Fitbit sabotage??
RachaelWinston
Posts: 41 Member
Has anyone had their weight loss counter balanced or even straight up sabotaged by using a Fitbit for calories in vs. out? It says I have a deficit and I have only really been using it to count steps and calories from that so how accurate is this?
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I'm not 100% sure what you're asking. If you have Fitbit synced with MFP, it's totally possible that you will get an adjustment based on the activity that Fitbit tracks. That's the whole point of the sync.
It counts your steps. If your activity goes over the activity estimated for your activity level, you will begin to see adjustments. Is this what you're seeing?
This isn't sabotage.0 -
Yes, it is sabotage. Ignore the calorie adjustment completely, it is ridiculously inflated.0
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janejellyroll wrote: »
Never heard anyone say it is accurate. So, you eat all the calories fitbit says you should and still lose weight?0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »
Add me to this list as well. Based on my rate of weight loss and my calculated calorie deficit, my FitBit numbers are right on.
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i go by tdee but find (most of the time) fitbit to be, if anything, slightly more accurate than the mfp calculations regarding calories burned.
no, you should not eat all of them back (whether from mfp or fitbit) as they are still inflated. if you are using the NEAT (mfp) method, you should be able to eat back roughly half.
this is assuming your input activity level is correct.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »
Never heard anyone say it is accurate. So, you eat all the calories fitbit says you should and still lose weight?
I eat back all my activity adjustments from my Fitbit. I'm currently maintaining, but I lost weight when I was doing this and am maintaining doing this. I've been doing it since last July. I'm not the only person -- there are several other people around the forums who eat their Fitbit activity adjustments and still lose or maintain as expected.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »
Never heard anyone say it is accurate. So, you eat all the calories fitbit says you should and still lose weight?
Yes. I have had my FitBit for about 2.5 years. I used it to help manage my weight loss, eating back all of the adjustments I got from it on MFP, and am now using it to successfully maintain my weight doing the same.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »
Never heard anyone say it is accurate. So, you eat all the calories fitbit says you should and still lose weight?
I got my fitbit a few months after I started maintaining my weight, but I eat all of the exercise calories that it gives me and it has worked for me for the last 8 months. Most of my exercise calories are from walking/running or volleyball.0 -
Mine's accurate. I'm even more sedentary than I thought.0
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I do not find the calorie adjustment from Fitbit to be inflated AT ALL. On a day I get my full 10,000 steps, my Fitbit might say I burned about 200 calories more than if I sat on my rear end the whole day. I actually manually log all my exercise and let those higher calorie burn estimates override what my Fitbit said.
My Fitbit usually says I burn about 1800 calories on a typical day (averaging 10,000 steps), but in reality -- I'm eating more like 2200-2400 and still maintaining my goal weight easily.0 -
I never found mine to be inflated. As long as I was accurate in my calories in, I never had an issue losing weight while eating back all or at least most of my exercise calories.0
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janejellyroll wrote: »
Never heard anyone say it is accurate. So, you eat all the calories fitbit says you should and still lose weight?
Yep. I eat every one (at least within the week, I calrie cycle). Actually, Fitbit UNDERestimates for me, to the tune of ~150-200cals/day. Had one for 18 months now. I lose slightly faster than expected, and eat over my MFP goal to maintain.0 -
Mine is super accurate as well. I have mine synced with MFP set to sedentary and use MFP to log all my food, and I log non-step exercise (bike, swim, etc) into the Fitbit app (and use it to track my runs as well.) It's helped me maintain/eat enough to support my activity level for several months now and I find it almost dead-on.0
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Thank you guys for all the input! I'm just trying to lose the last 10 pounds or so and didn't want to be messed up by the extra calories I'm getting to eat from more walking and such.0
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My Fitbit has been accurate thus far. There will always be a margin of error and nothing is perfect, but I suspect that some people who find it to be highly inaccurate to the tune of hundreds of calories are probably eating more than they think.0
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Fitbit underestimates for me too, but the easiest way to find out is really just to try and see what happens if you eat those calories back for a few weeks. But you have to be strict about your logging otherwise you will never find out.0
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I've been eating an average of 500 under total calories burned, per Fitbit, and losing an average of 1 pound per week.0
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Only the Zip was inaccurate for me. TDEE was accurate with the Ultra and One.0
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I do not find the calorie adjustment from Fitbit to be inflated AT ALL. On a day I get my full 10,000 steps, my Fitbit might say I burned about 200 calories more than if I sat on my rear end the whole day. I actually manually log all my exercise and let those higher calorie burn estimates override what my Fitbit said.
I wish my UP3 were this conservative. It's giving me about 900 EXTRA calories per 10k steps right now.
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Sabotage???0
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Mine is accurate, with loss and I'm currently maintaining. Make sure that you have your MFP calories and your Fitbit calories the same. The longer you wear your Fitbit the more accurate it becomes. Also, make sure that you've set your stride on the Fitbit correctly (under settings) for more accuracy. Nothing is totally accurate, it's all a guesstimate but if you're not losing it might be because of inaccurate logging. We've all been there especially with the last few pounds which take forever to disappear.0
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Mine mostly underestimates. I eat back the adjustments it sends to MFP when I'm hungry, but there are plenty of days when it tells me I haven't even reached what most formulas say is my BMR- yet I'm eating more than that and still losing.
I love it for steps and flights, I mostly ignore the calories.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »
Never heard anyone say it is accurate. So, you eat all the calories fitbit says you should and still lose weight?
Yep. I have. The zip and flex underestimated for me by an average of 200 calories a day. The Surge has been much closer to being accurate for me. I've been using various Fitbit models since 2013 to improve my activity level and adjust my calories accordingly.0 -
I find it to slightly overestimate, but this is based on NOTHING other than my gut feeling.
I did a one hour spinning class and my cardio is not very good atm and I'm out of shape. My Fitbit Charge HR told me I burned almost 630 calories which I could NOT believe. Sure, I was sweating as a pig, I gave it my all and couldn't even ride my bike home from the gym from exhaustion, but six HUNDRED?
No way, my gut tells me it can't be for real.
I ate 500 of those calories.
For other activities like walking, I find it to be very fair and give a precise calorie estimate.
Generally, I eat my FitBit calories because I would faint otherwise lol (I'm on 1200 calories). But for my spinning classes I eat around 500 of them, ignoring that my FitBit says I burned more. Even though I worked beyond hard, I don't believe I'm good enough to burn over six hundred, so yeah. But that's just my gut feeling.0 -
Today is your lucky day: Fitbit's TDEE estimation IS quite accurate and when I eat all the calories it says I do lose weight!
After 1.1 years of use, 5 DXA scans to account for body composition changes in addition to weight changes, and extensive contemplation, my Charge HR has proven to estimate TDEE with an error rate that has ranged from -0.5% to +5.5%. This assumes MFP logging perfection... which is unlikely.
Assume your Fitbit TDEE is correct. Track your weight trend changes by connecting your fitbit.com account to www.trendweight.com.
After you have a few weeks worth of data, compare your MFP-Fitbit estimated deficits to your Trendweight deficits and make decisions/adjustments based on the comparison.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »
Never heard anyone say it is accurate. So, you eat all the calories fitbit says you should and still lose weight?
I think you must not have been on here very long then!
I've had my Fitbit Charge HR for about seven months. The TDEE it gives me seems to be right on target.0 -
I have the fitbit One and find it very accurate. I log my food on MFP because I like the database here better, but go by what fitbit tells me for how much to eat. I have a tendency to stay the same weight for several days/week and then drop on the scale randomly one day - but my account is synced to Trendweight and I'm losing weight at the rate my deficit from fitbit says I should be losing, so that tells me that fitbit is very accurate.
I know my stride length on fitbit is wrong because the distances are off (especially when I have longer runs/walks), but since fitbit gives me calories based on steps I don't really pay much attention - I use my GPS watch or an app on my phone if I really want to know the correct distance.0 -
To maintain, I eat what my FitBit says to eat. I find it to be extremely accurate.0
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