Fitbit Calories

Joramaisi3

So I track my food using MFP. I eat my given calories and what I burned. I never eat back what my Fitbit says I burned just with steps as it’s always so much just what I burned during exercise. Well I decided to experiment and eat some back and I gained a pound this week when I’ve been losing, slowly but losing. How are people eating back all of their fitbit calories and still losing? Also I went for a 1 hour and 40 minute walk with a friend and we walking to the point where we were struggling to talk a bit. And Fitbit said I burned 1042 calories. That seems like a lot. My feet do hurt though:)

shadow2soul

It’s an estimate. For some it’s right. For some it underestimates. For others it overestimates.

Logging accuracy can also effect perceived accuracy. Choosing incorrect entries from the database or how you determine portion sizes that you eat can result in eating more than you realize.

That said, 1 lb gain could be just a normal weight fluctuation. Increased carbs, sodium, exercise, monthly cycle, etc can all cause water retention.

You know there is a way to figure out how accurate it is for you.

Avgerage out your weekly weight loss over 4-6 weeks.

Avg weekly loss in lbs * 3500 = avg weekly deficit
Avg weekly deficit / 7 = avg daily deficit

Add all your food intake calories (for this to work right you need to add it...don’t guesstimate it) for the same 4-6 week period.

Total calories consumed / 4-6 weeks = avg weekly food intake

Avg food intake / 7 = avg daily intake

Avg daily intake + avg daily deficit = avg TDEE

Go to your Fitbit profile (website not app) and you should see your avg Fitbit burn. Compare that to the TDEE you calculated.

shadow2soul

Also I forgot to mention last night that Fitbit’s calorie burn is your estimated TDEE.

The adjustments on MFP are:

Fitbit burn - MFP estimated burn (activity level + logged exercise) = +/- adjustment

The adjustment is to correct your activity level on MFP and not just account for exercise.

As for your walk:
Does the exercise log for the walk say 1000 in the app?
This area:


Or are you looking at the watch reported calories burned(or the main calorie burn area in app)?

This area in the app:



If it’s the latter 1000 calories wasn’t just the walk. It was everything from midnight until you looked at it (BMR, daily life, walk).