Fitbit adjustments

Gena575
Gena575 Posts: 224 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
This may be the mental death of me. I mostly want to wrap my head around all these numbers. This is long, I'm sorry.

I'm female, 41, 5'5" and 215 (down from 250). I work 5 days a week in a big box retailer, walking, lifting, climbing ladders 7 to 8 hrs per day. I average 12k-14k steps on work days. Off days I average 7k. I walk at about 3mp 3-5 days a week for 1-2 miles. I've set mfp to lightly active, enabled negative adjustments, and synced my Charge Hr.

To lose 1.5/week mfp gives me 1570. Which would approximate my maintenance/tdee at 2320. Fitbit estimates it at 2645 as my daily goal of calories to burn. Ok, close enough considering I'm likely toward the high side of lightly active.

Libra has my 3 month trend as losing just over 2lbs/week or 1089 calories per day deficit. Which matches fairly well with Fitbit's tdee and what I've been eating (average 1650/day).

The kicker is on work days I often burn, according to Fitbit, well over 3000. Non work days it's less, but I usually hit 23-2500. Again, averages out to the 2645.

What I can't wrap my head around is the adjustment like yesterday of nearly 1100. Most work days I'm getting 800-1000 extra. Off days it varies but never negative unless I'm sick and slug like. It does start off daily with negative, so I know that part is working.

I'm not sure I want to change my calorie intake. I feel good, have energy and am not walking around hungry. Loss for the past month has slowed considerably, and not sure why, but it's picking back up. I think it's partially hormonal as my cycle was odd this month as well. But I also fear that those insanely low net calorie days are working against me. (No, I don't buy starvation mode!) I just want to lose steady and safe, not lose the really nice muscle my legs have from years of surplus and working. My calves are gorgeous now with some of the fat layer gone! Maybe I just need head pats that I'm doing this right?

Replies

  • daniip_la
    daniip_la Posts: 678 Member
    If your calorie expenditure for a day is 3,000kcal, you should be eating 2,000kcal that day. You shouldn't be losing more than 2lbs/week at your weight, or you'll end up losing even more muscle than what comes with a safe rate of weight loss.
  • GauchoMark
    GauchoMark Posts: 1,804 Member
    It sounds like you are doing it right. If you are using an activity monitor and have negative adjustments enabled, then it doesn't matter what activity level you choose - it will adjust it up or down to match the measured activity.

    That said, you can eat until your "Calories Remaining" is zero, but don't forcefeed yourself - if you aren't hungry, don't eat the extra calories. A few days like that and you WILL get hungry, at which point, eat up. You can even go over one day as long as you keep an eye on your weekly calories.
  • Gena575
    Gena575 Posts: 224 Member
    daniip_la wrote: »
    If your calorie expenditure for a day is 3,000kcal, you should be eating 2,000kcal that day. You shouldn't be losing more than 2lbs/week at your weight, or you'll end up losing even more muscle than what comes with a safe rate of weight loss.

    That's part of my fear. But then I fear stalling out too. I wish I fully trusted the Fitbit or even could accurately gauge where on mfp's activity scale I fell. Heck, even the 50 hundred tdee calculators confuse me. I do think I'm over thinking all of it and possibly have too much data lol!
  • Gena575
    Gena575 Posts: 224 Member
    GauchoMark wrote: »
    It sounds like you are doing it right. If you are using an activity monitor and have negative adjustments enabled, then it doesn't matter what activity level you choose - it will adjust it up or down to match the measured activity.

    That said, you can eat until your "Calories Remaining" is zero, but don't forcefeed yourself - if you aren't hungry, don't eat the extra calories. A few days like that and you WILL get hungry, at which point, eat up. You can even go over one day as long as you keep an eye on your weekly calories.

    Part of my issue is the tracker's energy out seems inflated? It's not yet 5pm and I'm already over 2500 burned for the day. 14k steps.

    And I do get hungry for meals. And of course I could eat more...I was GOOD at that lol! But I'm not walking around hungry all day in the least.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    Well I wouldn't put TOO much faith into the absolute accuracy in these calculators and activity trackers, there is definately a fudge factor in there. Just going to have to pick and approach and do that approach consistantly for a while (a few months) and track your progress in terms of weight and see if that ends up matching your expectations, being under your expectations or above your expectations and then with that actual result adjust accordingly.

    So my question to you is how long have you been tracking in this manner and keeping your diet consistant? Has it been long enough to determine how your body is responding? If so go off what is actually happening to you and don't overthink the trackers too much (I fall into that pit myself). If it hasn't been long enough yet then keep at it and see where you end up in a few months.

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