Do you believe your fitbit calorie burn?
Christine_72
Posts: 16,049 Member
I got a fitbit zip a week ago, i went from averaging 2,000ish steps a day up to 10,000, and yesterday i hit 20,207 steps for which mfp gave me 850 extra calories. I'm too scared to eat these calories back, partly because it takes me all day to get these steps in ( I do umpteen laps around my house),i'm not 100% sure that these devices are perfectly accurate and it irks me slightly to essentially eat back all of my work. Walking is the only exercise i do.
What do you guys do, eat all your exercise calories back or 50-75% of them, or none at all? How much do you trust your fitbit calorie burn?
Thanks for any and all advice :flowerforyou:
What do you guys do, eat all your exercise calories back or 50-75% of them, or none at all? How much do you trust your fitbit calorie burn?
Thanks for any and all advice :flowerforyou:
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Replies
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I have another type of tracking device through weight watchers and don't trust it 100%. I can wave my arms 5 mins and get an extra 50 calories. Though I hear fitbits are more accurate. I'm actually wanting to buy one, but swimming is one of my favorite activities, and so far they're water resistant, but not waterproof.
As for eating back the calories, I hardly ever do.
If I work out at the gym hard during a session for an hour and earn 800 calories, I might eat 100-200 but never more. (unless I'm having a naughty pizza kind of day!)
Otherwise, I keep it fairly close to my original total, just because I think a lot of exercise is overestimated, and food underestimated.0 -
I bought a fitbit one a couple weeks ago. The first weekend I got it I went on a 4.5 mile hike with my fiance, got about 21,000 steps, and it told me about 700 calories were earned from it. From what I've been hearing, it's fairly accurate. Since I'm a bit paranoid and have heard many differing stories about whether or not to eat earned calories back, I try to stick to either not eating them back, or not eating all of them back.
I've also noticed that if you work out earlier and then aren't as active later in the day, it can take calories away from your earned calories, so keep that in mind.0 -
shezza4mobee wrote: »I have another type of tracking device through weight watchers and don't trust it 100%. I can wave my arms 5 mins and get an extra 50 calories. Though I hear fitbits are more accurate. I'm actually wanting to buy one, but swimming is one of my favorite activities, and so far they're water resistant, but not waterproof.
As for eating back the calories, I hardly ever do.
If I work out at the gym hard during a session for an hour and earn 800 calories, I might eat 100-200 but never more. (unless I'm having a naughty pizza kind of day!)
Otherwise, I keep it fairly close to my original total, just because I think a lot of exercise is overestimated, and food underestimated.
Misfit Shine is waterproof and has a mode specifically for swimming.0 -
I went for the clip on my bra fitbit instead of the bracelet one for the reasons you stated. Everything i have read says fitbits are pretty accurate, i just wanted to hear from real life users
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Unless I'm hungry I don't eat those cals back- unless I have done a run or something to add ro those steps and calories burned & even then I don't eat them all back I just have some protein snack (egg or yogurt generally) and see how I go - I have a fitbit charge hr0
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shezza4mobee wrote: »I have another type of tracking device through weight watchers and don't trust it 100%. I can wave my arms 5 mins and get an extra 50 calories. Though I hear fitbits are more accurate. I'm actually wanting to buy one, but swimming is one of my favorite activities, and so far they're water resistant, but not waterproof.
As for eating back the calories, I hardly ever do.
If I work out at the gym hard during a session for an hour and earn 800 calories, I might eat 100-200 but never more. (unless I'm having a naughty pizza kind of day!)
Otherwise, I keep it fairly close to my original total, just because I think a lot of exercise is overestimated, and food underestimated.
Misfit Shine is waterproof and has a mode specifically for swimming.
Oh thanks for the info! I'll look into it! 0 -
MindySaysWhaaat wrote: »I bought a fitbit one a couple weeks ago. The first weekend I got it I went on a 4.5 mile hike with my fiance, got about 21,000 steps, and it told me about 700 calories were earned from it. From what I've been hearing, it's fairly accurate. Since I'm a bit paranoid and have heard many differing stories about whether or not to eat earned calories back, I try to stick to either not eating them back, or not eating all of them back.
I've also noticed that if you work out earlier and then aren't as active later in the day, it can take calories away from your earned calories, so keep that in mind.
Yikes! I shall keep an eye on that. I went for a walk around the block at 9 last night so i could get to 20,000
Also, one more question,,, sorry! I had my computer switched off all afternoon yesterday, so my steps didn't transfer to my dashboard or into my diary. So i ended up turning it on quickly so it would sync. If i hadn't have turned my computer on, would it have synced yesterdays steps this morning, or would i have lost all that stats because a new 24 hours had started? Boy i hope that makes sense....
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The combination of fitbit and MFP works perfectly for me. I eat back the calories it suggests (mostly - I don't force myself if I'm full) and still lose weight at roughly the scheduled pace.0
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Yes, I believe it because I tested it.... log faithfully for a couple of months with a fitbit adjustment, then figure out how much weight you should have lost (calories below maintenance for that time frame /3500). Compare to what you actually lost. Mine is very accurate, with a slight error in the direction of my losing slightly more than my data would predict.0
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Docbanana2002 wrote: »Yes, I believe it because I tested it.... log faithfully for a couple of months with a fitbit adjustment, then figure out how much weight you should have lost (calories below maintenance for that time frame /3500). Compare to what you actually lost. Mine is very accurate, with a slight error in the direction of my losing slightly more than my data would predict.
Awesome, that's great news.
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I've lost 24 pounds eating back what my fitbit gives me. I trust it.0
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MindySaysWhaaat wrote: »
I've also noticed that if you work out earlier and then aren't as active later in the day, it can take calories away from your earned calories, so keep that in mind.
You can go on the Fitbit website and in the settings, turn off "calorie estimation". Then this won't happen (it will base your projections based on no activity--rather than your daily average--and only add calories to MFP that you've actually "earned" already).
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christinev297 wrote: »MindySaysWhaaat wrote: »I bought a fitbit one a couple weeks ago. The first weekend I got it I went on a 4.5 mile hike with my fiance, got about 21,000 steps, and it told me about 700 calories were earned from it. From what I've been hearing, it's fairly accurate. Since I'm a bit paranoid and have heard many differing stories about whether or not to eat earned calories back, I try to stick to either not eating them back, or not eating all of them back.
I've also noticed that if you work out earlier and then aren't as active later in the day, it can take calories away from your earned calories, so keep that in mind.
Yikes! I shall keep an eye on that. I went for a walk around the block at 9 last night so i could get to 20,000
Also, one more question,,, sorry! I had my computer switched off all afternoon yesterday, so my steps didn't transfer to my dashboard or into my diary. So i ended up turning it on quickly so it would sync. If i hadn't have turned my computer on, would it have synced yesterdays steps this morning, or would i have lost all that stats because a new 24 hours had started? Boy i hope that makes sense....
Thanks guys
Can anyone answer the above bolded part? The steps wont sync unless my computer is switched on and i'm in the house. will they still get added the next day or will i lose those steps?
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christinev297 wrote: »I got a fitbit zip a week ago, i went from averaging 2,000ish steps a day up to 10,000, and yesterday i hit 20,207 steps for which mfp gave me 850 extra calories. I'm too scared to eat these calories back, partly because it takes me all day to get these steps in ( I do umpteen laps around my house),i'm not 100% sure that these devices are perfectly accurate and it irks me slightly to essentially eat back all of my work. Walking is the only exercise i do.
What do you guys do, eat all your exercise calories back or 50-75% of them, or none at all? How much do you trust your fitbit calorie burn?
Thanks for any and all advice :flowerforyou:
This is the very reason I severed the sync between my fitbit and mfp. I figured it was too risky to assume I had all these earned calories if I really hadn't burned that much. It was the right decision for me, but I cannot speak to anyone else's experience with fitbit sync to mfp.0 -
Docbanana2002 wrote: »MindySaysWhaaat wrote: »
I've also noticed that if you work out earlier and then aren't as active later in the day, it can take calories away from your earned calories, so keep that in mind.
You can go on the Fitbit website and in the settings, turn off "calorie estimation". Then this won't happen (it will base your projections based on no activity--rather than your daily average--and only add calories to MFP that you've actually "earned" already).
Where in settings? I clicked through each one but didn't see that option
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My Charge HR can keep up to 7 days worth of tracking without being synced. So no you won't lose data if you don't sync it all the time 0
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I figure mine is fairly accurate. What I burn in a day is usually pretty close to the TDEE estimates I had calculated. I try to stay under that with food - partly because I'm trying to lose weight and also because I don't want to assume it's 100% accurate and eat too much back.0
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shezza4mobee wrote: »I have another type of tracking device through weight watchers and don't trust it 100%. I can wave my arms 5 mins and get an extra 50 calories. Though I hear fitbits are more accurate. I'm actually wanting to buy one, but swimming is one of my favorite activities, and so far they're water resistant, but not waterproof.
As for eating back the calories, I hardly ever do.
If I work out at the gym hard during a session for an hour and earn 800 calories, I might eat 100-200 but never more. (unless I'm having a naughty pizza kind of day!)
Otherwise, I keep it fairly close to my original total, just because I think a lot of exercise is overestimated, and food underestimated.
Misfit Shine is waterproof and has a mode specifically for swimming.
I love my misfit shine. It is fairly accurate. My monthly burn minus my food for march was about ~6600 (trying to remember from the spreadsheet this morning). I lost 2.4 from the third week of Feb. to yesterday so it's pretty accurate (I weigh once a week or so).0 -
christinev297 wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »MindySaysWhaaat wrote: »I bought a fitbit one a couple weeks ago. The first weekend I got it I went on a 4.5 mile hike with my fiance, got about 21,000 steps, and it told me about 700 calories were earned from it. From what I've been hearing, it's fairly accurate. Since I'm a bit paranoid and have heard many differing stories about whether or not to eat earned calories back, I try to stick to either not eating them back, or not eating all of them back.
I've also noticed that if you work out earlier and then aren't as active later in the day, it can take calories away from your earned calories, so keep that in mind.
Yikes! I shall keep an eye on that. I went for a walk around the block at 9 last night so i could get to 20,000
Also, one more question,,, sorry! I had my computer switched off all afternoon yesterday, so my steps didn't transfer to my dashboard or into my diary. So i ended up turning it on quickly so it would sync. If i hadn't have turned my computer on, would it have synced yesterdays steps this morning, or would i have lost all that stats because a new 24 hours had started? Boy i hope that makes sense....
Thanks guys
Can anyone answer the above bolded part? The steps wont sync unless my computer is switched on and i'm in the house. will they still get added the next day or will i lose those steps?
I believe it will still sync yesterday's steps as well. I tend to sync mine through my phone most of the time though since it's connected through bluetooth.0 -
I figure the Fitbit has a better grasp on how active I am all day than MFP. So I look at what the Fitbit tells me I have burned and subtract 750 from that. If I went off of MFP's advice and didn't trust the Fitbit (what's the point of it then?) I would be stuck eating 1200. I aim for 10K steps, tell MFP that I am active, which gives me an estimated burn of 2200, which is right about where I end up, according to the Fitbit, if I am close to that 10K mark. If I go a lot above that, it gives me more calories to eat on MFP, which I might eat if I'm hungry.0
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christinev297 wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »MindySaysWhaaat wrote: »I bought a fitbit one a couple weeks ago. The first weekend I got it I went on a 4.5 mile hike with my fiance, got about 21,000 steps, and it told me about 700 calories were earned from it. From what I've been hearing, it's fairly accurate. Since I'm a bit paranoid and have heard many differing stories about whether or not to eat earned calories back, I try to stick to either not eating them back, or not eating all of them back.
I've also noticed that if you work out earlier and then aren't as active later in the day, it can take calories away from your earned calories, so keep that in mind.
Yikes! I shall keep an eye on that. I went for a walk around the block at 9 last night so i could get to 20,000
Also, one more question,,, sorry! I had my computer switched off all afternoon yesterday, so my steps didn't transfer to my dashboard or into my diary. So i ended up turning it on quickly so it would sync. If i hadn't have turned my computer on, would it have synced yesterdays steps this morning, or would i have lost all that stats because a new 24 hours had started? Boy i hope that makes sense....
Thanks guys
Can anyone answer the above bolded part? The steps wont sync unless my computer is switched on and i'm in the house. will they still get added the next day or will i lose those steps?
It will hang on to about 9 days worth of steps, provided it has the battery life. You don't need to sync at midnight, the next morning is fine.
I've had a fitbit one for about 2 years now and find it to be incredibly accurate.0 -
I figure mine is fairly accurate. What I burn in a day is usually pretty close to the TDEE estimates I had calculated. I try to stay under that with food - partly because I'm trying to lose weight and also because I don't want to assume it's 100% accurate and eat too much back.
Yes, this is my experience too.0 -
MindySaysWhaaat wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »MindySaysWhaaat wrote: »I bought a fitbit one a couple weeks ago. The first weekend I got it I went on a 4.5 mile hike with my fiance, got about 21,000 steps, and it told me about 700 calories were earned from it. From what I've been hearing, it's fairly accurate. Since I'm a bit paranoid and have heard many differing stories about whether or not to eat earned calories back, I try to stick to either not eating them back, or not eating all of them back.
I've also noticed that if you work out earlier and then aren't as active later in the day, it can take calories away from your earned calories, so keep that in mind.
Yikes! I shall keep an eye on that. I went for a walk around the block at 9 last night so i could get to 20,000
Also, one more question,,, sorry! I had my computer switched off all afternoon yesterday, so my steps didn't transfer to my dashboard or into my diary. So i ended up turning it on quickly so it would sync. If i hadn't have turned my computer on, would it have synced yesterdays steps this morning, or would i have lost all that stats because a new 24 hours had started? Boy i hope that makes sense....
Thanks guys
Can anyone answer the above bolded part? The steps wont sync unless my computer is switched on and i'm in the house. will they still get added the next day or will i lose those steps?
I believe it will still sync yesterday's steps as well. I tend to sync mine through my phone most of the time though since it's connected through bluetooth.
AAhhhh I know there's a way to sync through my phone. I am not tech savvy, I assume it takes more than just switching blue tooth on??I figure the Fitbit has a better grasp on how active I am all day than MFP. So I look at what the Fitbit tells me I have burned and subtract 750 from that. If I went off of MFP's advice and didn't trust the Fitbit (what's the point of it then?) I would be stuck eating 1200. I aim for 10K steps, tell MFP that I am active, which gives me an estimated burn of 2200, which is right about where I end up, according to the Fitbit, if I am close to that 10K mark. If I go a lot above that, it gives me more calories to eat on MFP, which I might eat if I'm hungry.
True, I have to just trust the numbers and keep an eye on the scale. I've got mfp set to sedentary, which i presume I am not if I'm doing doing 20,000 steps everyday??
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christinev297 wrote: »MindySaysWhaaat wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »MindySaysWhaaat wrote: »I bought a fitbit one a couple weeks ago. The first weekend I got it I went on a 4.5 mile hike with my fiance, got about 21,000 steps, and it told me about 700 calories were earned from it. From what I've been hearing, it's fairly accurate. Since I'm a bit paranoid and have heard many differing stories about whether or not to eat earned calories back, I try to stick to either not eating them back, or not eating all of them back.
I've also noticed that if you work out earlier and then aren't as active later in the day, it can take calories away from your earned calories, so keep that in mind.
Yikes! I shall keep an eye on that. I went for a walk around the block at 9 last night so i could get to 20,000
Also, one more question,,, sorry! I had my computer switched off all afternoon yesterday, so my steps didn't transfer to my dashboard or into my diary. So i ended up turning it on quickly so it would sync. If i hadn't have turned my computer on, would it have synced yesterdays steps this morning, or would i have lost all that stats because a new 24 hours had started? Boy i hope that makes sense....
Thanks guys
Can anyone answer the above bolded part? The steps wont sync unless my computer is switched on and i'm in the house. will they still get added the next day or will i lose those steps?
I believe it will still sync yesterday's steps as well. I tend to sync mine through my phone most of the time though since it's connected through bluetooth.
AAhhhh I know there's a way to sync through my phone. I am not tech savvy, I assume it takes more than just switching blue tooth on??I figure the Fitbit has a better grasp on how active I am all day than MFP. So I look at what the Fitbit tells me I have burned and subtract 750 from that. If I went off of MFP's advice and didn't trust the Fitbit (what's the point of it then?) I would be stuck eating 1200. I aim for 10K steps, tell MFP that I am active, which gives me an estimated burn of 2200, which is right about where I end up, according to the Fitbit, if I am close to that 10K mark. If I go a lot above that, it gives me more calories to eat on MFP, which I might eat if I'm hungry.
True, I have to just trust the numbers and keep an eye on the scale. I've got mfp set to sedentary, which i presume I am not if I'm doing doing 20,000 steps everyday??
I had mine set to sedentary too at first. But I found that the Fitbit adjustment is much smaller if you just set your activity level where it should be. For me, "active" matches the 10K on Fitbit pretty darn well. I'd think 20K would fall under "very active."
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When I had my Ultra, I felt it to be very accurate with steps and calories burned. I bought a Zip because of the lower cost (a mistake!) as a replacement. My Zip has me burning 3000 calories a day at 30,000 steps. I believe the steps are accurate, but the calorie burn seems way off. I weigh a lot less than I did with the Ultra and the only times I burned 3000 calories were when I'd spent several hours outside walking/hiking around ponds and the woods. I did find out that the Zip is more generous with its calories burned estimates compared to the Ultra and One. Ex: Zip would give Very Active when Ultra would give Active. It's possible that I really am burning 3000 calories a day, but that doesn't seem very likely since I'm not losing as much weight as I might with a -8120 weekly deficit.
I'm not using the MFP method though. I go with TDEE - 10% because I prefer having the same amount of calories available each day and not a rollercoaster cycle. I guess the best advice I have is try eating half of the exercise calories back for a few weeks, see if you gain/maintain, and if you do, either stop eating them or eat less of them.0 -
You'll need the app for that.christinev297 wrote: »MindySaysWhaaat wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »MindySaysWhaaat wrote: »I bought a fitbit one a couple weeks ago. The first weekend I got it I went on a 4.5 mile hike with my fiance, got about 21,000 steps, and it told me about 700 calories were earned from it. From what I've been hearing, it's fairly accurate. Since I'm a bit paranoid and have heard many differing stories about whether or not to eat earned calories back, I try to stick to either not eating them back, or not eating all of them back.
I've also noticed that if you work out earlier and then aren't as active later in the day, it can take calories away from your earned calories, so keep that in mind.
Yikes! I shall keep an eye on that. I went for a walk around the block at 9 last night so i could get to 20,000
Also, one more question,,, sorry! I had my computer switched off all afternoon yesterday, so my steps didn't transfer to my dashboard or into my diary. So i ended up turning it on quickly so it would sync. If i hadn't have turned my computer on, would it have synced yesterdays steps this morning, or would i have lost all that stats because a new 24 hours had started? Boy i hope that makes sense....
Thanks guys
Can anyone answer the above bolded part? The steps wont sync unless my computer is switched on and i'm in the house. will they still get added the next day or will i lose those steps?
I believe it will still sync yesterday's steps as well. I tend to sync mine through my phone most of the time though since it's connected through bluetooth.
AAhhhh I know there's a way to sync through my phone. I am not tech savvy, I assume it takes more than just switching blue tooth on??I figure the Fitbit has a better grasp on how active I am all day than MFP. So I look at what the Fitbit tells me I have burned and subtract 750 from that. If I went off of MFP's advice and didn't trust the Fitbit (what's the point of it then?) I would be stuck eating 1200. I aim for 10K steps, tell MFP that I am active, which gives me an estimated burn of 2200, which is right about where I end up, according to the Fitbit, if I am close to that 10K mark. If I go a lot above that, it gives me more calories to eat on MFP, which I might eat if I'm hungry.
True, I have to just trust the numbers and keep an eye on the scale. I've got mfp set to sedentary, which i presume I am not if I'm doing doing 20,000 steps everyday??
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I absolutely believe my Fitbit burn so far. I was using Fitbit's website to log food for the first month I had my Flex, and I was losing weight steadily (yippee!!).
I switched to MFP because the database is LOADS better (yes I need to double-check entries as a log them, but nearly 100% of what I eat is in here, so yay).
I try to stay within my calories allotted on MFP but I do check Fitbit too. Nearly always have some left over in Fitbit and some days I'll eat them anyway - I call those my hungry days
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For reference (I would post pictures but my computer has a hell of a time doing too much at once...
Over the last 30 days here's some stats:
*Avg. burn per Fitbit (this includes exercise calories as I run and log my runs in Fitbit): 2,036
*Avg. Intake: 1,736
So taking those numbers (2036-1736) is a deficit of 300/day. Over the course of the month (300*30/3500) I should have lost 2.6 pounds or so.
On March 2, I weighed 128. This morning (April 2), I weighed 125.5.
Pretty much dead on, that!
I know weight loss isn't linear etc etc, but it seems my Fitbit knows me pretty well and that's going to be a big help as I see the weight loss slow down and/or get stuck as I get closer to goal weight.
~Lyssa0 -
christinev297 wrote: »How much do you trust your fitbit calorie burn?
Thanks for any and all advice :flowerforyou:
100%. However, that's based on months of data. I've analyzed the my results based on my own logging to come up with an estimate of my TDEE. My estimate based on my calculations is just slightly higher than my Fitbit's average 30 day burn. Every so often I go over the information again to see if things have changed. So far, the only change has been that when I upgraded to the surge, Fitbit's 30 day average got closer to my estimated TDEE. So I'm now losing roughly 1lb per week that I have everything set for instead of 1.3 + lbs per week that I was when I had the Flex and Zip.
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