Quick question on sedentary vs lightly active WITH Fitbit

LivingtheLeanDream

@DilDE yes the trackers that are worn on the wrist do pick up hand movements I found this when I had the Flex, when I switched to the One I realised how much harder I had to work to get my average steps in and also it would have estimated me having a higher TDEE, the One seems much more accurate and I think thats all to do with it only taking into account steps.

My hubby has a Charge and we had a laugh one day he was driving a tractor all day, he had 30000 steps from sitting in the tractor!!

DiIDE

I will do more research when I replace my charge. What is the One you have now?

LivingtheLeanDream

DiIDE wrote: »

I will do more research when I replace my charge. What is the One you have now?

It's called the Fitbit One, I like it as it's discreet and not on my wrist - I never liked the look of my Flex when I was dressed up, it looked wrong with a dress lol

I think the other wrist worn fitbit ie The Charge might not be so bad with hand movement but I'm not totally sure about that either.

Christine_72

DiIDE wrote: »

I will do more research when I replace my charge. What is the One you have now?

Yep I'd stick with the fitbit one or zip. I'll never get a wrist worn one because of everything mentioned here, plus you pay a lot extra for the heart monitor devices which would also be a waste of time for me as the only exercise i do is walking.

WinoGelato

I have a Flex. I average about 15K steps a day (walking) and do some light weights a few times a week. My cals burned according to FitBit is about 2300.

When I first got mine I was set at sedentary and I would get huge exercise adjustments. I got good advice from HeyBales that if I was averaging >10k steps (at that time) I was more likely lightly active, so I changed my activity level and got a higher starting baseline of calories with lower exercise adjustments, which I felt was more indicative of my true exercise and not just the steps I get in daily life. Now that I get even more steps I'm set at active, so my maintenance cals in MFP are about 1900 and my adjustments are around 300-400 cals/day. I eat them back and am maintaining my 30 lb loss fairly easily.

I think others also explained this but yes, FitBit tries to estimate your calorie burn throughout the day... So when I wake up it is using the 6 or so hours from midnight to when my alarm goes off estimating extremely low activity and I have a negative adjustment. I work out in the morning so then I get a bump, but then when I get to work and am sitting at my desk it goes back down again. It fluctuates throughout the day but overall I find it to be very accurate.

Hope this helps.

Christine_72

@WinoGelato Being set at active, do you lose many calories from the time you stop exercising to the time you go to bed?
I'm only set to lightly active, and i lose around 300 calories by the next morning, as my activity levels drops to sedentary levels at around 5pm.

I hope I'm explaining this clearly...

WinoGelato

christinev297 wrote: »

@WinoGelato Being set at active, do you lose many calories from the time you stop exercising to the time you go to bed?
I'm only set to lightly active, and i lose around 300 calories by the next morning, as my activity levels drops to sedentary levels at around 5pm.

I hope I'm explaining this clearly...

I know exactly what you mean. Depends what time I "stop" for the day, I usually plop myself on the couch with a glass of wine about 9pm, and go to bed around 11pm. I check it before I go to bed and then it drops around 50-100 cals. I actually used to think it was worse but doesn't seem like the decline is as significant as I remember a while back. Once I knew to expect it I just factored that into my eating plan for the day so I leave a little buffer.

Christine_72

Thanks 50-100 calories is definitely workable. I thought it would have been a lot more than that.