Newbie Fitbit question

swilki84

So I've synced my Fitbit to my MFP diary, but I was just wondering - obviously the exercise calories go up as you do more, but I've noticed that even on days when I am a total couch potato and I only do a small number of steps - like 2,000 or so in the whole day which is basically walking to my car and back and walking from the couch to the kitchen and back - I am still earning a small number of exercise calories?
I'd have thought that my baseline TDEE would have included some walking just to haul myself around, so I'm not sure if it's giving me too many, or is it accounted for by Fitbit and am I not as sedentary as I thought?

heybales

You have the right idea that the MFP entry for Fitbit adj is it's own math, and merely the difference between Fitbit reported and MFP expected with no exercise.

So indeed, your few steps could be very serious and earn some distance and therefore more calories.

It could be you are given a bunch of bogus steps with distance when driving in that car on bumping roads.

It could be you adjusted the stride length to match your exercise level pace, so it's inflated when doing rest of the day.

Have you looked at your daily graph for steps to see if spikes when you know it's wrong?
Or look at calories graph for same thing, especially matching to bogus spikes in steps.

Have you ever walked a known distance (high school track, with correct marks for 1 mile perhaps) at your average daily pace (not grocery store shuffle, not exercise speed) and confirmed the distance?

Other than those known tweaks for better accuracy - you may indeed be burning more than expected.

Or you have different body stats on Fitbit compared to MFP and given higher BMR as basis for it all.

swilki84

Thanks, I’ll try checking the steps