Fitbit help

Jadub729

I didn't want to hijack someone else's thread with this question but in one of the responses someone said

"Again a reminder: your Fitbit exercise adjustment is NOT calories from exercise.
Your Fitbit exercise adjustment is the difference between Fitbit TDEE and MFP TDEE for the day."

This makes me think maybe I was doing this wrong this whole time??

5'2 167lbs - GW 130ish

I have my activity level set on MFP as sedentary , goal to lose 1lb per week since I am considered obese. MFP allows 1250 calories per day. I have my fitbit linked to MFP. I do have a desk job but I average 12k-15k steps per day which includes my 3 days of cardio, I also do 2 days of strength training. I thought the calories fitbit was adding based on my activity were exercise calories because it says exercise calories on MFP, based on the answer above though I'm not so sure...should I be deducting 500 calories from that number to remain at a deficit?

Example

GOAL 1250 - 2044 food + 1299 exercise = 505 remaining

---

is my deficit 500 for the day or is 1250+1299 INCLUDING the deficit already and really I was at a 1000 calorie deficit?? if I wanted to maintain I would have eaten 2549? Sorry if this doesn't make sense

shadow2soul

Okay. Your Fitbit Adjustment is:

Fitbit Calorie Burn - MFP estimated burn = adjustment

In your case you are not Sedentary. MFP is estimating that if you were Sedentary you would burn roughly 1750 a day before exercise (1750-500=1250 calorie goal)

Fitbit burn - 1750 = adjustment
1250+ adjustment = approximately the calories to eat to lose 1 lb per week

So for example:

Fitbit burn: 2351

MFP estimate based on Lightly Active: 1890

2351-1890 = 461 adjustment

1390+461= 1851 to lose 1 lb a week based on my activity/calories burned from Fitbit.

WinoGelato

Jadub729 wrote: »

I didn't want to hijack someone else's thread with this question but in one of the responses someone said

"Again a reminder: your Fitbit exercise adjustment is NOT calories from exercise.
Your Fitbit exercise adjustment is the difference between Fitbit TDEE and MFP TDEE for the day."

This makes me think maybe I was doing this wrong this whole time??

5'2 167lbs - GW 130ish

I have my activity level set on MFP as sedentary , goal to lose 1lb per week since I am considered obese. MFP allows 1250 calories per day. I have my fitbit linked to MFP. I do have a desk job but I average 12k-15k steps per day which includes my 3 days of cardio, I also do 2 days of strength training. I thought the calories fitbit was adding based on my activity were exercise calories because it says exercise calories on MFP, based on the answer above though I'm not so sure...should I be deducting 500 calories from that number to remain at a deficit?

Example

GOAL 1250 - 2044 food + 1299 exercise = 505 remaining

---

is my deficit 500 for the day or is 1250+1299 INCLUDING the deficit already and really I was at a 1000 calorie deficit?? if I wanted to maintain I would have eaten 2549? Sorry if this doesn't make sense

Was it me that said that? If so I’m sorry for the confusion.

You’re on the right track. Yes, how MFP and FitBit work together is to assess your total activity and total cals burned all day and calculate the difference between what MFP thought you would burn, based on the stats you entered and activity level chosen, and the actual cals that FitBit says you burn. It is exercise cals, but it could be from just your day to day activity. Especially since you entered Sedentary as your activity level but you are averaging 12-15 k steps a day, that’s not Sedentary! That’s active! But because of you selecting Sedentary, that means MFP thinks you wouldn’t burn that many cals as your baseline and FitBit is naturally saying you burn quite a few more than that, so your calorie adjustments (they are called exercise cals because MFP doesn’t include exercise in its original calorie target so anything above that is considered “exercise” for lack of a better word).

Now let’s look at your numbers. You chose Sedentary and 1 lb/week loss which means you have a 500 cal deficit from what MFP thinks you burn with no exercise at all (since you chose Sedentary). So MFP thinks your baseline maintenance cals are 1750. Rounding up your exercise adjustment to 1300, so that means FitBit thinks you burned 3050 cals yesterday. You’ve eaten ~2050 cals so you are at roughly a 1000 cal deficit for this day. I’m not sure if that days worth of activity was typical or not, you can look at your FitBit dashboard and see the history to see what your average cal burn was.

Now here’s my own story, and my stats are similar to yours, I’m 5’2 and have a desk job and started out at about 153 lbs wanting to get down to 125 lbs so I chose 1 lb/week. I didn’t have a FitBit when I started so I just logged exercise and was losing about 1 lb/week but I started reading on here that most people don’t need to go to 1200 to lose so I raised mine a little and kept losing, always eating back exercise cals. And at that point I was pretty Sedentary, just walking a couple nights a week but working up to make it more consistent. After about 6 months I got a FitBit and was averaging 8-10k steps at that point and was seeing big adjustments, so I got good advice on these boards that that’s not Sedentary. I raised my activity to lightly active and changed my goal to 0.5 lb/week because I had only about 15 lbs to lose at that point. My base cals went up, my exercise adjustments were smaller but more representative of true exercise. I ate them all back and kept losing. I met my original goal in just about a year from when I started, and have since lost more weight.

I’m now maintaining at 118 with a TDEE of 2200 according to my FitBit. I average 12-15 k steps a day and do light circuit training. I eat back the exercise cals and always have, and it hasn’t hurt my weight loss or maintenance.

I would definitely increase your activity level to start with and it should recalculate your calorie target, from there I would cautiously trust the FitBit adjustments, maybe eating back 50-75% of them till you determine with your actual results how accurate FitBit is for you.

Good luck!

Jadub729

WinoGelato wrote: »

Jadub729 wrote: »

I didn't want to hijack someone else's thread with this question but in one of the responses someone said

"Again a reminder: your Fitbit exercise adjustment is NOT calories from exercise.
Your Fitbit exercise adjustment is the difference between Fitbit TDEE and MFP TDEE for the day."

This makes me think maybe I was doing this wrong this whole time??

5'2 167lbs - GW 130ish

I have my activity level set on MFP as sedentary , goal to lose 1lb per week since I am considered obese. MFP allows 1250 calories per day. I have my fitbit linked to MFP. I do have a desk job but I average 12k-15k steps per day which includes my 3 days of cardio, I also do 2 days of strength training. I thought the calories fitbit was adding based on my activity were exercise calories because it says exercise calories on MFP, based on the answer above though I'm not so sure...should I be deducting 500 calories from that number to remain at a deficit?

Example

GOAL 1250 - 2044 food + 1299 exercise = 505 remaining

---

is my deficit 500 for the day or is 1250+1299 INCLUDING the deficit already and really I was at a 1000 calorie deficit?? if I wanted to maintain I would have eaten 2549? Sorry if this doesn't make sense

Was it me that said that? If so I’m sorry for the confusion.

You’re on the right track. Yes, how MFP and FitBit work together is to assess your total activity and total cals burned all day and calculate the difference between what MFP thought you would burn, based on the stats you entered and activity level chosen, and the actual cals that FitBit says you burn. It is exercise cals, but it could be from just your day to day activity. Especially since you entered Sedentary as your activity level but you are averaging 12-15 k steps a day, that’s not Sedentary! That’s active! But because of you selecting Sedentary, that means MFP thinks you wouldn’t burn that many cals as your baseline and FitBit is naturally saying you burn quite a few more than that, so your calorie adjustments (they are called exercise cals because MFP doesn’t include exercise in its original calorie target so anything above that is considered “exercise” for lack of a better word).

Now let’s look at your numbers. You chose Sedentary and 1 lb/week loss which means you have a 500 cal deficit from what MFP thinks you burn with no exercise at all (since you chose Sedentary). So MFP thinks your baseline maintenance cals are 1750. Rounding up your exercise adjustment to 1300, so that means FitBit thinks you burned 3050 cals yesterday. You’ve eaten ~2050 cals so you are at roughly a 1000 cal deficit for this day. I’m not sure if that days worth of activity was typical or not, you can look at your FitBit dashboard and see the history to see what your average cal burn was.

Now here’s my own story, and my stats are similar to yours, I’m 5’2 and have a desk job and started out at about 153 lbs wanting to get down to 125 lbs so I chose 1 lb/week. I didn’t have a FitBit when I started so I just logged exercise and was losing about 1 lb/week but I started reading on here that most people don’t need to go to 1200 to lose so I raised mine a little and kept losing, always eating back exercise cals. And at that point I was pretty Sedentary, just walking a couple nights a week but working up to make it more consistent. After about 6 months I got a FitBit and was averaging 8-10k steps at that point and was seeing big adjustments, so I got good advice on these boards that that’s not Sedentary. I raised my activity to lightly active and changed my goal to 0.5 lb/week because I had only about 15 lbs to lose at that point. My base cals went up, my exercise adjustments were smaller but more representative of true exercise. I ate them all back and kept losing. I met my original goal in just about a year from when I started, and have since lost more weight.

I’m now maintaining at 118 with a TDEE of 2200 according to my FitBit. I average 12-15 k steps a day and do light circuit training. I eat back the exercise cals and always have, and it hasn’t hurt my weight loss or maintenance.

I would definitely increase your activity level to start with and it should recalculate your calorie target, from there I would cautiously trust the FitBit adjustments, maybe eating back 50-75% of them till you determine with your actual results how accurate FitBit is for you.

Good luck!

No it wasn't you, it was on the same thread though. In the last month my average calorie burn has been about 2800 per day. I'm eating 1500-1700 a day losing about 1.4lbs per week (averaged because one week it was 2 lbs and another week it was none) so I guess I'm where I should be, maybe could even eat a bit more. I wonder if I could really lose 2lb per week since I am obese still.

Jadub729

yesterday my total calorie burn on fitbit was 2900, I ate 1800, 1100 deficit. Does that mean my net was only 700 calories? that cant be good.

WinoGelato

Jadub729 wrote: »

yesterday my total calorie burn on fitbit was 2900, I ate 1800, 1100 deficit. Does that mean my net was only 700 calories? that cant be good.

No, the 1100 deficit is the difference b/w the Fitbit 2900 and what you ate, 1800. If you are going with FitBit adjustments (and that is what I would do), then don't worry so much about "Net" calories because FitBit and MFP are working out the math for you.

I think you could eat more and still lose, but you are doing well already with not going with such low calories. SInce this is relatively new I would probably give it a couple more weeks to see if the adjustments change, FitBit tends to figure us out after a couple weeks of data and I think it gets better at predicting our actual activity and calorie burns.

I would adjust that activity level to Active if I were you, or at least lightly active. It will bump you up on the base calories - but at the end of the day I think you're on the right track.