Fitbit confusion :s

RedPowder

Hello Everyone,

First things first I’ve only just plugged the Fitbit in about an hour ago and before that I had already “burned” over 400 calories with the phone step counter? Anyways that doesn’t show anymore I’m guessing Fitbit just overwrites and doesn’t bother counting it. Will this work out better on a fresh day? I feel like the weeks I’ve been doing have been a waste if I really am just not burning enough calories.

So I’ve been dieting for a couple weeks now and recently started using MyFitnessPal and it’s been going good I’ve been under my calories and sometimes not eaten as much as I should but anyways today I got the FitBit Charge 2 and I’m a little confused.

Before linking my accounts I had a calorie amount of around 2700 and now it’s gone down to 2380 and also it’s added calories to my intake ? Should I have the minus calories set on ?

So if the recommend calorie intake for men is 1200 / 1500 and I finish the day with 1400 then I check my stats it says 400 or so are from not excerising so really I’m still only getting 1000. ( the numbers here are not exactly the same as mine because it means closing the forums and going back to the app )

Today’s with Fitbit ( Not all day long just about an hour )


Yesterday’s without a Fitbit

kimny72

There will be others who can explain in more detail, but basically - you told MFP and Fitbit that you have a certain activity level. If early in the day, it looks like you haven't been active enough to end up at the activity level you've chosen, they will take away some of your calories to make sure you'll still end up in a deficit. If you, say, go for a long walk at lunch and "catch up" to your activity level, you're exercise adjustment will change to make up for it.

For example, on mornings I don't take a walk, I start with a big negative adjustment. But as I go through the day moving around, doing a workout, taking a walk, the negative adj gets smaller and smaller and eventually credits me with extra calories.

I found it took a couple of weeks for me, Fitbit, and MFP to all start communicating well So you might want to go a week or two linking everything but taking that number with a grain of salt and then see how it works out for you. You get better at predicting what your going to get based on how active or lazy you were. After 3 years, I find my Fitbit adjustment is pretty much spot on.

MHarper522

Why are you eating so little? Today is in progress, okay, but yesterday reached just over 900 calories for the whole day. MFP is recommending that you eat well over 2000 calories for the whole day. That goal already has your calorie deficit built into it, you do not need to create another one on top. Your calculation should bring you close to 0 every day.

There is no reason to starve yourself. It may make it harder to keep up with the lifestyle in the long term. Plus less energy to be active which has benefits even beyond weight loss

My recommendation would Fitbit would be to set your activity level to sedentary on both MyFitnessPal and the Fitbit app. Then the fitness tracker would be able to track your actual expenditure and adjust your calorie allotment. I would definitely turn on negative calories so that on days where you are not as active it recognizes that you maybe should eat a bit less.

For me this has been pretty on par with my weight loss do I make a little allowance of like (100-200) on occasion if my resting heart rate has been a little higher that day because I've noticed it tends to overestimate calories on those days.

RedPowder

MHarper522 wrote: »

Why are you eating so little? Today is in progress, okay, but yesterday reached just over 900 calories for the whole day. MFP is recommending that you eat well over 2000 calories for the whole day. That goal already has your calorie deficit built into it, you do not need to create another one on top. Your calculation should bring you close to 0 every day.

There is no reason to starve yourself. It may make it harder to keep up with the lifestyle in the long term. Plus less energy to be active which has benefits even beyond weight loss

My recommendation would Fitbit would be to set your activity level to sedentary on both MyFitnessPal and the Fitbit app. Then the fitness tracker would be able to track your actual expenditure and adjust your calorie allotment. I would definitely turn on negative calories so that on days where you are not as active it recognizes that you maybe should eat a bit less.

For me this has been pretty on par with my weight loss do I make a little allowance of like (100-200) on occasion if my resting heart rate has been a little higher that day because I've noticed it tends to overestimate calories on those days.

Thank you for the honest reply I have gone ahead and set both apps to sedentary and in regards to the calories I’ve been eating a enough where I’ve not been hungry the at any time of the day. I’m still learning to eat healthier options with higher calorie counts plus have little snacks in between.

I’ve now been able to sync both apps to have the same amount of weight loss, activity level and so on. The amount of calories I start off with as gone down but that’s not to worry because I’ll earn them via activity.