should both mfp and fitbit be set at sedentary

Christine_72

I left fitbit set to personalised and have mfp set to sedentary. Should I also have fitbit set to sedentary?
Sorry about all these simple questions lately, I just prefer to check with experienced fitbitters before I start fiddling with settings.
I'm super good at second guessing my self

editorgrrl

I ignore Fitbit's calorie goal & follow MFP's.

Set your activity level to sedentary, and enable negative calorie adjustments: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

NancyN795

It depends on what works for you. The "Sedentary" setting in Fitbit means something different than the "Sedentary" setting in MFP. For MFP it means "I have a desk job and/or spend a large portion of my day sitting, so assume a fairly small energy expenditure over and above my BMR." For Fitbit it means "Assume I'll be burning at my BMR for the rest of the day." Therefore, the Fitbit sedentary setting gives a lower eating goal than MFP, especially early in the day.

If you need to plan ahead and your days tend to be similar to each other, then the Personalized setting in Fitbit is fine. It can give you a good idea, early in the day, how many calories you'll end up with at the end of the day. Also, some people may find the low calorie estimate that Fitbit gives first thing in the morning when set to Sedentary to be demotivating. Others object to the fact that this value can be lower than 1200 (it's basically your BMR minus your deficit, so very low) at the beginning of the day. For me, it functions as a challenge - I've got to move in order to make the number big enough. But, I always go by MFP for how much I can eat.

For someone without a Fitbit (or other reasonably accurate activity tracker), getting the MFP activity level correct is critical. In that case, that setting is the only input that MFP has for estimating calorie burn outside of logged exercise. For someone with a Fitbit, the MFP activity setting merely gives a starting point and adjustments are made from there based on the data from Fitbit, so if it is set too low, the user sees positive calorie adjustments. If it is set too high, the user will see negative calorie adjustments.

You can change the Fitbit setting from Personalized to Sedentary and back as much as you want. It doesn't affect anything except the current remaining calorie estimate in Fitbit as far as I can tell. Changing the activity level in MFP affects much more, so I've set mine to Sedentary and I leave it there, because that works for me.

Christine_72

Awesomeness. Thankyou so much for your detailed replies. Much appreciated

heybales

The only thing to add to Nancy's great write up - is it depends on frequently you sync too.

If you sync frequently, much more possible with smartphone syncing now compared to just a couple years ago when those options came out - either option really doesn't matter, as your daily burn is constantly correctly according to what your device reports.
Ultimate eating goal is only change.

But if you don't sync frequently, it will make a big difference to MFP to follow the eating goal.
Because Fitbit still reports a daily calorie burn to MFP every so often, and that amount without any device syncs is based on that option on Fitbit.

So sedentary reported to MFP without device syncs means you'll be getting negative calorie adjustments all day from MFP until you do sync - then you will be surprised with a whopper in the evening when you finally sync.

Or other direction is possible if set to Personalized, if the day doesn't turn out like other days normally do for activity, big positive adjustment becomes a lot less.

So if you sync frequently, doesn't matter.
if you don't, could.

Christine_72

Haha I sync every 20 or so minutes :bigsmile: