Activity Level + eating back calories

erinelizabeth882

I know there have been several threads on this topic but I’m still confused and hoping for some advice. I am 5’3”, ~131 pounds, with a goal weight of ~120-125. I currently have selected lightly active- is this meant to be exclusive or inclusive or intentional exercise? I have MFP connected to my Fitbit, so I don’t input any exercise to MFP. My exercise is recorded entirely as steps from the Fitbit. Occasionally I’ve added in yoga or barre as I don’t get many steps with these activities. I’ve often gotten 500+ calories added to my day from my Fitbit. Sometimes it makes sense when I do boot camp or use the elliptical and am doing a lot of cardio. But it seems to just be adding calories for all the steps I’m taking, which is confusing on days that I’m not necessarily doing a cardio workout and am just getting a normal amount of steps and what I consider to be “lightly active”. I’m a pediatric therapist so I am up from my desk frequently, pushing kids on swings, up and down off the floor, and just walking through the gym and office spaces, other times I’m sitting at my desk for a couple hours. Yesterday for example, I had four clients in the morning so was fairly active and probably got 5-6k steps. Then I went to the gym and did 5 minutes of elliptical warm up and then weights, so not really a lot of cardio. Then I was pretty sedentary the rest of the afternoon/evening and ended up with almost 9k steps, but this was almost all at a normal light walking pace. I got almost 500 exercise calories back, which feels like a lot. MFP put me on 1350 calories which can be hard to stick to so I do eat some back, but I’m wondering how much and if it’s ok considering how little cardio I did yesterday. Should I change activity level to sedentary?

MelanieCN77

The activity level is not meant to include exercise, it's meant to cover harder to track, ongoing levels of activity due to your lifestyle - someone like a nurse or a teacher would set theirs much higher than mine, who just does desk work most days.

Hopefully someone familiar with how Fitbit reports can help you with the other part. I know what you mean that the way casual steps add up seems to add way too many calories. I don't use a Fitbit any more though so don't know about the current interaction.

veganbaum

MelanieCN77 covered the activity level setting, so in regards to the fitbit - it might help to first stop thinking of the added calories as exercise calories.

With the fitbit synced, it's increasing the number of calories it's estimating you're burning above and beyond your activity level setting. (And changing your level to sedentary is only going to increase your calories added by fitbit). You're not the only one I've seen post about how they "feel" fitbit gives them too many calories just because of steps. I think that's not really a helpful or healthy mindset. Exercise is important for health - physical and mental - but it's going to be more beneficial to increase your NEAT, or daily movement without exercise. The more "active" a person is in day-to-day life, the more calories they burn.

Now, that doesn't mean fitbit, or any device is 100% accurate. All devices and systems, like MFP, give estimates. This is another thing people get tripped up by, and sometimes angry or self-righteous about. "My metabolism is slow!! I don't lose on [x] calories like MFP/fitbit/device says I should."

Oftentimes, this is an issue of food logging "issues," which could include loose logging. Loose logging is fine if it works. If it's not working, a person may need to knock a couple hundred calories off their goal because they're likely eating more than the numbers indicate they are.

If you haven't had your fitbit for long, you might give it a few weeks to adjust. However, what you should focus on is gathering your personal data and seeing if your logging matches up with your weight loss. This means giving yourself around six weeks before changing anything. This may seem like a long time, but it's important to allow time for natural weight fluctuations to smooth out your data. In the scheme of things, giving it a reasonable about of time will limit frustrations that happen when someone changes things every couple of weeks because they don't think their strategy is working.

If, after that time you find you're losing more or less than expected, adjust your numbers. This may mean consistently eating only 75% of the extra calories, or whatever. I have also seen people recommend changing the fitbit stats so that you're one inch shorter, if it's giving you too many calories. I've had a fitbit for years now, and mine is accurate. I will say that I don't log any exercise, though. I mostly walk, sometimes run, and do body weight exercises. I just let fitbit count everything as steps, and it's worked for me.

Sorry this post is so long. I hope it's helpful.

erinelizabeth882

Thank you both! That was helpful. I haven’t been logging consistently for that long so I will just continue doing what feels right based on hunger levels and how many calories are left and see how things are looking in a month or so

sarabushby

It seems your questions are answered by the wonderful folk on this forum, so just two little snippets to add...
- some people choose to wear their Fitbit on their non-dominant (usually left) wrist but yet tell it that it’s on the dominant one. This should make a very small adjustment and reduce steps counted from non-stepping activity.
- If you wear your Fitbit during the activity then I wouldn’t add Barre or Yoga as an addition exercise into MFP, you could log it in Fitbit, which will likely have negligible impact on your calorie burn, but if you added it in MFP then you’d likekly be over estimating your burn.

EatingMyDInner

Veganbaums answer is very good and helpful except Fitbit doesn’t count calories burned from steps, it uses your estimated metabolic rate and heart rate.

glassyo

Jebstein2017 wrote: »

Veganbaums answer is very good and helpful except Fitbit doesn’t count calories burned from steps, it uses your estimated metabolic rate and heart rate.

No, steps are taken into account. Or else my very primative One would only give me maybe 1400 calories a day instead of the 2600ish.

jim9097

I have found that the MFP calorie adjustments are greatly over inflated. If you eat all of them back you will put on weight.

mmapags

Other's have answered your question on activity and eating back calories. My question is; you don't have much to lose and your calories seem low. With so little left to lose, you should be set to .5 lbs per week and I'm guessing that is not what you are set to with only 1350 per day before exercise. Being too aggressive with so little left to lose risk losing valuable lean mass. What do you have your weekly loss rate set to?