Too many calories?

HaleCry
HaleCry Posts: 387 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi everyone. Not sure if this is in the right section!

So, I've done almost 10,000 steps today so far, and my Fitbit has synced with MFP and MFP has given me 497 calories worth of exercise. Does this seem accurate? It just seems a little much for just walking?

Thanks for your help!

Replies

  • Rocknut53
    Rocknut53 Posts: 1,794 Member
    As others will tell you on here, those numbers are not precise and recommend eating back only part of those calories. You will figure out as you continue this journey how much you can eat back and still continue to lose weight, if that's your goal.
  • Chef_Barbell
    Chef_Barbell Posts: 6,644 Member
    From what I understand that is your total calories for the day, not just for exercise. I could be wrong though.
  • HaleCry
    HaleCry Posts: 387 Member
    Rocknut53 wrote: »
    As others will tell you on here, those numbers are not precise and recommend eating back only part of those calories. You will figure out as you continue this journey how much you can eat back and still continue to lose weight, if that's your goal.
    Thank you. I don't usually eat them back just wanted to know if they were accurate.
    Chef_Barbell wrote: »
    From what I understand that is your total calories for the day, not just for exercise. I could be wrong though.
    It was under the exercise bit. I have much more carioles than that left for the day. But thank you :)
  • Chef_Barbell
    Chef_Barbell Posts: 6,644 Member
    HaleCry wrote: »
    Rocknut53 wrote: »
    As others will tell you on here, those numbers are not precise and recommend eating back only part of those calories. You will figure out as you continue this journey how much you can eat back and still continue to lose weight, if that's your goal.
    Thank you. I don't usually eat them back just wanted to know if they were accurate.
    Chef_Barbell wrote: »
    From what I understand that is your total calories for the day, not just for exercise. I could be wrong though.
    It was under the exercise bit. I have much more carioles than that left for the day. But thank you :)

    NP... I wish activity trackers were more focused on being accurate instead of just looking good. RIP BodyMedia FIT. *pours one out*
  • 25lbsorbust
    25lbsorbust Posts: 225 Member
    Do you have your fitness level on fitbit set to 'custom', and your fitness level on MFP set to sedentary? If so, I've had minor success eating them all back, but definitely a slower than normal weight loss. Usually what I do is look at the measured 'walks' on FitBit (I have it set so that 10min or longer counts as a walk) and eat only those back.

    But def keep it linked for negative adjustments sake!
  • bagge72
    bagge72 Posts: 1,377 Member
    That number won't be accurate until the very end of the day. It is giving you 497 based on it's best guess on how many calories you will burn the rest of the day, and you just doing nothing the rest of the day that number will go down, if you do some more walking it will stay the same or go up. I would just eat a portion of those calories back.
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
    If memory serves me correctly on average 10,000 steps translates into about 5 miles of walking. Assuming you're waling on relatively level terrain 497 cal sounds quite high ( you burn -net- about 30 cal per 100lbs of body weight for every mile you walk). Not sure what your weight is but it's probably closer to half of that.

    Walking: .30 x weight in lbs x distance in miles (source Runners World)
  • HaleCry
    HaleCry Posts: 387 Member
    bagge72 wrote: »
    That number won't be accurate until the very end of the day. It is giving you 497 based on it's best guess on how many calories you will burn the rest of the day, and you just doing nothing the rest of the day that number will go down, if you do some more walking it will stay the same or go up. I would just eat a portion of those calories back.
    I never knew that, thanks!


    BrianSharpe wrote: »
    If memory serves me correctly on average 10,000 steps translates into about 5 miles of walking. Assuming you're waling on relatively level terrain 497 cal sounds quite high ( you burn -net- about 30 cal per 100lbs of body weight for every mile you walk). Not sure what your weight is but it's probably closer to half of that.

    Walking: .30 x weight in lbs x distance in miles (source Runners World)
    I weigh 167lbs at 5'3".. so I burnt roughly 250ish cal?

  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
    HaleCry wrote: »
    I weigh 167lbs at 5'3".. so I burnt roughly 250ish cal?

    Sounds about right! (and these are net - the calories directly attributable to the activity)
  • heatherheyns
    heatherheyns Posts: 144 Member
    It is not based on steps exactly. It is based on the difference between what MFP thinks you will burn based on the information you put in and what fitbit says you have burned so far, then taking that and guessing what you will burn all day.

    For example, if MFP says you will burn 2000 calories today based on your height, weight, sex, and activity level, but fitbit calculates you have burned 600 calories by 9 am, then MFP will say "Hey, she's burning more calories than we thought, and we estimate she'll butrn 2500 calories today, not 2000" and you end up with an adjustment of 500 calories. Those numbers are obviously wrong, just used for a simple explanation. So you were not given those calories for steps exactly, just based on what fitbit believes you've burned in total for the day. This often happens if a person says they are sedentary but aren't, which means fitbit will give you much higher daily burns than MFP and you'll see large adjustments.

    Now, whether those numbers are accurate or not depends on the person. Some people have found the fitbit numbers to be very accurate, and some have found them to be totally wrong. Only you can say, through careful logging and tracking, what the case is for you. =D
  • sllm1
    sllm1 Posts: 2,130 Member
    I have used the FitBit adjustment and MFP for ages and calculated my actual loss versus predicted loss in a spreadsheet during that time, and the numbers are on point for me.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    I have been using a FitBit for a few years now and it takes some getting used to especially understanding how it syncs with MFP.

    As @bagge72 said, FitBit prorates your calories throughout the day. Additionally, I find that FitBit gets more accurate as time goes on at predicting your calorie burn, or maybe I just learned to trust it more as time went on. I have always eaten back all of my calories from FitBit and was able to lose weight as planned and am now maintaining with this approach.

    I will use myself as an example. I'm 5'2 and when I first got my FitBit I had my profile on MFP set at sedentary activity level, losing 1 lb/week, and was walking 3-4 times a week. I was surprised at how high my exercise adjustments were from FitBit. Sometimes up to 500 cals/day, like what you are seeing, just from walking. I started reading in the FitBit group and asked some knowledgeable users about if that was too high, just like you did. They helped me realize that averaging 10K steps/day really isn't considered sedentary, even though I have a desk job and was following the recommendation of MFP's set up. So I changed my activity level to lightly active, which gave me a higher calorie target to begin with, and I enabled negative calorie adjustments, but I would get smaller exercise adjustments, and I found them to be more representative of my true, purposeful "exercise", not all the steps I get running around after two little boys. After a few months when I got within about 15 lbs of my goal weight I changed my goal to lose 0.5 lb/week but I was increasing my activity level and was averaging more like 12-14K steps/day. So at that point I changed my setting to Active (so even more calories to start with) and I wouldn't even usually get a positive exercise adjustment till I got upwards of 8-10K calories.

    That's still where I am today, although I'm set at maintenance. My FitBit estimates I burn average 2200 cals/day, and I eat back all the calories, and have been successfully maintaining for well over a year now with that approach.

    So bottom line, it may seem like a big adjustment right now, and you may want to only eat back a portion of them until you get a bit more confident in it, but I have found it to be incredibly accurate and most people on here do as well.
  • firef1y72
    firef1y72 Posts: 1,579 Member
    I find my Surge pretty accurate and depending on your weight that 500 Calories for 10000 steps sounds about right as it would lift you from sedentary to active/very active and the adjust isn't just about how many steps you've taken it's also about how quickly you've taken them and if you have a HR model what your heart rate was doing. I tend to take around 21000 steps and am credited 1000-2000 Calories depending on whether I've been for a run or to the gym or otherwise been extra active in bursts rather than just pootling about.

Categories