Can I just earn calories?

calinalot

Hi all, I've done so much reading on this that I think I'm more confused than when I began. I wonder if you intelligent people can give me some personalised advice.

My goal is to lose weight, and MFP gives me a calorie goal of 1200. I have linked MFP and my Fitbit Flex. I've set my activity level in MFP to Active because, although I don't do any formal exercise, I do at least 10,000-15,000 steps per day and a little chasing after my 2.5yo son. Most of that is in the morning, then my afternoons can be quite sedentary.

This seems to lead to a situation where, by early afternoon, MFP 'credits' me with heaps of extra calories to eat (sometimes hundreds), I assume because it 'thinks' I'm going to be this active all day. Then that number steadily falls throughout the afternoon because I'm not that active. (Is this how this works?)

I think I'd rather just know a baseline number of calories I need to live (at a deficit for weight loss, of course), and be able to "earn" extra calories through my steps. Can/should I set my activity level to Sedentary - would this work? Any other tips for me?

Thanks so much!

heybales

YOU gave yourself a calorie goal of 1200 by your choices of non-exercise activity level, and weight loss goal amount.

And that is ONLY on non-exercise days.

Sedentary would make the adjustment every bigger. If you don't like it now, you'll hate it then.
But that's exactly what it's doing, MFP already has you set to non-exercise day, when you do more, you eat more - same deficit for weight loss.

All you need to do is keep syncing through the afternoon, it'll correct itself each time becoming more accurate.
But yes, MFP does the simple math. Fitbit reports burn of 1400 by noon, calculates the day total to 2800.
If it thought you'd burn 2000 without exercise, then 2800-2000 = 800 positive adjustment.
1200 eating goal + 800 = 2000 eating goal.

But, even if you were given a 1000 cal adjustment positive at lunch - are you really going to eat an extra 1000 for lunch because of that?

mmerry5

Check to see if you have Calorie Estimation enabled in your Fitbit settings. If it is, you might want to disable it. I have it turned off and I do not have large changes in calorie count throughout the day. Mine simply shows my calories based on my base amount plus what I've actually already earned. It doesn't guess what I might earn.

calinalot

heybales wrote: »

But, even if you were given a 1000 cal adjustment positive at lunch - are you really going to eat an extra 1000 for lunch because of that?

Hi heybales, thanks for your answer. No, I definitely wouldn't do this, but having a big calorie adjustment by lunchtime (has been 590 on one particular day) and not knowing what it will fall to by the evening means I can't plan my evening meal too well.

mmerry5 wrote: »

Check to see if you have Calorie Estimation enabled in your Fitbit settings.

Thanks mmerry5. I can't find this setting, though!

heybales

New accounts had it removed.

You'll have to access it through at least the web account, your Logging section, Food tab.
The food plan area has a setting for Personalized (Calorie estimate enabled), or Sedentary (start barely above BMR and corrects as device shows calorie burn higher).

If you sync often enough, either setting gives about the same result as the assumed daily burn gets corrected often.
It's only when you don't sync often that you'll get extremes - with either method.
- one will be mighty low, one could be, if days are very different, might high.
- That calculated calorie burn without any device sync is what is given to MFP every 100 calories increase.