setting up my fitbit and mfp for my eating goal.

rachylouise87

really confused how to do this. activity level is moderate just on first glance but bought the fitbit to clarify this.

heybales

Do you want to follow the MFP method where your daily eating goal changes, and will you hit that goal despite it changing?

Or do you want to keep the same daily goal to make planning easier and constant?


What Fitbit model, HR on non-HR version?


And are you doing strength training - lifting or circuit training?


And to understand the basics of what you are dealing with, read through this, just glance over what doesn't matter yet, but know it's there.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy

rachylouise87

Ok fit bit flex
No hr
No strength just cardio right now
Eating goal to be the same
Using a hrm for workouts and fitbit for all activity in between. Fitbit gave me 1840 burned yesterday

rachylouise87

So ofc scooby calculated my goal but my fitbit said i ate over what i should've done

heybales

Ok, so you are going to want to UNsync the accounts.
Otherwise MFP will be adjusting your eating goal based on differences between Fitbit and itself.

You'll want to manually log those workout calorie burns in Fitbit, to correct them if needed, and have accurate as possible TDEE estimate. Confirm your start and duration times for proper replacement of Fitbit calorie burn.

Each week you'll get an email giving your daily average TDEE.
If that week in review was your average week with nothing unusual like being sick for days or doing a 4 hr hike one day - then take that TDEE as start of your math.

Adjust your eating goal on MFP based on that. If resetting, make your eating goal that. If in deficit, take it.

If you start doing strength training, log it on Fitbit too, under their database as Weights.

If you have access to treadmill, follow the instructions in the FAQ about correcting stride length, since daily calorie burn is based on that figure.

rachylouise87

thanks my burn on the fitbit matches light activity on mfp so i have set that initially and then i can change up or down if needed. if anything it would be up. the light activity on mfp has my tdee at around the same as the fitbit for yesterday. i set both accounts to be a deficit of 250 per day .5lbs per week and this gives me 1610 should i manually change the goal on the fit bit of calories burned to the tdee on mfp just so the deficit matches.? if unsynced does this mean i dont need to log food on fit bit either would it purely just for the activity logging?
thanks for the info this has helped a lot. i prefer one eating goal because i need to find out what works for me fairly quickly since i have been eating at 1800 plus for 2 weeks and have maintained so i have a feeling i need to be moving more or changing the goal slightly. the fitbit will help me achieve this

heybales

So you'll want to confirm that after this week, you re-adjust your figures to match a weekly average, not just one day.
The weekend can change things, other days can change things.

If MFP Lightly Active happens to give you a "calories burned from daily activity" that matches Fitbit - that's great.
Don't count on it. As soon as you manually set an eating goal, that activity level is useless, don't even worry about it.

If 250 cal deficit is about 15%, that's great too.
Again, don't count on that always being the case, as you get more active, it should go up.

The eating goals on Fitbit don't matter at all, the step goals and active minute goals may be helpful.
Food logging on MFP only, follow the eating goal.
Exercise on Fitbit only, watch the TDEE to correct your eating goal on MFP with.
But instead of doing that automatically daily and having your eating goal change daily, you are going to do it on weekly basis.

As long as you correct the Fitbit for non-step based exercise, it will indeed help narrow your TDEE down quickly.
I'd suggest don't even worry about walking and running, needing to manually log it with HRM info, if you do that stride length test, and confirm the distance for a walk is correct, it's calorie burn will be more accurate than HRM actually.

rachylouise87

Thankyou. Should i log zumba on fitbit or use hrm adjustments?

MandaLeigh123

My TDEE is way under on FitBit. I do enter my non-stop exercise. Before getting sick, my really active days on FitBit showed TDEE 2100 & 2300. But I estimate my TDEE to be closer to 2800. I stopped counting walking to the bus & campus bc I assumed FitBit is counting those steps.... I walk around 3-4mph. Should I add that in as exercise?

rachylouise87

it seems to say my tdee over the past few days on average is on track maybe a little under on zumba days. i use the hrm to add calories burned rather than estimating from fit bit.

MandaLeigh123

I use a HR monitor to add in other exercise as well so its interesting it seems so far under.

heybales

rachylouise87 wrote: »

Thankyou. Should i log zumba on fitbit or use hrm adjustments?

That's not an or option actually, those are not 2 separate choices.
If you were to manually log it with unsynced accounts, you would have to log it on Fitbit, and it would be best to use the HRM burn value.

Though, step-based for Zumba is pretty good, I'd compare sometime.

So see what Fitbit came up with for just the same workout, create an Activity Record, not workout. Start and finish time, call it Zumba pre-change stats. Now you see how many steps and distance and calories came from the workout.
If HRM is really different, then you could log an activity workout with start/duration time and HRM calorie burn, to replace the calorie burn in those stats.
That snapshot in the activity record won't change, but you will be replacing them in the daily stats.

If you don't have a HRM calorie burn that is much different, then there is no need to log it, it's already logged basically, it's in the daily stats that will show up on the weekly report and give better estimate of average TDEE.

I would test your HRM for good accuracy though.

They can be very off also, especially if fit but overweight (Manda) and be underestimating calorie burn.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/774337/how-to-test-hrm-for-how-accurate-calorie-burn-is

Manda - if the Fitbit is seeing the distance correctly, the calorie count for the walk is good. Unless carrying like a 20 lb backpack - it only knows of your weight figure entered.

MandaLeigh123

I will look into it more... Checking my HR monitor accuracy. Thats interesting. I'm not really much overweight though. 5-7lbs? I weigh 145lbs, 5'7". I carry two bags (nursing student). I will weigh them next week but my guess is its easily 20lbs+.
When I add in the calories burned from my HR monitor on the walk, its the only thing that gets my TDEE even close. If I dont add that, its even further under. Yesterday was the first day I added walks from HR monitor & it gave me TDEE 2,667 with 6.77 miles 'walked'. Same days activities, last Thursday, was 2,354 TDEE w/o adjusting calories for walking but did add gym HR monitor. Would hills matter? I live in Pittsburgh. You never walk on a flat surface. Either up and or down. Just curious that its so off for me.

MandaLeigh123

Also, I do have rest days where TDEE is even lower, quite a bit, so I just dont understand how I am balancing out to 2850+/- a day.

heybales

Incline and extra weight Fitbit isn't aware of, so it attempts to figure out why the extra impact, should result in steps appearing to be more from running than walking.
Incline is really bad.
Going up is less impact than flat, and shorter strides - to Fitbit appears easier, less distance, less calorie.
Going down is more impact than flat, so appears to be longer, more calorie burn.
Exactly opposite of what really is happening.

MandaLeigh123

I'm not overally concerned about it I guess I am just glad I didnt go off fit bit numbers for estimating TDEE or I would only be eating 1600-2100 cal/day.