Suspicious Fitbit Adjustment?

Pbrogan

Hi! I’m just getting started using my new Fitbit, and I’m wondering what other users experience with their calorie adjustments. I’m set at Lightly Active for my non-exercise life.

I am logging between 5,000 and 10,000 steps a day and getting what seems like a hefty 120-250 calories for it. (I figured the first 5,000 steps were “sedentary” and the next 5,000 would nudge me up to “lightly active” or a bit more).

Right now, I’m trying to test out the algorithms on my bod by just doing what they tell me for 4-6 weeks, so I’m not overly worried about whether or not I’ll stop losing weight. I’m more curious whether the app is working properly.
Thanks! And sorry if this is in the wrong place, I’m still finding my way around!!

spiriteagle99

For me, 10,000 steps is the equivalent of walking 5 miles, so getting an extra 250 calories would be about right. I have found that 2000 steps is my walking around the house and short errand activity. Beyond that is usually deliberate exercise.

sbelletti

Are you including your exercise in your overall activity level AND logging the same exercise separately? If so, you are double counting those calories.

Rockmama1111

For comparison: I have MFP set to Not Very Active and it gives me over 400 calories for a 10,000 step day. I don’t enter activity in MFP myself, I just let my Fitbit adjustment be my calorie cushion.

PAV8888

Don't log the activity separately on MFP. Log food on MFP activities on Fitbit.

The final adjustment is at midnight.

MFP assigns 1 25 x bmr for every sedentary minute. 1.4 bmr Cal for lightly active.

Fitbit assigns 1.0 when no detection. And per detection of average activity for the past five minutes when activity is taking place.

When you sit on the couch at 8pm and go to bed at 10pm you will lose some of these extra calories at a rate of 0.4 x bmr for the time left to midnight (if negative adjustments are enabled and you're set to lightly active.

10k steps btw usually verges to an equivalence to active; not lightly.

On MFP I used to use very active which started my day with a large negative adjustment and had me losing calories at 0.8x bmr in late evening; but was the smallest absolute value adjustment from my personal activity level.

The other option is to start from sedentary and accept a larger adjustment. My current thinking is that this may be easier on people once they learn to "trust" their adjustments.

Remember that the adjustment does not directly reflect a particular exercise or activity.

It is just an accounting entry that adjusts your MFP TDEE to be equal in value to your Fitbit TDEE

Then MFP deducts your deficit and turns the number into your eating target

Pbrogan

Thank you all so much! This is super helpful. Spiriteagle99, are you also set to Lightly Active? If so, given what you and Rockmama1111 are seeing, that would make my numbers totally plausible. I’m not double logging anything. I think MFP may be defining Lightly Active more generously than I expected.

PAV8888, that explanation is perfect. You’re probably right about starting with Not Very Active, but I will enable negative calories and see what happens first.

Thanks again!