Re-posting: eat back Fitbit automatic calorie adjustments?

photosarah

I didn't get any responses last night, so I am trying again. I have had a Fitbit for a while, but just recently synched it up to MFP. As a result, MFP has been adding an extra 600 calories (minimum) to each of my days (I live in NYC so I walk about 15,000 steps/day). I am really unclear as to what these calories mean - am I supposed to eat them back? Or should I only eat back a percentage (that's what I normally do with regular exercise logging)? Or should I just ignore these numbers? Any advice would be much appreciated.

msurads06

I usually eat back most of my calorie adjustment just like I do with exercise. My activity level varies pretty significantly from day to day with some days being sedentary and some being pretty active. I have my account set for negative adjustments so on days I am less active I get to eat fewer calories. Its pretty rare that I end up with a negative adjustment for the day but having been sick this week, there were a few days where I was negative for the day.

What is your activity level set at? If you are consistently getting 600 extra calories a day, you may want to think about upping your MFP activity level which would also increase your calorie allowance but decrease the extra calories added by fit bit. I have my activity level set to sedentary because I hate to see negative adjustments but I rarely have 600 adjustment from fitbit.

If you take the bus/subway you may want to check to make sure that it isn't adding additional steps you haven't done. In my in-town driving this isn't a big deal but when I drive to a nearby town for grocery shopping it can sometimes add 3,000 steps due to bumpy roads. I use an android phone app called drivebit to help correct this, though you could just keep an eye on the start/stop time and log that in fitbit to correct for this tendency.

Hope some of this helps.

lyssad86

I'm doing the TDEE method where you're not supposed to eat back your calories--unfortunately, when I could see the adjustments on my screen due to TDEE, I was more tempted to eat them back and often did. I've unlinked my accounts for now, just so I don't eat back my TDEE calories and get past my weight loss plateau.