Unsure Fitbit calorie adjustment
angelsja
Posts: 859 Member
So today I have done 30min arm workout, 30min leg workout, 20min cardio/weight combo and T25 cardio as well as 10k (17k including workouts) steps mfp has given me 1100 exercise "points" can this be right that would mean my net for today is only around 500 Cal's? But I time all my workouts right before a meal or snack so I'm eating right after and am not going hungry
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Replies
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As I believe has been discussed in your other threads, you are far more active than you think you are, so therefore the info you put in MFP probably underestimates your calorie burn and FitBit is trying to true that up with the actual activity you are engaging in. Why are you exercising so much? Is this a normal day, or an isolated incident? How many calories does FitBit say you burn, on average, over the last week, month, three months (however long you've been using it)? What calorie goal does MFP have you set at? What results are you having - losing, maintaining or gaining?
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WinoGelato wrote: »As I believe has been discussed in your other threads, you are far more active than you think you are, so therefore the info you put in MFP probably underestimates your calorie burn and FitBit is trying to true that up with the actual activity you are engaging in. Why are you exercising so much? Is this a normal day, or an isolated incident? How many calories does FitBit say you burn, on average, over the last week, month, three months (however long you've been using it)? What calorie goal does MFP have you set at? What results are you having - losing, maintaining or gaining?
This^^^ and yeah, why the incessant exercise?
I don't really look at individual events or activities on my FitBit, but it gives me a pretty accurate estimate of total calories burned at around 2800-3000 which is in line with all of my other data...some outliers here and there.1 -
Do you normally hit upwards of 10k steps without purposeful exercise? It may be helpful to re-evaluate your activity level. Seems like that is the first place to start.
For example, I used to keep my MFP set at "sedentary" because some days at work I pretty much sat, and some days I ran and it seemed safest to do things that way. Then, I got my fitbit and found that it was not uncommon for me to workout in the morning, and then end up running my kiester off at work, and then on days I walked my dog (at least 2, usually 3+ miles), I ended up with some pretty big adjustments - right about where you're seeing.
I went back in my fitbit data and found that on my lazy weekend days where I was doing nothing but picking up the house, cooking, and hanging with the fam, I got at least 4,000 steps. So I upped my activity to lightly active because work is a crap shoot - could be running for 8 hours, could be twiddling my fingers. I still see adjustments sometimes but they aren't as crazy, and I have more calories to eat.
If you really think your activity level is right, only eat back half that number. Track your progress for 4-6 weeks. That will tell you if your data is correct.0 -
All my walking is purposeful exercise i don't work and I don't think just over 90min is "excersising so much" I know people who spend hours at the gym. I've only had my Fitbit since 17th Feb it says between the 19th-25 I burned 17094. I'm on 1400 calories per day and I'm not sure on my rate of loss as I weigh daily and it's up and down like a to yo at the minute I was 12.9 yesterday I'm 12.66 today don't think I lost 3lb overnight0
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Is a 41% daily caloric deficit appropriate for you? Any reason you're trying to lose so fast?
An appropriate deficit for an obese person might be as high as 25%. For a non morbidly obese person a 20% deficit might make more sense and ensure that less lean mass gets lost, that energy and compliance stay high, and that hormonal counter-balancing is minimized.
You can connect trendweight.com to fitbit.com and it will automatically receive your weigh ins when you enter them into your Fitbit account. This will allow you to focus on your over-all trend, especially when dealing with highly variable weight ins and would allow you to figure out your current weight loss rate (trending weight on day 1 vs trending weight on day 28 or 35 or 42, i.e. four to six weeks).
Based on your description, if we were to try and shoehorn your activity and exercise into an MFP activity setting instead of relying on your Fitbit adjustment, you would be exceeding MFP's very active level.1 -
But mfp asks you to select a setting before excersise without my excersise Iam sedentary. Don't know where you are getting 41% from
please explain I have until June 9th to lose the initial weight then August 19th to lose the rest I use libra to track my weight but honestly don't really get it 0 -
Just checked libra and I've lost 7.4lb since the 15th of January0
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But mfp asks you to select a setting before excersise without my excersise Iam sedentary. Don't know where you are getting 41% from please explain I have until June 9th to lose the initial weight then August 19th to lose the rest I use libra to track my weight but honestly don't really get it
You are correct.
MFP asks you to ADD YOUR EXERCISE SEPARATELY AND EAT BACK the actual net exercise calories that you burn because your complete deficit is included in your base goal.
But you are NOT doing that.
You did not log and eat back the (net) calories for your various exercise classes and for your purposeful walking for exercise that was done over and above daily activity... did you?
And, truthfully speaking, when you're using a Fitbit to estimate your daily activity level (which is what you're doing) you shouldn't log exercise on MFP because what you're doing is actually changing MFP's original setup and you are converting MFP's separate logging of a base activity level to which you then add purposeful exercise into a single value that represents your "complete daily activity as evaluated by Fitbit", aka: "Fitbit TDEE".
Because that is what the "exercise adjustment" you get from your Fitbit does. It converts your MFP calories out value into the calories out value detected by your Fitbit.
Thus, you are replacing the MFP sedentary activity setting that you chose with what your Fitbit actually detected as your TDEE
And in order to achieve that you have to adjust the base MFP value that is derived from what you told MFP you expect your activity to be (sedentary). Thus you get an exercise adjustment that gets added to the Sedentary MFP setting such that the total at midnight is equal to your Fitbit TDEE at midnight.
Earlier you stated that your Fitbit gave you a daily TDEE value of 2442 (17094/7) and that you eat 1400 Calories.
This means that you are shooting for a 1042/2442 = ~42% daily caloric deficit. A normal moderate deficit with minimal side effects peaks at 20%, maybe 25% while the person is obese.2 -
For 17000 steps I get about a 1500 calorie adjustment and I eat all of it.2
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But mfp asks you to select a setting before excersise without my excersise Iam sedentary. Don't know where you are getting 41% from please explain I have until June 9th to lose the initial weight then August 19th to lose the rest I use libra to track my weight but honestly don't really get it
You are correct.
MFP asks you to ADD YOUR EXERCISE SEPARATELY AND EAT BACK the actual net exercise calories that you burn because your complete deficit is included in your base goal.
But you are NOT doing that.
You did not log and eat back the (net) calories for your various exercise classes and for your purposeful walking for exercise that was done over and above daily activity... did you?
And, truthfully speaking, when you're using a Fitbit to estimate your daily activity level (which is what you're doing) you shouldn't log exercise on MFP because what you're doing is actually changing MFP's original setup and you are converting MFP's separate logging of a base activity level to which you then add purposeful exercise into a single value that represents your "complete daily activity as evaluated by Fitbit", aka: "Fitbit TDEE".
Because that is what the "exercise adjustment" you get from your Fitbit does. It converts your MFP calories out value into the calories out value detected by your Fitbit.
Thus, you are replacing the MFP sedentary activity setting that you chose with what your Fitbit actually detected as your TDEE
And in order to achieve that you have to adjust the base MFP value that is derived from what you told MFP you expect your activity to be (sedentary). Thus you get an exercise adjustment that gets added to the Sedentary MFP setting such that the total at midnight is equal to your Fitbit TDEE at midnight.
Earlier you stated that your Fitbit gave you a daily TDEE value of 2442 (17094/7) and that you eat 1400 Calories.
This means that you are shooting for a 1042/2442 = ~42% daily caloric deficit. A normal moderate deficit with minimal side effects peaks at 20%, maybe 25% while the person is obese.
No I didn't log the excersise because my Fitbit sends my calories burned to mfp and you just said I shouldn't add in exercise when using a fitbit I didn't eat excersise calories back as 1 I don't know if I can trust the burn and 2 I plan my workouts around my meals and snacks so I'm already eating a full meal or snack (at night excersise) after working out0 -
You get to choose:
either the pure MFP way OR the MFP assisted by Fitbit way.
You actually choose neither. Or rather you're choosing the guaranteed wrong way.
Mfp way: log exercise manually and eat it. But you don't do that.
MFP assisted by Fitbit way: Integrate both and eat based on Fitbit TDEE.
The mechanism used by integration to transfer the information from one to the other has the unfortunate name of exercise adjustment. Really, it should just be called Fitbit Daily adjustment.
As you said above, you don't trust it, so you also don't do that.
So no. Don't put the blame on what I said because you're ignoring what I said.
You are choosing to do neither method because the whole thing is confusing and you are unsure and you are operating under a self imposed deadline that has nothing to do with healthy choices.
What I said is that *IF* you are using Fitbit integration (which apparently you're set up to do and are doing even though you're ignoring the numbers you're given as a result) you should not log your exercise activities separately on MFP.
This is a technical not conceptual issue.
Because if you enter manual exercise on MFP such manual exercise takes precedence over what Fitbit had detected in that same time frame. In other words you pollute your Fitbit data unless you then go to the Fitbit site and delete the imported MFP exercise!
My advice is clear cut.
Eat your Fitbit calories less an approximate 500 Cal deficit from that. Evaluate trending weight change over 4 to 6 weeks ànd make adjustments if your results are substantially different than expected.
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If I was to eat my Fitbit calories - 500 I would be eating between 1900-2000 calories or more and how am I supposed to know in advance how much I'm going to burn in a day my last excersise is around 7-8pm I don't like eating after 9pm so what happens if I've a bunch of calories left a the end of the day the burn I mentioned in the OP was the first time I've had such a high burn and as I haven't had my Fitbit very long I'm still getting used to it I wasn't trying to "blame" or "use what you said" at all I'm just trying to get it right and I've only lost average of 1.2 lb a week since 15th January not eating any exercise calories back1
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Your weight loss isn't on par with the numbers. I'm guessing you're eating way more than you think, but your weight loss rate is healthy, so keep doing what you're doing.3
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I had a couple of binge days and put on a couple of lbs that I re lost in that time too. I weigh and log everything0
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If I was to eat my Fitbit calories - 500 I would be eating between 1900-2000 calories or more and how am I supposed to know in advance how much I'm going to burn in a day my last excersise is around 7-8pm I don't like eating after 9pm so what happens if I've a bunch of calories left a the end of the day the burn I mentioned in the OP was the first time I've had such a high burn and as I haven't had my Fitbit very long I'm still getting used to it I wasn't trying to "blame" or "use what you said" at all I'm just trying to get it right and I've only lost average of 1.2 lb a week since 15th January not eating any exercise calories back
If you finish one day in a large deficit, plan to make it up the following day. Eat a big breakfast; eat two breakfasts.
But I agree with this:Your weight loss isn't on par with the numbers. I'm guessing you're eating way more than you think, but your weight loss rate is healthy, so keep doing what you're doing.
Do you log your binges? Measure/weigh all your portions? Our brains are incredibly good at preventing us from starving ourselves; it’s really hard to override all its tricks to eat in the kind of deficit you’re describing.3 -
Yes I logged my binges I ate over 12k calories in one weekend I only got my Fitbit on 17th so it could still be "getting to know me" my diary is open anyway0
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Yes I logged my binges I ate over 12k calories in one weekend I only got my Fitbit on 17th so it could still be "getting to know me" my diary is open anyway
Okay, well that 12000 spread over the week would account for your uneaten exercise calories pretty well. So you are eating them back; you’re just doing it all at once and without control.
If you ate those calories in healthy, satisfying foods throughout the week would you be less likely to binge on the weekend? If so, there’s your answer; if not maybe it’s time to talk with a professional about your eating patterns.2 -
If I was to eat my Fitbit calories - 500 I would be eating between 1900-2000 calories or more and how am I supposed to know in advance how much I'm going to burn in a day my last excersise is around 7-8pm I don't like eating after 9pm so what happens if I've a bunch of calories left a the end of the day the burn I mentioned in the OP was the first time I've had such a high burn and as I haven't had my Fitbit very long I'm still getting used to it I wasn't trying to "blame" or "use what you said" at all I'm just trying to get it right and I've only lost average of 1.2 lb a week since 15th January not eating any exercise calories back
But you do know how much you are going to burn, you have a couple weeks worth of data that suggests your average calorie burn is 2400, so the calorie target you should be aiming for is 1900. As Pav said, do that for a few weeks, monitor the results and adjust based on what actually happens with your true weight trend (not knee jerk reactions to normal weight fluctuations).
As has been explained - you are majoring in the minors. You need to establish a trend over time, some days you may be a little over, some days you may be a little under - but consistency and repeatability (precision) is more important than to the decimal point accuracy.
Why are you timing all your meals around a workout? Again, following PAVs advice, increasing your activity level to a more representative amount would help you prepare your calorie intake. I have a desk job which according to MFP makes me Sedentary but I average 12-15k steps a day so my activity level is set to active. That gives me a higher baseline to start with and then smaller adjustments which makes it easier to plan my calorie intake for the day. Negative calorie adjustments ensure that you don’t over eat on days you have a truly Sedentary day - skip a workout, etc.
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No because if that was so I wouldn't have put on weight I would have lost or at least maintained0
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WinoGelato wrote: »If I was to eat my Fitbit calories - 500 I would be eating between 1900-2000 calories or more and how am I supposed to know in advance how much I'm going to burn in a day my last excersise is around 7-8pm I don't like eating after 9pm so what happens if I've a bunch of calories left a the end of the day the burn I mentioned in the OP was the first time I've had such a high burn and as I haven't had my Fitbit very long I'm still getting used to it I wasn't trying to "blame" or "use what you said" at all I'm just trying to get it right and I've only lost average of 1.2 lb a week since 15th January not eating any exercise calories back
But you do know how much you are going to burn, you have a couple weeks worth of data that suggests your average calorie burn is 2400, so the calorie target you should be aiming for is 1900. As Pav said, do that for a few weeks, monitor the results and adjust based on what actually happens with your true weight trend (not knee jerk reactions to normal weight fluctuations).
As has been explained - you are majoring in the minors. You need to establish a trend over time, some days you may be a little over, some days you may be a little under - but consistency and repeatability (precision) is more important than to the decimal point accuracy.
Why are you timing all your meals around a workout? Again, following PAVs advice, increasing your activity level to a more representative amount would help you prepare your calorie intake. I have a desk job which according to MFP makes me Sedentary but I average 12-15k steps a day so my activity level is set to active. That gives me a higher baseline to start with and then smaller adjustments which makes it easier to plan my calorie intake for the day. Negative calorie adjustments ensure that you don’t over eat on days you have a truly Sedentary day - skip a workout, etc.
Because I can't workout on a full stomach and that's just how my day falls get up do school run/walk dogs, home breakfast wait an hour or so workout, lunch pick kids up have evening meal, workout at 7 have snack chill and bed. And I've only had my Fitbit for 9 full days0 -
No because if that was so I wouldn't have put on weight I would have lost or at least maintained
Water weight can hang around for days after you’re done bingeing. And even if you did put on a pound or two of fat in that weekend, your overall trend is downward and consistent with your deficit. The calorie math is working; you’re just resisting the logic of it for some reason.4 -
Never said it wasn't working you implied that my 12k weekend would offset my workout calories which isn't true as I did put weight on after it yes some of it was water as I was up 6lbs the day after I know my overall trend is going down my original post was about whether to trust my Fitbit giving me 1100 extra calories via mfpFlyingMolly wrote: »No because if that was so I wouldn't have put on weight I would have lost or at least maintained
Water weight can hang around for days after you’re done bingeing. And even if you did put on a pound or two of fat in that weekend, your overall trend is downward and consistent with your deficit. The calorie math is working; you’re just resisting the logic of it for some reason.
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Never said it wasn't working you implied that my 12k weekend would offset my workout calories which isn't true as I did put weight on after it yes some of it was water as I was up 6lbs the day after I know my overall trend is going down my original post was about whether to trust my Fitbit giving me 1100 extra calories via mfp
I didn’t imply it; I did the math and told you so. 12000 calories over two days during which you planned to eat 1400 base + 1100 activity = an excess of 7000 calories. Divide those over the other five days in the week and they give you a surplus of 1400/day, or a little over the amount of the Fitbit adjustments you think you’re not eating back. You are. You’re just doing it all at once.
Your body’s energy systems don’t reset themselves at midnight. If it helps you to look at the whole week rather than one day at a time, that’s fine and it’ll work just as well. The numbers are what they are, short-term or long-.1 -
That was one binge in 2months it WILL NOT be happening again I felt like crap the days after and had to really restrict the following days to reset myself but I don't want to get into that again and I probably wasn't burning as much then as I wasn't doubling up my excersise like iam now1
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Never said it wasn't working you implied that my 12k weekend would offset my workout calories which isn't true as I did put weight on after it yes some of it was water as I was up 6lbs the day after I know my overall trend is going down my original post was about whether to trust my Fitbit giving me 1100 extra calories via mfpFlyingMolly wrote: »No because if that was so I wouldn't have put on weight I would have lost or at least maintained
Water weight can hang around for days after you’re done bingeing. And even if you did put on a pound or two of fat in that weekend, your overall trend is downward and consistent with your deficit. The calorie math is working; you’re just resisting the logic of it for some reason.
You seem determined to disregard everyone's advice, in this thread and in your others. I'm not sure why you continue to ask questions if you aren't planning to change your approach based on what everyone is consistently telling you. You are more active than you think. Tighten up your logging, set a reasonable activity level, a more appropriate calorie deficit, and trust the process and the systems - working on getting a more consistent calorie intake to minimize your binge/restrict cycles. If you struggle to eat enough foods because it makes it hard to workout, then consider if you need to workout that much, or if you should be looking at different types of foods. There are lots of calorie dense foods that you can incorporate - things like full fat dairy, oils, nut butters, nuts, etc.
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WinoGelato wrote: »
Never said it wasn't working you implied that my 12k weekend would offset my workout calories which isn't true as I did put weight on after it yes some of it was water as I was up 6lbs the day after I know my overall trend is going down my original post was about whether to trust my Fitbit giving me 1100 extra calories via mfpFlyingMolly wrote: »No because if that was so I wouldn't have put on weight I would have lost or at least maintained
Water weight can hang around for days after you’re done bingeing. And even if you did put on a pound or two of fat in that weekend, your overall trend is downward and consistent with your deficit. The calorie math is working; you’re just resisting the logic of it for some reason.
You seem determined to disregard everyone's advice, in this thread and in your others. I'm not sure why you continue to ask questions if you aren't planning to change your approach based on what everyone is consistently telling you. You are more active than you think. Tighten up your logging, set a reasonable activity level, a more appropriate calorie deficit, and trust the process and the systems - working on getting a more consistent calorie intake to minimize your binge/restrict cycles. If you struggle to eat enough foods because it makes it hard to workout, then consider if you need to workout that much, or if you should be looking at different types of foods. There are lots of calorie dense foods that you can incorporate - things like full fat dairy, oils, nut butters, nuts, etc.
What I don't struggle to eat enough foods and of course I need to workout i pretty much excersise before every meal. original post was questioning whether I should eat back some of the 1100 calories I had been "given" that's all I wanted to know whether I can trust my Fitbit or not1 -
WinoGelato wrote: »
Never said it wasn't working you implied that my 12k weekend would offset my workout calories which isn't true as I did put weight on after it yes some of it was water as I was up 6lbs the day after I know my overall trend is going down my original post was about whether to trust my Fitbit giving me 1100 extra calories via mfpFlyingMolly wrote: »No because if that was so I wouldn't have put on weight I would have lost or at least maintained
Water weight can hang around for days after you’re done bingeing. And even if you did put on a pound or two of fat in that weekend, your overall trend is downward and consistent with your deficit. The calorie math is working; you’re just resisting the logic of it for some reason.
You seem determined to disregard everyone's advice, in this thread and in your others. I'm not sure why you continue to ask questions if you aren't planning to change your approach based on what everyone is consistently telling you. You are more active than you think. Tighten up your logging, set a reasonable activity level, a more appropriate calorie deficit, and trust the process and the systems - working on getting a more consistent calorie intake to minimize your binge/restrict cycles. If you struggle to eat enough foods because it makes it hard to workout, then consider if you need to workout that much, or if you should be looking at different types of foods. There are lots of calorie dense foods that you can incorporate - things like full fat dairy, oils, nut butters, nuts, etc.
What I don't struggle to eat enough foods and of course I need to workout i pretty much excersise before every meal. original post was questioning whether I should eat back some of the 1100 calories I had been "given" that's all I wanted to know whether I can trust my Fitbit or not
As stated above, you don't need to work out that much. When people told you to eat more, you said you can't because you can't work out on a full stomach. That means you are struggling to eat the right amount of food to sustain your extremely active (and obsessive) lifestyle.
Everyone has said you can trust your FitBit, with some additional monitoring and adjustment over time. Everyone has also suggested that you should raise your activity level. So are you going to do either of those things?1 -
The problem with upping my activity level is 1 when the kids are off school half term or weekends I'm not active and 2 I often pre log the day before and with negative calories on it tells me I'm over my calories unless I excersise. So I have to excersise to even get my 1400 into green hence my reluctantly to eat more as I've already worked to earn my 1400. Also I never said I couldn't eat more because I can't workout on a full stomach I said I don't need to as my workouts are set around my meals/snacks. I will monitor this week how much I'm burning as I don't think 9 days of data is enough to work from I will think of upping my activity level to lightly active after this week1
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I have a Fitbit HR which is synced to my MPF diary, I let it add on the extra calories which I work up during the day (mostly from walking about), the nights I workout at the gym I can gain anything from 150 – 300 extra cals.
Last night I had dinner after the gym and still had about 400 cals left over and just left it at that; wasn't hungry plus it was getting late, no biggie.
It doesn’t need to be complicated or difficult, if you’re not confident in the numbers your Fitbit is telling you just round them down but don’t completely ignore them.
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But mfp asks you to select a setting before excersise without my excersise Iam sedentary. Don't know where you are getting 41% from please explain I have until June 9th to lose the initial weight then August 19th to lose the rest I use libra to track my weight but honestly don't really get it
Are you trying to join the military on that date? You need to have surgery, and they won't operate unless you're X weight?
Those are the only two times I could see anyone *rationally* trying to lose weight by a set deadline. There are crap reasons for setting deadlines, but those aren't good ideas.
You binge, and then sharply. Do you really think that doing that until June 9 is going to help you hit your goals, instead of just setting a moderate calorie deficit?
As someone who spent a good 10 years of her life doing that, let me give you some anecdata: It doesn't work.4
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