CICO or Net?

Clo747

That question probably doesn't really even make any sense... I suppose that's because I'm mega confused about how I'm meant to view my daily calorie intake. MFP has given me 1450. I exercise during the week, just 30 minute at home dvds (Jillian, whoop!), and I wear a fitbit averaging between 8000-10000 steps a day. Now, when I started I was unsure of what to set my activity levels at, so I chose sedentary and just logged all exercise separately. But then I noticed I only netted about 600 calories after eating 1450 due to the exercise. I guess my question is, is this what I'm meant to be doing or do I need to be eating up to 1450 NET? I have, subsequently, started trying to hit at least 1200 net for the day, but thought maybe you more clever bunnies could offer me some advice.

CJsf1t

You have to eat back your exercise calories. However mfp tends to overestimate calories burned so eat only 50% of your exercise cals back. So if the calorie burned is 300 then eat your daily limit 1450+150 exercise cals.
Hope this was helpful

stevencloser

You're supposed to eat to 1450 Net.
Now here comes the But:
The exercise calories from all those trackers are pretty inaccurate, even the expensive ones, so you're adviced to only eat about half of them back.
So when your exercise says you burned 850, only eat around 400 back.

Clo747

Very helpful! Thank you both! x

Clo747

Quick followup, so is my fitbit also overestimating calories burned?

stevencloser

Very likely, yeah.

Unknown

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SezxyStef

Clo747 wrote: »

Quick followup, so is my fitbit also overestimating calories burned?

I have an activity tracker and what I did was set my activity to sedentary and enabled negative adjustments...

I am set to 1500 calories a day and eat back some of my exercise calories given to me from my Jawbone...I ensure I am at least 1200 net which is typically 1800 gross...

editorgrrl

Clo747 wrote: »

Quick followup, so is my fitbit also overestimating calories burned?

I lost the weight & have maintained for a year by doing the following:

Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit

Enable negative calorie adjustments: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

Set your goal to .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided

Log exercise in Fitbit—never MFP.

You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users

Clo747

@editorgrrl My accounts are connected and I did enable negative calorie adjustments because you'd recommended that to someone else on another thread I was reading...
I've never been told about logging exercise in Fitbit, though. Why is that?

Clo747

@SezxyStef That sounds like what I've been doing since having that day of 600 some odd cals net. I guess I'm just a bit concerned about going too far the other way and overestimating calorie burn. Especially as people are saying the Fitbit maybe isn't all that accurate. I do change the estimated burn from my workout. I do Jillian Michaels workouts and she gave a basic formula for gauging how much you were burning and its WELL below what MFP were trying to give me credit for, so I always just manually adjust that one. But if the steps are really far off, too, I'm afraid in trying to get to at least 1200 net, I'll end up overeating.

editorgrrl

Clo747 wrote: »

@editorgrrl My accounts are connected and I did enable negative calorie adjustments because you'd recommended that to someone else on another thread I was reading...
I've never been told about logging exercise in Fitbit, though. Why is that?

You can log your exercise either in Fitbit or in MFP—never both. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time. If you want your Fitbit exercise to appear in your MFP newsfeed, post a status update.

As I said, I never logged any exercise in MFP, and I lost the weight & have maintained. It'll take trial & error to find what works for you.

Christine_72

I'm at maintenance and i eat most, sometimes all of the calories my fitbit gives me. I haven't put on an ounce. So it's pretty spot on for me. If anything, it may underestimate, which I'm fine with.