New Person Question

aallen138

Hey everyone!

I am new to this. I bought a FitBit Charge HR yesterday and just started tracking meals on MFP. I see a ton of "eating back earned calories" discussions, but I am still confused so hopefully someone can help me. I have MFP set to 1200 calories/day because that is what I want to eat on days I do not exercise. However, I exercised today and MFP gave me approximately 700 additional calories to eat today to get to 1200. Am I supposed to eat all or some of those calories? My goal is to lose about 1.5 pounds per week. Thank you so much for your help!

ASKyle

What are your stats? Height? Weight? Goals? I'm assuming you're male?

soulofgrace

Eat back 50% since calorie burns are an estimate. Tweak as necessary.

Monozelle

I too am having the same issue with my Fitbit Surge. This morning I did some sprints which would have only burned about 180 to 220 calories, but I am seeing 1326 extra calories earned. Is this some sort of glitch between MFP and Fitbit?

aallen138

ASKyle wrote: »

What are your stats? Height? Weight? Goals? I'm assuming you're male?

Female 5'8, 179 lbs, 24 years old.

Monozelle, I'm glad it's not just me. I just want to make sure I'm not overeating and relying too much on calorie estimates, but I also don't want my body to think its starving.

Liftng4Lis

Do you have negative calorie adjustments enabled?

whmscll

When I was set to 1200 I would estimate my exercise calories very conservatively and then eat all of the extra calories MFP gave me for exercise. It did not work for me to have "uneaten" calories showing up each day, if that makes sense.

Sued0nim

as a 5'8 woman I would say stick to 1200 plus eat back half for a few weeks at the start but then move to 1500 ..plus the 50% exercise

a 2lb a week weight loss is too high for your weight - you should be looking at 1-1.5lb a week

I lost most of my weight eating between 1500-1800 but appreciate that at the start it's easier to follow a very strict cut as you get used to weighing and logging all your food

good luck

mappeal67

Nice advice.

Yi5hedr3

Don't believe the Fitbit. It more than doubles actual calories burned.

aallen138

Thanks everyone for the advice! Yesterday I ate approximately half of the exercise calories back and I will continue to do that for now.