Can I clarify my understanding

thielke2015

I just recieved my Fitbit Alta HR yesterday and would like to clarify a few things.
I am now able to get a better idea of my TDEE so I should monitor for a week and then take a look at what I am burning on average then divide by 7 OR work out the days I am not as active like so far today I have only burned 1,573 then maybe only subtract 250 calories..... and on active days where I burn 2,200 subtract 750 calories. Does this sound like an ok plan.
It will also be intrestin* to see how close MFP was to estimating my TDEE and removing calories for me.

The thing I have to remain aware of is if I am going off of my Fitbit then I have to subtract the calories myself.

Do I have a fair understanding of this?

heybales

You are correct that Fitbit is going to be estimating TDEE.

Caveat - HR-based new at least 2 weeks to get to know you, so the HR-based calories for exercise is best estimate, and so that HR-based is NOT used for daily activity.
Right now the latter probably will happen which means badly inflated, and the former likely inflated too.

Even past that, you can confirm that your average daily pace distance is actually shown correctly by device for known distance.
And that you do NOT use HR-based calorie burn on some workouts where it'll be inflated - anything anaerobic and/or with HR jumping all over the place - like intervals or lifting.

Once past that initial improvements, then you can kind of do what you are thinking.

Except, if you like to eat the same amount daily, despite the fact your activity and calorie burn changes - you will automatically obtain that effect of varied deficit daily. Some days big deficit, some days small.

I'd take a 3 week running average though, and skip any weeks where it was not average week, like sick, or busy and missed workouts, or tons of extra activity shopping or hiking say.

If you want the same deficit daily then you'll get different eating goals daily - in which case just sync with MFP and follow the calorie goal.


And MFP was never attempting to estimate your TDEE.
Because it never expected or accounted for exercise until you logged it, which is a part of TDEE.
Plus YOU selected the daily non-exercise activity level - not MFP.
So it's really a matter of how well did YOU select activity level, and then log your workouts.

If you are going off the Fitbit and what the device is actually saying for calorie burn - yes you'd have to remove deficit yourself.
If going off what the app and account says for eating level - then it depends on amount of deficit you selected.

But suggest don't try to follow 2 routes to same destination - gets aggravating and confusing.
Fitbit to handle movement logging and goals.
MFP to handle food logging and goals.

Oh, and you'll want to read the FAQ in stickies to confirm you understand how the syncing works if you do NOT want to do weekly avg TDEE method.
If you do that method - unsync accounts - it'll just screw it up.

thielke2015

Ok. Thank you. Understood. Just 1 more question. I haven’t really exercised today. I have been at work. Very active job. So I have done 8,700 of my steps at work...... which is saying I have burned extra 478 calories and it has added this to my MFP. I have 2 questions regarding this
1.) are these 10,000 steps per day classed as exercise? I have never before logged my job as exercise. I think I am down as active on MFP which should take my job into consideration.
2.) should I just ignore these extra calories Fitbit is giving me for this ? Or is there a way to get Fitbit not to log these steps as exercise.

thielke2015

Ahhh, just checked my settings and I am on lightly active. Not active. Would you consider 8-9 thousand steps as lightly active. Remember this is just work. I walk 3-4 times a week with the dog at least 40 minutes 3mph as a minimum.

heybales

If the dog walk is like many report - the speed is not up at exercise pace at all, so many would view it as increased daily activity - not exercise which usually has some sort of improvement that it'll cause.
Now Fitbit could automatically create a record for it for review later, like maybe 1 year later you want to view what your HR used to get up to on your walks.

3-5K steps is about where Sedentary starts getting extra calories added because it's lower, depending on distance those steps caused.
6-8K seems to be Lightly Active.
9-11K seems to be Active
over is Very Active.

YMMV of course - ha! which is exactly what seems to be the variable.

While the walking at work will burn more calories, you are probably fit enough for it that it's not a workout causing improvement anymore.

MFP selected the Exercise diary for them to show up so the math for eating was handled correctly.

There is no way to get around this, even though you don't want to call it exercise.
But then again, MFP's diary isn't that great for review, you'll want to use Fitbit for that anyway.

But don't ignore, they are MFP trying to correct itself to better estimate. They obviously count.

You might look at 2nd section of FAQ for info on why selecting Sedentary is useful when you sync, even though you aren't.