Fitbit App Update: Your Food Log Just Got a Macro Tracker

Woman using Fitbit Macro Tracker

What do carbohydrate, protein, and fat have in common? They’re all macronutrients—the nutrients your body needs in large amounts—and they’re all also now trackable in your Fitbit app!

You may be wondering why you’d want to track your macros. As you probably know, research shows that self-monitoring behaviors, such as logging your meals, can help you hit your weight-loss goals. That’s because monitoring how many calories you take in versus how many calories you burn off is key to dropping pounds.

However, a calorie isn’t just a calorie—especially when it comes to your overall health. Two-hundred calories of candy is going to affect your body differently than 200 calories of chicken breast. And that’s where macros come in.

Why You Should Be a Macro Tracker

Getting the right balance of carbohydrate, protein, and fat, can help you reach your health and weight goals—whether you want to shed a few pounds or gain muscle mass.

For instance, research shows that eating higher-protein diets can help you lose weight. To take action on this information, you could use the macro tracker in your Fitbit app to make sure your daily calorie intake consists of around 25 percent protein, 45 percent carbs, and 30 percent healthy fat.

To learn more about macronutrients—like which foods contain each, different ways to vary your intake within the USDA-recommended ranges, and common pitfalls to avoid—read How Counting Macros Can Help You Reach Your Health Goals.

How to Track Macros in Your Fitbit App

To find the macronutrient screen in your Fitbit App, tap the food tile on your dashboard, and then swipe left on the graph at the top of the screen.

If you’ve been logging food, you’ll see a breakdown of your macro intake over the past week. Tap the top right of the graph to expand it. From there you can dive deeper into a specific day or zoom out a bit and take a look at the past month instead.

Fitbit macro tracker graph

If you don’t log your meals, consider giving it a shot. In addition to spurring weight loss, it can also help you identify food sensitivities or nutrient deficiencies, says Fitbit nutritionist Tracy Morris.

And, it’s not as hard as it may seem. Check out these eight ways to make food logging a breeze and then get started. If you have any other questions about how to track your meals via your Fitbit app, this Help article should, well, help.

99 Comments   Join the Conversation

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  • What if you don’t keep track of macronutrients?
    This could be the cause of anxiety for some people including me.
    Is there anyway that this part of the app could be made optional in the future?

    • Ditto…everyone has different diets and being able to set my food tracker to help me stay in my macro parameters would be great. Right now it shows me what they are but the app doesn’t have a great way to adapt your weightloss or fitness goals with your food tracking.

    • Ditto… Ditto. Having a way of entering my macro totals (grams and/or percentages) and to be able to monitor it during the day is an absolute necessity for keto dieters. Please consider adding this feature.

  • A lovely addition that however only will be “useful” once more local food db’s are available and when we can use decimals when creating custom food. While I support new additions, I would really recommend fixing previous issues 🙂

  • It would be great if macros could be customized in grams rather than percentages so that different diets could fully utilize the app. Keto, for example, measures macros in grams.

    • I absolutely agree!!! I imagine if I could talk to my math teacher I could figure this out using the percentages… the info is there – just not in the format we want.

    • Agreed! This would be a huge improvement and the data is there. Why not offer this option similar to other food trackers. Many people know their goals in grams for each day. You can get them on the website version of this tracker, but it is a hassle working in the app and then having to check the website just for the actual grams. I have almost switched trackers because others offer the grams in the app which is much more convenient.

    • I couldn’t agree more. The percents are based on total intake, but if you don’t / can’t track everything you could at least track one macro, like Protein for example. Otherwise, love the macro counter.

  • While it is a great addition, it slows the app down immensely. Is there a way to turn off the macro tracker so that the app is more responsive?
    I would like to leave it on, but it takes 30 seconds to call up my recent foods. My computer is very fast and new within the past 4 months, so I know it is not the computer.

  • I’m so glad this feature exists!
    However, I’d like to set a specific calorie goal and specific macro percentages. Can this feature be customizable outside the Food Plan? Thanks!

  • I love this new feature. I would like to see a net carbs category for those of us on the Ketogenic diet. The numbers are a bit misleading. I do like that on my computer dashboard that I can see the total grams of what I’ve eaten and I can do the math myself, but I can’t see that on the app.

    • Kristie, can you explain further where you are finding the total grams on the dashboard? I am also on the Keto diet and percentages mean nothing to me, I need those gram numbers. I’ve looked on both my computer and on the app on my phone, I don’t see it but then I may been overlooking it…thanks in advance for your help!

      • Grams are not available when using my Iphone but if you login to the dashboard using a computer it is reflected.

  • Why aren’t the macros syncing with My Fitness Pal
    It is with my food log but the macros come up nothing logged today

  • I love the break down % of carbs.fat. protein but it would be nice to see what they are at every meal so you know where to cut out a food. I have to go into every food item and selet nutrition and then see breakdown. Very time consuming

    • Agreed. My recommended PCF totals are 192/192/43g but I can see the totals so I don’t know if I’m hitting any of my macros beyond having the right percentages.

  • I love the break down % of carbs.fat. protein but it would be nice to see what they are at every meal so you know where to cut out a food. I have to go into every food item and selet nutrition and then see breakdown. Very time consuming

  • I agree with a lot of the comments. It would be nice to get the totals for the full breakdown (i.e. Sodium, sugar, etc). Healthy eating isn’t solely about the calories, carbs, fat and protein. For many people sodium intake and sugar are important, too.

  • I can’t access IT, I ho to the food tile go in it swipe left in the graph and nothing happens! Am I being thick?

  • That’s a great change however it would be Better if it wasn’t only percent of macros.
    I Would Like To SPECIFIC AMOUNts of each.

  • I would like the opportunity to turn off calorie tracking/counting and add macro counting /tracking

    It would be nice to have an option besides calorie restrictions under diet.
    Like low carb or keto

  • I use my connected Spark People accpunt to log my food. While mt fitbit app cpunts tue calories it doesnt read the macronutrients. Does this mean I MUST log food only in fitbit app?

  • I find it quite interesting to write down what I eat even my snacks. I enjoy reading food labels in order to make healthy choices!
    Thanks for keeping us informed

  • Please add the grams. Percentages are not helpful when you have a specific amount of grams for fat, carbs, and protein you need to stay under.

    • +1 ^this

      On the app the y-axis does have a number. For example, 1k or 3k. Is that representative of total grams? If so, that helps, but it should be easier to make the ranges smaller (like every 100 or 250 grams) and/or just put the actual gram volume next to the %

  • I’m new to the Fitbit app. Other apps i used before calculated grams of each category as I was watching my carbs especially. Now,with this I can’t easily figure this or is there a,way I am not getting?

  • I have used other apps before which actually counted grams of each category which I liked. This,one doesn’t. Or am I just not seeing it?
    I like to count my carbs especially, grams of each category.

  • You say you can see the macros as grams instead of % but I can’t find out how to change it. It would be so much more helpful to see them in grams. Please, please, please change this!!

  • Is there a way to view the macros breakdown in grams instead of a percentage? I know you can find it through the online dashboard but I can’t find it through the iOS app.

  • I love the addition of this feature, but I wish I wasn’t limited to ONLY viewing my macros in percentages! There is a bar graph that lists numbers on the left hand side (500, 1k, 1.5k, etc) but when you select the bar, it still only shows percentages for each which seems illogical! I hope you guys consider adding an option to view in grams as well in a near future update.

  • The update doesn’t downloand on my iphone (which is new). I keep getting the message” The operation couldn’t be completed (FBBluuuetoothErrorDomain error 18.). I see that many others are getting the same error message – and the watch doesn’t appear to now be functioning properly either. HELP.

  • Burning fat is better than burning carbs.think Eskimos before the Europeans arrived or the American Indians, high fat no carbs to speak of and with the Eskimos no carbs, no greens just fat. Diets today are way over the limits for carbs and sugars.
    They say that 40% of American are over weight and diabetic or prediabetic
    Guess why? High carbs and carbs as sugar. Eat right and quit listening to the quacks.

  • what happened to the great database that you could use in the previous version? I have gone to windows 10 version on pc and cannot work out how to bring database of individual items to make entry easy . I know it is still in old pc version

  • Somewhat useless without being able to 1) set goals based on macros, and 2) see grams for macros instead of just a percentage inside of the app. This is already offered on the desktop version, hopefully we will get an update to bring this into the app.

  • I am a diabetic,and, I have been able to keep my sugar levels under control by consuming 20% carbohydrates, 20% proteins,and, rest fats. My weight is constant,and, I enjoy fats like full cream milk, eggs, chicken,and, clarified ghee !!

  • We present them with reading stories to point out the applying, however they get misplaced in the
    reading and cannot work out what the query is https://math-problem-solver.com/ .
    In truth, he believes it so much that this was achieved
    inside the frist several weeks of him taking office.

  • I need to be able to see macros in grams, not percentages. PLEASE make this update… it would be so beneficial to so many of us.

  • Why micronutrients are not totalled based on portion size in Fitbit Alta HR? For example, if I ate 1 egg, Fitbit counts 6 g of protein. If I enter 3 eggs, Fitbit still says 6 g of protein.

  • I am trying the Keto diet and want to stay around 25 carbs a day. My Fitbit info on the phone shows carbs already…..b4 I even had a bite for breakfast! How do I bring it back to zero every morning????
    Along with fats & protein??
    Thanks!

  • I’m new here. Looking to learn how to track my food on this app. Any help would be appreciative!

  • Daily marco is a great addition. Start. What I’d really like would be for each item to include the breakdown for sugars, carbs, protien, etc… for each item added, not just calories. So you can track the items before…rather than after. Basically a better keto diet friendly app. This information is helpful no matter what diet you’re on. Maybe even add the option to select the level of tracking you want. Is this available?

  • Definitely agree with everyone here. Need the grams for carbs. I also noticed that th4 % of carbs in the app are always different than what is on the website for the day.

  • Helpful! Very grateful for the scanner that can get food scanned quickly.

    One challenge I have now is that I don’t have a way to track macronutrient goals. I need to track on certain days which macros I need. For example, 1 day I need 40% protein calories and other days 50% protein calories.

  • it would be cool if the Food tracker provided not only the percentage of carbs, protein, and fat but also included the calculated total for each area. So how many grams of carbs have I eaten, how many grams of fat have I eaten, how many grams of protein have I eaten

  • I like how the app breaks down the macros so simply (by percentage), I also like how the webpage tells me exactly how many grams of each I’ve had. Is there any to get both percentages and grams on both? I find myself going back and forth between web and app. I have protein goals I’m trying to hit, they both help throughout the day. Thank you

  • Hi can I set the food logging up to follow a no carb high fat diet? It’s a Ketogenic meal plan. If yes, how do u do this please?

  • I haven’t focused too much on calories as much as I should…moving toward a plant-based diet replacing most beef & pork products with beans, nuts, seeds, oatmeal & eggs as my primary sources of protein. Fruits & vegetables daily. Workout daily: 3-5 mi. & weights on M-W-F. Burning an ave. of 3000-3500 a day. Not sure if I’m eating that much to replenish what I use???
    Can any of you share thoughts on this?

  • Hi Fitbit, the macrotracker works very well. The only existing gap in the application is the annunciation of the macros in Gramm.

  • I suffer from Iron overload and have to watch everything I eat to make sure I have very little iron in a day Is there any way this can help me?

  • I wish it would show an exact count of the macros as well as percents. It’d make it easier to keep track for a keto diet

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