TDEE calc vs fitbit
JaydedMiss
Posts: 4,286 Member
TDEE calc says my TDEE is around 1850-1950 for 5 ft 3 female aged 23
Fitbit says i burn 2500-2950. Obviously these numbers are very different...
All i really do is get in 10,000-25,000 steps a day at work besides maybe 2 days a week ill get less id average my week as 15-17k step a day. (im a waitress but i work short shifts i just walk there and back an hour 10 mins each way-8ish miles) generally get in an extra 2-4 miles at work in a 3-5 hour shift walking back and forth.
Overall though thats not enough id say to burn 2900 calories...
Should i listen to my TDEE calcs or my fitbit o_O
edit: i eat between 1300-1700 on dys i walk this much and really am not hungry or tired or anything, I mean i can wake up and walk 12 miles the next day i have to be doin alright nutrient wise lol. But if my TDEE is only 1800 i dont want to over eat...and if im burning 2900 i dont want to undereat...
Fitbit says i burn 2500-2950. Obviously these numbers are very different...
All i really do is get in 10,000-25,000 steps a day at work besides maybe 2 days a week ill get less id average my week as 15-17k step a day. (im a waitress but i work short shifts i just walk there and back an hour 10 mins each way-8ish miles) generally get in an extra 2-4 miles at work in a 3-5 hour shift walking back and forth.
Overall though thats not enough id say to burn 2900 calories...
Should i listen to my TDEE calcs or my fitbit o_O
edit: i eat between 1300-1700 on dys i walk this much and really am not hungry or tired or anything, I mean i can wake up and walk 12 miles the next day i have to be doin alright nutrient wise lol. But if my TDEE is only 1800 i dont want to over eat...and if im burning 2900 i dont want to undereat...
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Replies
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What did you put as your activity level for the TDEE calculator? It's only going to be as accurate as your inputs. Beyond that, both are estimates...your own data points should be able to tell you anything you need to know.4
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even at very active i only hit 1918 nowhere near what fitit says0
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even if i put in 2 hours light exercise (my walk there) and active i only hit 2300. still nowhere near 2900. im not overly active when im not working or walking there i sit my butt down and do nothing... so i feel bad even putting active let alone very active0
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I have the Apple Watch an it says I burn a lot less than mfp and MapMyRun which I walk, hike not run.0
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I have used my actual data. (1) Sum up the last 28 days of your calorie totals. (2) Pounds lost in those 28 days *3500. Add those 2 numbers together and divide by 28. That will be a real value of what your TDEE is. I find mine comes in higher than the estimates and usually a little lower than my garmin #
eta: pounds lost time frame2 -
For the past month I've been eating 500c less than what my Fitbit says I burn, and I've lost 4 pounds. So for me anyway it seems pretty accurate.0
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I have used my actual data. (1) Sum up the last 28 days of your calorie totals. (2) Pounds lost in those 28 days *3500. Add those 2 numbers together and divide by 28. That will be a real value of what your TDEE is. I find mine comes in higher than the estimates and usually a little lower than my garmin #
eta: pounds lost time frame
Iv been losing 5 pounds every 1 month 2 days last 2 months so thts a good idea, Tho iv been moving and eating differently now ill use the numbers in a month good idea0 -
Have you verified your inputs in your fitbit? 2900 seems high...my wife has a desk job, but she runs 3-5 miles most days and lifts once per week and she maintains on about 2300 calories per day.
Beyond that, what are your actual data points telling you? Are you trying to maintain? If so, are you maintaining? Are you trying to lose? If so, what is your rate of loss? If you losing on average 1 Lb per week for example, then you know your TDEE is roughly 500 more calories than you are currently eating.0 -
I have used my actual data. (1) Sum up the last 28 days of your calorie totals. (2) Pounds lost in those 28 days *3500. Add those 2 numbers together and divide by 28. That will be a real value of what your TDEE is. I find mine comes in higher than the estimates and usually a little lower than my garmin #
eta: pounds lost time frame
did it anyway to see i got 22400 -
FitBit over-estimates calorie burns.1
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TimothyFish wrote: »FitBit over-estimates calorie burns.TimothyFish wrote: »FitBit over-estimates calorie burns.
yes i know, I have a sheet i made up of my calories, fitbits burned calories , steps walked and a 50% range of calories left so i have a range of what im likely to lose. Its because i know this that im asking, I really just want to know a little more what to expect. Heres my past weeks sheet. Even with the date night i was saving for i did pretty alright even with -50%
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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14k_zGWeklpl05lNqSWN_SK1XzuwnmVHtUfW8Eao5kIE/edit?usp=drivesdk
Compares MFP eaten, scale and trending weight, and burned as per device.
You need as a minimum eaten, burned and at least one of the weights.
Also allows for body composition adjustments if you want to play with them.
Gives you a tdee % error.4 -
15k is the top end of MFP very active. If you go slughtly above 15k, you are probably slightly above MFP very active...
Fitbit gives you more calories for early morning (front loaded) steps than later in the day ones.2 -
It also depends on your weight - I don't see (or overlooked?) in your original post.
I have an office job so this is not a direct comparison. But I'm 42, 128ish, 5'5.5". A normal day without extra activity, I might burn 1500 and average 3-5k steps. With intentional walking, its 12-17k steps and I burn 1900-2200. The extra time on your feet makes a difference.
If I were 50 pounds heavier, my burn #s would be higher.0 -
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14k_zGWeklpl05lNqSWN_SK1XzuwnmVHtUfW8Eao5kIE/edit?usp=drivesdk
Compares MFP eaten, scale and trending weight, and burned as per device.
You need as a minimum eaten, burned and at least one of the weights.
Also allows for body composition adjustments if you want to play with them.
Gives you a tdee % error.
coooooooool!!!!2 -
StaciMarie1974 wrote: »It also depends on your weight - I don't see (or overlooked?) in your original post.
I have an office job so this is not a direct comparison. But I'm 42, 128ish, 5'5.5". A normal day without extra activity, I might burn 1500 and average 3-5k steps. With intentional walking, its 12-17k steps and I burn 1900-2200. The extra time on your feet makes a difference.
If I were 50 pounds heavier, my burn #s would be higher.
oh yeah im 142
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Just a basic correlation, then... You are ~14 pounds heavier and 19 years younger than I am. Both factors increase your BMR compared to me. The height difference plays a minimal impact.
So on a day with 20-25k steps, I would expect your total daily burn to be ALOT higher than 1950. Your BMR is 1461, as a basis for energy use without any activity.
If you're not comfortable relying on the Fitbit # burned then ignore 250 calories from it. Until you have enough data to better judge based on results, plan to leave some Fitbit calories uneaten each day.3 -
StaciMarie1974 wrote: »Just a basic correlation, then... You are ~14 pounds heavier and 19 years younger than I am. Both factors increase your BMR compared to me. The height difference plays a minimal impact.
So on a day with 20-25k steps, I would expect your total daily burn to be ALOT higher than 1950. Your BMR is 1461, as a basis for energy use without any activity.
If you're not comfortable relying on the Fitbit # burned then ignore 250 calories from it. Until you have enough data to better judge based on results, plan to leave some Fitbit calories uneaten each day.
yeah i leave alot uneaten because i dont trust it See the pic above i leave from 400-1400 most days average about 1k 0 -
TimothyFish wrote: »FitBit over-estimates calorie burns.
For some people and some Fitbits. My Zip way over calculated my TDEE. The Ultra and One are pretty spot on though I do fall into Jane Average on calculators.0 -
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14k_zGWeklpl05lNqSWN_SK1XzuwnmVHtUfW8Eao5kIE/edit?usp=drivesdk
Compares MFP eaten, scale and trending weight, and burned as per device.
You need as a minimum eaten, burned and at least one of the weights.
Also allows for body composition adjustments if you want to play with them.
Gives you a tdee % error.
@PAV8888 what does the "trending weight caloric balance" column mean?
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Agree with those saying to just use your own data. Calculators and Fitbit are just estimations based on averages. How that translates person to person is obviously going to differ.1
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My opinion: my One was very reliable on TDEE. WHen I first hit maintenance I found that if I ate less than what it showed I burned, I continued to lose weight.
I started using a Charge 2 HR about a month ago. It gives me more credit for cardio, and I'm doing more intense cardio than I was before. (Running 30-60 minutes 3-4 times a week.) Not enough data just yet to really know, but for now I'm assuming a 75-100 calorie per day error rate just in case.0 -
jessiferrrb wrote: »https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14k_zGWeklpl05lNqSWN_SK1XzuwnmVHtUfW8Eao5kIE/edit?usp=drivesdk
Compares MFP eaten, scale and trending weight, and burned as per device.
You need as a minimum eaten, burned and at least one of the weights.
Also allows for body composition adjustments if you want to play with them.
Gives you a tdee % error.
@PAV8888 what does the "trending weight caloric balance" column mean?
If you record weight on Fitbit, which can autopush via integration to MFP, you can also use (and auto push to) trendweight.com and weighgrapher.com to get a smoothed weight trend that reduces water weight swings and reveals more of your underlying weight trend. (Setup suggestion: tell these other sites that you want to maintain your weight so as not to be given useless advice about the speed of loss or gain ...)
I find trending weight more significant than scale weight which is more influenced by day to day variation and catching the "right" weigh in.
ETA: libra for Android. Happy Scale iPhone are apps that do the same but require separate input.
ETA: re read your question. That is a calculated column used in determining the error percentage under the base assumption that 1lb up or down = 3500 Cal.
Further to the right you can play with changing that base assumption though the error in determining body composition is probably bigger than just assuming 3500...1 -
JaydedMiss wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »FitBit over-estimates calorie burns.TimothyFish wrote: »FitBit over-estimates calorie burns.
yes i know, I have a sheet i made up of my calories, fitbits burned calories , steps walked and a 50% range of calories left so i have a range of what im likely to lose. Its because i know this that im asking, I really just want to know a little more what to expect. Heres my past weeks sheet. Even with the date night i was saving for i did pretty alright even with -50%
These numbers look pretty reasonable to me. I'm 10 pounds heavier than you and almost 20 years older than you, so those two factors ought to pretty much cancel out and make our numbers similar.
My last week in steps and calorie burns:
17488 steps 2625 calories
15872 steps 2553 calories
14296 steps 2464 calories
15664 steps 2614 calories
18082 steps 2679 calories
21940 steps 2803 calories
My weight loss over the past six months is perfectly consistent with those numbers being accurate. (I have a spreadsheet that tracks calories in, calories out (according to FitBit) and weight. My theoretical and actual weight loss values are within a pound over six months.
FitBit does NOT overestimate calories burned by being on your feet all day. It may or may not be great for "working out" burns, but that's such a tiny fraction of my calorie burn that I don't care. In my opinion, the main reason that people think FitBit overestimates calorie burn is that most people are lousy at accurately tracking their calories in and would rather say that FitBit overestimates burns than that they've underestimated their food intake. Also, the FitBit formulas are for a person in the middle of the normal distribution of metabolic rates. Anyone can be off by +/- 100-200 calories/day just because of where they fall on that curve - and would need to adjust accordingly.
To address the question in your original post, TDEE calculators are crap for people who are on their feet all day. All the calculators assume that intensity of activity ramps up at the same rate as duration, so they have no setting for someone who gets a large amount of low-intensity physical activity. I literally have to choose "Olympic athlete" to get an accurate burn out of a TDEE calculator. I can't even imagine how far off they must be for an actual Olympic athlete!3 -
jessiferrrb wrote: »https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14k_zGWeklpl05lNqSWN_SK1XzuwnmVHtUfW8Eao5kIE/edit?usp=drivesdk
Compares MFP eaten, scale and trending weight, and burned as per device.
You need as a minimum eaten, burned and at least one of the weights.
Also allows for body composition adjustments if you want to play with them.
Gives you a tdee % error.
@PAV8888 what does the "trending weight caloric balance" column mean?
If you record weight on Fitbit, which can autopush via integration to MFP, you can also use (and auto push to) trendweight.com and weighgrapher.com to get a smoothed weight trend that reduces water weight swings and reveals more of your underlying weight trend. (Setup suggestion: tell these other sites that you want to maintain your weight so as not to be given useless advice about the speed of loss or gain ...)
I find trending weight more significant than scale weight which is more influenced by day to day variation and catching the "right" weigh in.
ETA: libra for Android. Happy Scale iPhone are apps that do the same but require separate input.
ETA: re read your question. That is a calculated column used in determining the error percentage under the base assumption that 1lb up or down = 3500 Cal.
Further to the right you can play with changing that base assumption though the error in determining body composition is probably bigger than just assuming 3500...
got it. thanks for sharing that spreadsheet. i'm going to geek out over it for at least a few months.1 -
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14k_zGWeklpl05lNqSWN_SK1XzuwnmVHtUfW8Eao5kIE/edit?usp=drivesdk
Compares MFP eaten, scale and trending weight, and burned as per device.
You need as a minimum eaten, burned and at least one of the weights.
Also allows for body composition adjustments if you want to play with them.
Gives you a tdee % error.
That's awesome! I've got my own spreadsheet I built that tells me how close my Fitbit is to my true burns, but this makes it so much clearer! Apparently Fitbit underestimates my cals outby about 100 cals per day. Since that's based on my trending weight, I imagine my own calculations would come up with something similar, but I only use them on my scale weight, which is usually about 3lbs lighter than trending, and I'm only down 25lb so far.
Hmm, going to fiddle with Libre calc now!2 -
I have used TDEE calculators, have had a FitBit for a few years, and have been logging and monitoring results on MFP for about 4 years now (first losing, now maintaining). TDEE Calculators underestimate my calories, because like you, I take a lot of steps, but am not doing super high intensity exercise. My average step count is 15K/day, my TDEE per my FitBit is ~2200, and my actual results (from eating back all my exercise calories while losing and maintaining) support the accuracy of the FitBit prediction. I'm 5'2 and maintaining at 120, and I'm 42 years old.
So the calorie burns you are seeing from FitBit do not seem outrageous to me. I also tend to trust a device that is at least worn on my body, rather than a spreadsheet that is completely generic and only relies on the data that I put into it. For now, if you are hesitant, I would eat back more than you are currently, but maybe not the full amount, leave about 200 cals on the table, and then adjust after a few weeks once you see what your actual results are.
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TimothyFish wrote: »FitBit over-estimates calorie burns.
My fitbit underestimates my calorie burn. I use the same formula that @srk369 posted and I burn 200-250 calories more per day than what fitbit shows.1 -
wow now im confused XD guess ill add some calories and just extend the weight loss phase if need be to avoid undereating lol1
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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14k_zGWeklpl05lNqSWN_SK1XzuwnmVHtUfW8Eao5kIE/edit?usp=drivesdk
Compares MFP eaten, scale and trending weight, and burned as per device.
You need as a minimum eaten, burned and at least one of the weights.
Also allows for body composition adjustments if you want to play with them.
Gives you a tdee % error.
Thanks for sharing your spreadsheet! It looks really nice. I made my own, and I'm interested in seeing how you did it. It looks like you are using fitting to get average values, I currently just calculate on a week by week basis and then average. I think your implementation looks really nice.
Thanks again.
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