in your Exercise Diary labeled Microsoft Health calorie adjustment. Normally for the Microsoft Health integration to work, we have to go in on our end and enable the steps feature so you can get the adjustment, but it looks like it has enabled itself already. We re working on improving this method currently.

Overall, your account looks to be connected properly with Microsoft Health, but if you do see irregularities, please let us know.

MyFitnessPal

Christian Matthias 8:36 PM
To: MyFitnessPal Support

That explains a lot. LOL complicated but makes sense once it is all explained - not very apparent up front. Would be nice if this stuff was more thoroughly explained on the site.

Thanks,

MyFitnessPal

Christian wrote:
NOV 26, 2014 | 05:37PM PST
That explains a lot. LOL complicated but makes sense once it is all explained - not very apparent up front. Would be nice if this stuff was more thoroughly explained on the site.
Thanks,

MFP wrote:
NOV 26, 2014 | 05:41PM PST
No Worries! Glad that helped, thanks for letting us know. Microsoft Health is a newer partner so we're still working out the everything. Thank you for your feedback and patience. We will definitely try to have this information be more upfront.

As always, if you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to email us back.

MyFitnessPal

Christian 8:43 PM
To: MyFitnessPal Support

just to ask... Have a lot of people come on board for MFP as a result of the MSFT Band? Just wondering for anecdotal sake.

MFP wrote:

I don't have any exact numbers, or know if I'd be able to release such data if I did, but we have seen interest and multiple emails on helping get Microsoft Health set up to use the band. Again it is newer, but I would expect to see more users using it.

You can always try asking in the Community section to see if any other members use the Band with MyFitnessPal.

MyFitnessPal

 

[gadgetrants]

Thanks Christian, that's AWESOME! I'm glad you did all the hard of work of talking to MFP -- and we get all the information without lifting a finger.

Hope you have a beautiful Thanksgiving.

​-Matt

 

[TheBrianRobinson]

Alex, I'm hoping to accomplish the same thing, to somehow get my MS Band step count into Humana Vitality. It's been a couple of months since your post - have you figured anything out?

 

[happydude602]

I'm glad they are aware the calorie adjustment is inaccurate. I decided to quit using MFP and switch back to fat secret and manually enter my burn.

 

[gadgetrants]

FWIW I joined a few other "health" sites last week (mapmyrun and runkeeper in particular) and started experimenting with each. In the meantime I noticed that the "Enable Negative Adjustments" option showed up in my MFP around the same time -- maybe a coincidence. In any case, I happily checked the option, which worked PERFECTLY for a day (until I started mixing and matching different tracking apps). However, MFP still has a perverse habit of subtracting out calories from the Band's total that come specifically from workouts. If I could reach through my computer screen and grab an MFP engineer's nose, I'd squeeze it hard and say "JUST F***ING use whatever total number the Band reports at midnight as my burn for the day and leave it that way!!!" :devil:

-Matt