Fitbit app help

emmycnordhm

i just bought a fitbit charge and have been syncing it between the MFP app and the actual Fitbit app... But somehow the Fitbit app ALWAYS tells me I am over my target. What does that mean? What is a calorie deficit? Help? Lol

int3rpo1

A caloric deficit means consuming less calories than you need in a day. A caloric deficit is required to lose weight.

shellma00

It is kind of like when you set up your MFP, it asked whether you wanted to lose 1 lb, 1.5 lbs, 2 lbs, etc a week ... -500/day calorie deficit will put you on track to lose 1 lbs a week, -750/day deficit would amount to 1.5 lbs a week, -1000/day would amount to 2 lbs a week. Some people set their goals up the same for both MFP and FitBit.. I hope that helped you with setting up your goals in FitBit.. I love my FitBit.. you can message me if you have any other questions. I have been using FitBit for over 2+ years.

elphie754

shellma00 wrote: »

It is kind of like when you set up your MFP, it asked whether you wanted to lose 1 lb, 1.5 lbs, 2 lbs, etc a week ... -500/day calorie deficit will put you on track to lose 1 lbs a week, -750/day deficit would amount to 1.5 lbs a week, -1000/day would amount to 2 lbs a week. Some people set their goals up the same for both MFP and FitBit.. I hope that helped you with setting up your goals in FitBit.. I love my FitBit.. you can message me if you have any other questions. I have been using FitBit for over 2+ years.

Not trying to hijack (and in line with op question) but how do you get MFP and fitbit all calorie goals to match? I have negative calories enabled, but they still don't match. MFP will give me extra exercise cals even if fitbit says that shouldn't be. Ex: my mfp goal is 1300 (base). With neg cals, its subtracts 100 to be 1200 at begining of the day. By 5ish, mfp will say I have 500 cals left but fitbit says none or 200 (either way much lower).

shellma00

elphie754 wrote: »

shellma00 wrote: »

It is kind of like when you set up your MFP, it asked whether you wanted to lose 1 lb, 1.5 lbs, 2 lbs, etc a week ... -500/day calorie deficit will put you on track to lose 1 lbs a week, -750/day deficit would amount to 1.5 lbs a week, -1000/day would amount to 2 lbs a week. Some people set their goals up the same for both MFP and FitBit.. I hope that helped you with setting up your goals in FitBit.. I love my FitBit.. you can message me if you have any other questions. I have been using FitBit for over 2+ years.

Not trying to hijack (and in line with op question) but how do you get MFP and fitbit all calorie goals to match? I have negative calories enabled, but they still don't match. MFP will give me extra exercise cals even if fitbit says that shouldn't be. Ex: my mfp goal is 1300 (base). With neg cals, its subtracts 100 to be 1200 at begining of the day. By 5ish, mfp will say I have 500 cals left but fitbit says none or 200 (either way much lower).

Good question.. I guess first off.. did you automatically set your MFP cals to 1300 or is that what it gave you when you said you wanted to lose X-amount of lbs in a week?

Im not sure how to answer this.. I have typed out a few responses, but then felt stupid after reading it. I believe that FitBit goes off an average of what it thinks you will burn in a day and subtracts the -500/-750/-1000 calories based off of your previous history.

I think that MFP goes the other direction, where it adds calories based off of how active you have been during the day. But I am not sure that MFP takes an average from your previous history.

MFP also bases your daily burns based on what it thinks your BMR or TDEE will be or by what you put in as your activity level when you set your goals up. (ex: sedentary, active, etc) and what your current height and weight is. I THINK..

I could be really wrong about this, but its how I think it possibly could be.

elphie754

shellma00 wrote: »

elphie754 wrote: »

shellma00 wrote: »

It is kind of like when you set up your MFP, it asked whether you wanted to lose 1 lb, 1.5 lbs, 2 lbs, etc a week ... -500/day calorie deficit will put you on track to lose 1 lbs a week, -750/day deficit would amount to 1.5 lbs a week, -1000/day would amount to 2 lbs a week. Some people set their goals up the same for both MFP and FitBit.. I hope that helped you with setting up your goals in FitBit.. I love my FitBit.. you can message me if you have any other questions. I have been using FitBit for over 2+ years.

Not trying to hijack (and in line with op question) but how do you get MFP and fitbit all calorie goals to match? I have negative calories enabled, but they still don't match. MFP will give me extra exercise cals even if fitbit says that shouldn't be. Ex: my mfp goal is 1300 (base). With neg cals, its subtracts 100 to be 1200 at begining of the day. By 5ish, mfp will say I have 500 cals left but fitbit says none or 200 (either way much lower).

Good question.. I guess first off.. did you automatically set your MFP cals to 1300 or is that what it gave you when you said you wanted to lose X-amount of lbs in a week?

Im not sure how to answer this.. I have typed out a few responses, but then felt stupid after reading it. I believe that FitBit goes off an average of what it thinks you will burn in a day and subtracts the -500/-750/-1000 calories based off of your previous history.

I think that MFP goes the other direction, where it adds calories based off of how active you have been during the day. But I am not sure that MFP takes an average from your previous history.

MFP also bases your daily burns based on what it thinks your BMR or TDEE will be or by what you put in as your activity level when you set your goals up. (ex: sedentary, active, etc) and what your current height and weight is. I THINK..

I could be really wrong about this, but its how I think it possibly could be.

I manually set them since my PCP felt like it was a good base number.

The exercised earned numbers on mfp change during the day (in both directions) but never mirror the fitbit reccomendation.

JAT74

It's not very clear and I don't really understand it either.

Today for ex. MFP Tells me that my goal to eat is 1782 and I actually ate 1578 so I'm 204 under. This is taking my base cals which are manually set to 1050 and adding on my workouts and Fitbit activity (782).

My Fitbit tells me I had 2195 out but 1578 in so I have 238 calories left. I have it set to lose 1lb per week which should be a 500 calories deficit but 2195-1578 = 617 so why do I have 238 remaining according to Fitbit, surely it should only be 117 remaining?

Also, as the previous poster said, why does MFP tell me I have 204 remaining and Fitbit 238? I've set my manual MFP calorie goal to be my sedentary TDEE -500 but I exercise every day so am eating a lot of the calories back.

segacs

Ignore the math for a moment if it's confusing you.

It could well be that Fitbit syncs before the end of the day, and it would adjust again right before midnight based on what you do the rest of that day, no?

shellma00

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Third-Party-Integrations/MyFitnessPal-negative-calorie-adjustment/m-p/488132#U488132

Not sure if this will help you.. but it says to go to your exercise log on MFP from a computer, click the little blue circle with the letter "i" and a box will pop up with an explanation of how it adjusts..

Hope this helps

SandyCoils

When I want the most up to date info and comparison, I sync my fitbit to the app, then I refresh the MFP website. I haven't had any issues yet. I also try to go with the lowest cal allowance. Most times I just sync, refresh and go with what MFP says. Opening up the app on my phone automatically calls for the FitBit to sync the info.

sodakat

Also, be sure you have the setting on the Food Tile on the Fitbit Dashboard set to "Medium" if you want it to give you a 500 calorie deficit.

Like segacs said, Fitbit anticipates you moving and therefore burning some calories, until midnight.