New Charge user - I don't understand these calculations

shannonstube

I can't figure out how the Fitbit app calculates my calories. I have my goal set to have a 500 calorie deficit. Right now, the app says I have burned 1,143 calories, I have eaten 646 (synced with MFP), and I have 1,070 left.

If I eat 1,070 more, I would be at over 1,700 for the day and have only burned 1,143. I know that I will burn more as the day goes on, but where is Fitbit getting its number? If I don't work out later (which I plan to) I doubt that I would get to 2,200+ burned for the day. So based on these numbers I would not be at my 500 calorie deficit.

Am I missing something?

NancyN795

FitBit uses your activity history to guess how many calories you will burn later. If don't want it to do that, go to the Food tab on FitBit.com and mouse over the little gear in the upper right of the area that says "Today I can still eat:". Change the selected option from "Personalized" to "Sedentary" and then FitBit will assume you're going to sit on your butt the rest of the day. This setting can make it look like you can't have very many calories first thing in the morning, but has the benefit of bumping up when you are active, rather than going down if you're less active than usual.

trackercasey76

The best thing I did was to stop overthinking it. I set my activity level to sedentary and typically eat about 1/2 my calories back. If you try to figure it all out you will drive yourself crazy.

heybales

shannonlmell wrote: »

I can't figure out how the Fitbit app calculates my calories. I have my goal set to have a 500 calorie deficit. Right now, the app says I have burned 1,143 calories, I have eaten 646 (synced with MFP), and I have 1,070 left.

If I eat 1,070 more, I would be at over 1,700 for the day and have only burned 1,143. I know that I will burn more as the day goes on, but where is Fitbit getting its number? If I don't work out later (which I plan to) I doubt that I would get to 2,200+ burned for the day. So based on these numbers I would not be at my 500 calorie deficit.

Am I missing something?

Don't even waste time on the tile that shows a gauge for that moment in time - about worthless.

With that Calorie Estimate on (or Personalized as shown above), your day is based as historical average until a sync shows it going differently. Then deficit taken for eating goal, until later in day when you might not be going as high.

With CE off (or Sedentary shown above), your day is assumed to be slightly above BMR, until a sync shows otherwise, and then eating goal starts getting adjusted.

And with both those options, whatever Fitbit thinks the daily burn is with no syncing going on - is what is reported to MFP.
If you sync often, no problem. If you don't sync often, could have some interesting daily burns provided to MFP to do math with.

And you burned 1143 calories at 1 pm? With most of that being sleeping?
You think you won't reach 2200 for the other almost half of the day, with less of it being sleeping?

Sure you will. 1143 / 13 hrs = 88 x 24 hrs = 2112

shannonstube

Thank you everyone. This makes much more sense now. I didn't realize it based your calories on your activity history.

And to answer the question above, I got up at 4am yesterday for work, so sadly by 1pm I had been awake much more than sleeping. On a normal day if I dont work out, it will usually show me around 1,700-1,800 by the end of the day. Of course with getting up at 4, the "end of the day" for me is about 8pm, haha.