Am I understanding this correctly? (Activity levels and adjustments)
blonditz
Posts: 83 Member
So I've had my activity level at lightly active, which I believe is accurate. But I tend to be more active early in the day. My fitbit is giving me large positive adjustments during the afternoon, then subtracting calories in the evening and after I go to bed. Which is driving me crazy. So if I change my activity level to sedentary I should start the day with less calories, get a bigger adjustment from fitbit, and come out with the same number of calories at the end of the day? But without that subtraction at the end of the day?
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. So if I change my activity level to sedentary I should start the day with less calories, get a bigger adjustment from fitbit, and come out with the same number of calories at the end of the day? But without that subtraction at the end of the day?
Yep, this is precisely why i changed back to sedentary from lightly active. I too am more active earlier in the day, plus i go to bed early.
I'm far from sedentary, i average 15-20k steps everyday, but i still lost close to 200 calories every single night, which made it pretty pointless getting the extra 250 calories at the lightly active setting. I still get the the high amount of steps and i still lose calories every night, but now it's only around 40 calories, which is manageable and doesn't make a difference either way.
Yes, you'll still end up with the same number of calories at the end of the day, but you wont be expected to remain lightly active all damn day and night up until midnight.
ETA: You'll start getting positive adjustments after around 2500 steps as opposed 5000ish at lightly active, and you'll wake up with a lower negative adjustment number when set at sedentary.
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I'm an early to bed, early to rise type, and find that after noting the adjustment over the course of several days, I have to leave about 100 calories to the green every day. I've set myself at sedentary and lightly active at different times, and if I'm not mistaken the only real difference is at what step level you start getting positive adjustments, but that's just me. Currently, I'm at lightly active and average 12K steps a day.0
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Thanks guys. I went ahead and changed my settings. My numbers seem close Yesterday wasn't a typical day, so it's a little hard to tell. Curious to see what happens to my numbers tomorrow.0
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At lightly active I usually got a positive adjustment around 5500. Yesterday it was around 3500. But yesterday was a lazy morning with a long walk in the afternoon, which always means a lower overall daily burn for me. I ended the day with 8400 steps and +105 calories.0
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Because I have a desk job, I have my activity level at sedentary, although I am averaging about 11k steps a day. I am in bed early and wake up early (too early to be legal). Having the sedentary activity level seems to work well with my day to day life.0
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Seems to be working much better. I'm not getting the annoying calories taken away at night anymore. Still getting used to seeing the huge adjustments and having to remind myself why they're so huge.0
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Seems to be working much better. I'm not getting the annoying calories taken away at night anymore. Still getting used to seeing the huge adjustments and having to remind myself why they're so huge.
Yay, thanks for coming back to update
For me, it's just so much easier and straightforward being set at sedentary... and less stressful!0 -
Between Fitbit and MFP: you will always lose a little of the adjustment (that you see on your MFP diary) once the day ends.
Its because MFP expects you to keep being active. THe higher your activity level the more the adjustment will be. So yes, switching to sedentary will mean less of your adjustment goes away when you sync tomorrow.
Its like this: when MFP estimates your total daily burn it assumes your burn is the same every hour. So if MFP expects you to burn 1800 in a day, it assumes 75 per hour. If your BMR is only 50 per hour and you go to bed at 9pm you will lose the difference (approximately) per hour that remains until midnight.
Such as these values are pretty close for me. If I sync at 9pm and have a Fitbit +200, then I know it will go down about 25/hour (75 less 50) for each of the 3 hours remaining in the day. Because when I am 'done' for the day I will burn BMR and not much more...0 -
I have mine set to sedentary and then let it adjust as needed0
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