Clarify calorie allowance

sarahwardy1971

Hi Guys just want to make sure I am on right track. I have set mfp to sedentary and I have my fitbit synced to it. My job entails me standing up all day (pastry chef) with quite a lot of lifting and walking about. So am I right in saying that I should stick to my sedentary allowance 1200 cals and anything I earn from my fitbit I should restrict to eating upto 50% of that...just a bit confused and not seeing the scales move at all. Thanks in advance

malibu927

Ideally you would eat back 100% of your Fitbit calories. For some people it may overestimate calories burned, but not everyone.

How long has it been since you lost weight? How are you measuring your calorie intake?

emmamcgarity

I eat my exercise calories if I am hungry. If I am not, I don't.

heybales

No - eat everything that MFP is attempting to correct itself with. That's not actually exercise. May not be any as in your case, merely increased daily activity from what you selected.

You obviously aren't sedentary.

And Fitbit is going to give sleeping BMR level burn to all that standing non-step time - so that's underestimated too.

Only caveat would be confirming your stride length is correct.

Go walk a known distance track or something (not treadmill, not always calibrated) at your average daily pace - not grocery store shuffle, not exercise level pace. It'll seem slow, and try to hit 1/2 mile.
Start a workout when you start the course - see how far Fitbit says you went.

You'll only eat 1200 if your day is truly sedentary - which usually is below 4K steps.

And did you select a reasonable weekly weight loss amount, for amount to lose?
Faster is not better - most gained it slow.

Only other caveat is if you just started using the Fitbit, and it's a HR model that is going to use HR-based calorie burn when you exercise.
Problem during the first couple weeks is, it might think you are exercising at higher levels of activity - when you aren't, and it should rightfully use step-based calorie burn. Because HR-based calorie burn will be inflated at those levels of daily activity.

sarahwardy1971

I selected 1lb loss a week. I know I'm not sedentary as I do get in over 10,000 steps a week. I use the treadmill 3 times a week and walk the dogs at the weekend. So with that in account should I adjust the level to Active? and not eat back any of the exercise calories. Or leave as sedentary and use up some of those exercise calories. Just getting a bit confused. And thanks for taking the time to reply

malibu927

sarahwardy1971 wrote: »

I selected 1lb loss a week. I know I'm not sedentary as I do get in over 10,000 steps a week. I use the treadmill 3 times a week and walk the dogs at the weekend. So with that in account should I adjust the level to Active? and not eat back any of the exercise calories. Or leave as sedentary and use up some of those exercise calories. Just getting a bit confused. And thanks for taking the time to reply

Active plus adjustment will be equal to sedentary plus adjustment. You just start out with more calories and get less from Fitbit.

sarahwardy1971

Thank you x

heybales

After a few days of seeing what the day ends up at - you'll get an idea of what you need to plan on eating roughly.

In the evening when done with activity, you tighten it up on a last sync to get a last snack in to meet goal.

WinoGelato

Sounds like you may not understand completely how MFP and FitBit work together. It doesn’t only measure exercise, it’s a true up or reconciliation of the amount of cals MFP thinks you’d burn based on stats and activity level you entered and how much FitBit says you actually burn. Choosing an appropriate activity level for the actual activity you do means you start at a higher base calorie amount and then your adjustment is smaller - but it’s the same total cals as starting at Sedentary with a big adjustment.

And many of us trust and eat back all the calories and lose weight at the desired pace - assuming logging intake is accurate.

Momepro

I personally did better not tracking steps at all, but eating back most of the calories for workout.