calories from Fitbit-do you eat them back?

LernRach

I aim to do 10-15000 steps a day and the fitbit/MFP is giving me over 1,000 calories back to eat. does this make sense? Should I eat them back? In the past when I have used MFP, i ate back half the calories I burnt in the gym as indicated by my Polar HRM. But that was only gym stuff, now I obviously wear Fitbit all the time...

Any thoughts?

patrikc333

no at all

I get normally 600-1500 cal from fitbit, mostly from walking (it's pretty accurate for running exercise if compared to HRM(, and I'm not eating them back, I'll gain

I stick to MFP numbers

LernRach

Have you tried eating them back and you gained, or you are just assuming?

patrikc333

LernRach wrote: »

Have you tried eating them back and you gained, or you are just assuming?

I am maintaining from last October sticking to MFP, so I assume that if I eat 1000 cal more per day I'll gain

LernRach

hmmm ye that makes sense!!! oh I like my food too much!!!!

earlnabby

LernRach wrote: »

I aim to do 10-15000 steps a day and the fitbit/MFP is giving me over 1,000 calories back to eat. does this make sense? Should I eat them back? In the past when I have used MFP, i ate back half the calories I burnt in the gym as indicated by my Polar HRM. But that was only gym stuff, now I obviously wear Fitbit all the time...

Any thoughts?

How long have you had your Fitbit? Do you log any exercise separately? The burn numbers seem a bit high to me. I currently weigh in the 190's (5'7') and have MFP set to sedentary. I get about 400 calories to eat back if I do 10k steps and I eat about 90% of them back.

The longer you have your Fitbit, the more accurate it will be. I tested mine. The TDEE it was giving me was averaging about 2600 calories over a 30 day period so I made sure my logging was accurate for 30 days and figured out my TDEE using my real life numbers (calories eaten plus 3500 calories for each pound lost in that same period, divided by the number of days you are using to calculate. 28-30 days are usually the best to use). My "real life" TDEE calculated out to 2541. Fitbit was accurate within less than 100 calories which I think is very accurate. To lose, I am currently eating around 1800-1900 calories.

I have MFP set to lose 1 lb a week. I eat back 90% of my Fitbit calories and I have averaged a little over 1.25 lb a week by eating them back so it does NOT slow the weight loss, assuming you are logging accurately.

WinoGelato

I eat mine back and I changed my activity level in MFP to lightly active, then active, after getting advice here that averaging 10-15K steps really isn't sedentary. It increased my baseline cals so that my exercise adjustments aren't so big (still same total cals at the end of the day but easier to plan for and to trust!).

The other caveat I have is that I see a downward adjustment at the end of the day when I stop moving and then go to bed so overnight the cals I ended up with can change by 50-100 or so, so I try to leave at least a 100 cal buffer on the table at the end of the day.

I lost my weight eating back the FitBit cals and am currently maintaining with this approach.

LernRach

I have had my fitbit for 18months but have recently had a baby so I'm probably more active now as I am walking more with baby etc. I am very careful with my logging (I am normally although today has been a rubbish eating day!!!!) Will try with eating back, meaning I can eat much more than normal, see what happens after 2 weeks...

dianaiku

I ate them back last week and this week I have suffered a 1-2 pound gain so I won't do it any longer.
On another note, 1000 calories? You walk a lot! With fitbit and an hour of walking daily I usually only get 400-500 calories.

auddii

dianaiku wrote: »

I ate them back last week and this week I have suffered a 1-2 pound gain so I won't do it any longer.
On another note, 1000 calories? You walk a lot! With fitbit and an hour of walking daily I usually only get 400-500 calories.

1-2lbs in a week is most likely water fluctuations or just an increase due to you having more food in your system in general.

I don't link my fitbit to MFP, but the average TDEE follows very closely to what I have seen when I have been tracking my food and weight very diligently for 6 weeks or so. I did notice that the fitbit would over count steps (I've hit 10,000 in the car and while washing my face). But, it also doesn't account for weight lifting well, which I do 4 times per week. Apparently, since the TDEE it gave me is so close to what I observed, those two facts cancel each other out.

I would start eating back 2/3 of them, and make sure you are being very accurate with tracking your food and weight. Do that for 4-6 weeks and see if you lose faster or slower than expected. Then adjust as necessary.

nyponbell

I have my Fitbit Charge HR linked to MFP and although I do use the extra calories from it to "cover" the additional food I'm eating but eating them "all" back would kind of defeat the purpose of trying to lose weight? I mean then you'd be maintaining, and it doesn't sound as if you are.

That said, I think I need to eat back a bit more than I am on more active days.

auddii

nyponbell wrote: »

I have my Fitbit Charge HR linked to MFP and although I do use the extra calories from it to "cover" the additional food I'm eating but eating them "all" back would kind of defeat the purpose of trying to lose weight? I mean then you'd be maintaining, and it doesn't sound as if you are.

That said, I think I need to eat back a bit more than I am on more active days.

I take about 700 calories off my TDEE (according to fitbit) so that I'll lose about 1.5lbs per week (with fluctuations of course).

WinoGelato

nyponbell wrote: »

I have my Fitbit Charge HR linked to MFP and although I do use the extra calories from it to "cover" the additional food I'm eating but eating them "all" back would kind of defeat the purpose of trying to lose weight? I mean then you'd be maintaining, and it doesn't sound as if you are.

That said, I think I need to eat back a bit more than I am on more active days.

When I was losing, I used MFP to set my goal (either the default 0.5 lb/week or a custom goal with a percent off my TDEE). I set FitBit up for the same - lose 0.5 lb/week. Both of them adjusted accordingly so that even if my total calories burned was 2250 - the adjustments, if I ate them all back, would only take me up to an even 2000, so that I was still at an appropriate deficit.

nyponbell

Oh I know that on MFP all the added calories from exercise is excluding the deficit you have built in (I too have the same on MFP and Fitbit, which I think was automatic when they synced, but I can't remember). But what I do, to help motivate me more, is write down in a paper journal my total burn - my total calories in; so that I have the built in deficit + any remaining exercise calories listed fully. This helps me calculate how much I *should* be losing, to see how accurate I am in my logging and how trustworthy my Fitbit is.

I realise now it may have sounded as if I meant that eating all the calories you get on MFP would put you in maintenance, not the total calories. I realise now that's probably what the OP meant though; just the MFP part. But I'm so used to doing this now that I immediately think of "all the exercise calories" as "all the calories burned according to Fitbit"

LernRach

nyponbell wrote: »

Oh I know that on MFP all the added calories from exercise is excluding the deficit you have built in (I too have the same on MFP and Fitbit, which I think was automatic when they synced, but I can't remember). But what I do, to help motivate me more, is write down in a paper journal my total burn - my total calories in; so that I have the built in deficit + any remaining exercise calories listed fully. This helps me calculate how much I *should* be losing, to see how accurate I am in my logging and how trustworthy my Fitbit is.

I realise now it may have sounded as if I meant that eating all the calories you get on MFP would put you in maintenance, not the total calories. I realise now that's probably what the OP meant though; just the MFP part. But I'm so used to doing this now that I immediately think of "all the exercise calories" as "all the calories burned according to Fitbit"

No no, I meant calories on MFP not the Fitbit or else I really would be gaining!!!!
TbH, past couple of days, I have been horrific on my diet, like really really bad.... my nephew has bacterial meningtitis and septicaemia, and whilst I know how bad it is to stress eat bla bla, I been doing it in full force this week!!!!
From Sunday I will start again, eat back 2/3 of my exercise calories from FitBit and see how far it gets me... I am super active so hopefully the damage I have done this week won't be difficult to rectify