Fitbit Calories burned Vs MFP

kallen771991

So i use mfp mainly to logg my food, i had it before fitbit so i have all my recipes saved and its just a plain pain to go through and re enter them in fitbit.

Anyways, So after triple confirming with my doctor, i'm aiming for 1500 cal per her recommendation, I walk 10k steps a day during the day on top of a set of exercises i do for about 30min each weekday. I use my watch now to properly time and see my workouts as i go about and i get a calorie layout for that and some days the fitbit matches up to the mfp app fine and others its askew by a bit. i'm tryin to figure out if i'm better off separating them and figuring out my deficit manually or not.

mind you i know i usually burn more than i eat or very close to in a day. which again, i confirmed truthfully with my doctor... three times now.. she said its fine. I just want to be able to figure out my deficit better.

I know that mfp takes your active status and applies it to fitbit readouts.. but i feel like its all over the place and with mfp yet again having issues communicating between its own site and app and the fitbit app and mfp app. I didn't know if any of you did things this way to be more accurate or if you just trust the apps?

cwolfman13

It's all an estimate. The best insight to your true deficit is your real world results.

sijomial

I'm a bit confused - are you aiming to eat 1500 every day or are you trying to vary your calorie allowance in line with your variable activity and exercise (Fitbit) or variable exercise (MFP)?

I wouldn't assume your Doctor understands the subtlety of net calories vs simply eating to a set allowance unless you explained it to her.

No I didn't/don't use a tracker as I didn't see myself wearing one for life and it would be a poor method for estimating either my activity (often not step based) or my exercise (where heartrate would be a far worse basis for calorie expenditure).

kallen771991

sijomial wrote: »

I'm a bit confused - are you aiming to eat 1500 every day or are you trying to vary your calorie allowance in line with your variable activity and exercise (Fitbit) or variable exercise (MFP)?

I wouldn't assume your Doctor understands the subtlety of net calories vs simply eating to a set allowance unless you explained it to her.

No I didn't/don't use a tracker as I didn't see myself wearing one for life and it would be a poor method for estimating either my activity (often not step based) or my exercise (where heart rate would be a far worse basis for calorie expenditure).

I asked her a good calorie intake for the day with exercise. I have pcos so i run everything by her to make sure i'm not doing something to harm myself in my efforts. I pm'd her last week to let her know i'm burning almost exactly what i'm eating and she said it was perfectly safe for me to do so. I use the treadmill in the morning, then do my exercises, then do the treadmill again after dinner. I've been sleeping so much better with the increase in exercise for sure.

Its just driving me nuts because mfp says one thing and if i go to fitbit it usually says i burned more. I set my watch to time my workouts so it tells me bluntly what i burn in that time. it's bugging me the way its so inconsistnant because for me its mentally stimulating to see that number at the end of the day on top of what i've eaten. Its helped me kick my eating disorder in tthe trash and i've been doing amazing with low carb meals and such. I feel pretty triumphant because on top of that i have homeschool, housework, dinner, and two kids to care for lol. feel like super woman

cwolfman13

kallen771991 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

I'm a bit confused - are you aiming to eat 1500 every day or are you trying to vary your calorie allowance in line with your variable activity and exercise (Fitbit) or variable exercise (MFP)?

I wouldn't assume your Doctor understands the subtlety of net calories vs simply eating to a set allowance unless you explained it to her.

No I didn't/don't use a tracker as I didn't see myself wearing one for life and it would be a poor method for estimating either my activity (often not step based) or my exercise (where heart rate would be a far worse basis for calorie expenditure).

I asked her a good calorie intake for the day with exercise. I have pcos so i run everything by her to make sure i'm not doing something to harm myself in my efforts. I pm'd her last week to let her know i'm burning almost exactly what i'm eating and she said it was perfectly safe for me to do so. I use the treadmill in the morning, then do my exercises, then do the treadmill again after dinner. I've been sleeping so much better with the increase in exercise for sure.

Its just driving me nuts because mfp says one thing and if i go to fitbit it usually says i burned more. I set my watch to time my workouts so it tells me bluntly what i burn in that time. it's bugging me the way its so inconsistnant because for me its mentally stimulating to see that number at the end of the day on top of what i've eaten. Its helped me kick my eating disorder in tthe trash and i've been doing amazing with low carb meals and such. I feel pretty triumphant because on top of that i have homeschool, housework, dinner, and two kids to care for lol. feel like super woman

Do you have your device synched? When the device is synched you don't get a calorie adjustment specific to the exercise performed, it's not a direct crossover. You get a reconciling adjustment from whatever activity level you set in MFP to the actual per your device. It isn't just exercise...your device is estimating total calorie requirements in your day as per all of your activity and everything else. If it is greater than the activity level set in MFP you get a reconciling adjustment increase...but it's not specifically XXX calories from Y exercise.

This helps to avoid double dipping as some of your calories burned per your device are already included in your calorie target per your activity level setting...the reconciling adjustment is just the offset of that.

kallen771991

cwolfman13 wrote: »

kallen771991 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

I'm a bit confused - are you aiming to eat 1500 every day or are you trying to vary your calorie allowance in line with your variable activity and exercise (Fitbit) or variable exercise (MFP)?

I wouldn't assume your Doctor understands the subtlety of net calories vs simply eating to a set allowance unless you explained it to her.

No I didn't/don't use a tracker as I didn't see myself wearing one for life and it would be a poor method for estimating either my activity (often not step based) or my exercise (where heart rate would be a far worse basis for calorie expenditure).

I asked her a good calorie intake for the day with exercise. I have pcos so i run everything by her to make sure i'm not doing something to harm myself in my efforts. I pm'd her last week to let her know i'm burning almost exactly what i'm eating and she said it was perfectly safe for me to do so. I use the treadmill in the morning, then do my exercises, then do the treadmill again after dinner. I've been sleeping so much better with the increase in exercise for sure.

Its just driving me nuts because mfp says one thing and if i go to fitbit it usually says i burned more. I set my watch to time my workouts so it tells me bluntly what i burn in that time. it's bugging me the way its so inconsistnant because for me its mentally stimulating to see that number at the end of the day on top of what i've eaten. Its helped me kick my eating disorder in tthe trash and i've been doing amazing with low carb meals and such. I feel pretty triumphant because on top of that i have homeschool, housework, dinner, and two kids to care for lol. feel like super woman

Do you have your device synched? When the device is synched you don't get a calorie adjustment specific to the exercise performed, it's not a direct crossover. You get a reconciling adjustment from whatever activity level you set in MFP to the actual per your device. It isn't just exercise...your device is estimating total calorie requirements in your day as per all of your activity and everything else. If it is greater than the activity level set in MFP you get a reconciling adjustment increase...but it's not specifically XXX calories from Y exercise.

This helps to avoid double dipping as some of your calories burned per your device are already included in your calorie target per your activity level setting...the reconciling adjustment is just the offset of that.

Oh i gotcha. Nah i've not changed my activity level in a while. It messes with all my macros and calorie amounts. Idk what it would do if i did. Going from lightly active to active would be a decrease in burn wouldn't it?

sijomial

In reality neither your Fitbit's standalone exercise estimate or MFP's exercise estimate will be empirically accurate!
Just like MFP's average activity setting won't be precise and your Fitbit's variable activity estimate won't be precise.
Ditto your estimated BMR....
Ditto your food logging.....
And all those inaccuracies may be too high, too low, pretty close.

And the numbers you are seeing here from a synched Fitbit are both an activity and exercise adjustment and not just exercise.
e.g. yesterday I did 4hrs of exercise but my non-exercise activity would have been lower than a more normal day. Other days my activity will be significantly higher than average and my exercise lower.

Calorie counting is just a means to an end!
Making estimates "reasonable" is plenty good enough for purpose.

If you like using your Fitbit then just go by its numbers for an extended period of time and your weight trend will tell you if you need to make an adjustment or not.
Or if you want to eat a same every day 1500cals the same adjustment process applies.
Or if you wanted to unsynch your Fitbit and use MFP as designed that works too.

PS - changing your MFP activity level changes the size of the Fitbit adjustments, it doesn't change the end of day numbers.

ShayAllenHill

This isn't exactly what you asked, but mentally I've been where you are now. Calorie estimation (in and out) is challenging:

• you have a BMR, which changes
• fitness wearables disagree with each other
• foods aren't always labeled accurately, and some foods are harder to estimate than others
• I've read that you fidget less when you diet, which can make a difference to calorie burn
• what we eat vs. what we absorb isn't known or consistent

For these and other reasons, I had to give up looking for that perfect number. I couldn't trust the apps and labels completely, so I came up with a strategy.

When I reach a milestone weight (increments for these will be different depending on your goals) and hold it for a few days, I adjust my MFP calories the other way until I gain a few pounds and hold it for a few days. Keep logging. This isn't a binge. Nothing crazy, but it calms my concerns about metabolic downregulation, muscle and tissue loss, whatever. For example, lose ten pounds, gain three, lose ten, gain three.