FITBIT! HELP!

Raitanj1

Hi guys,

I just got a FitBit for Christmas. I am very confused by it. Is there anyone that has one and is kind of an expert at it? I have some questions and I would like to pick your brain if you know how to use them.

I got the FitBit One.

The biggest thing I am confused on is how many calories my FitBit says that I am burning! When I wake up in the morning, it says I have burned like 300+ calories, I do not feel this is accurate? Is there anyway to only track calories that are burned through activity?

Like I said, I am very confused on it. Also, I am a little confused on how these two websites link.

If you can, someone out there, please help me!

Thanks!
-Julie

jmkmomm

I am by no means an expert. Hopefully you will have one that comes along. But your body burns calories doing nothing. It takes calories for you heart to beat, your knees to change position when you sleep, for you to punch your pillow. If you will notice, there is an increase in every hour of the day just because your body burns calories just for it to sustain itself.

As far as 300 calories during the night, I burn something similar during the night but at 63 I do get up to the bathroom 2 times a night. My FitBit one doesn't sync very well to MFP pal either but I do use it as a motivator to get up and move and I enjoy the weekly reports I get in my email telling me my stats for the week.

So was it everything I expected, no. But it does help a lot more than a simple pedometer.

pteryndactyl

I'm no expert, but I've had a FitBit One for a few months so hopefully my experience can help.

Fitbit estimates your BMR in its calculations, so the 300 calories you've burned by the time you wake up are just calories you burn for simply existing. I think they include this in the calculations so you can have the most accurate calories burned estimate at the end of the day.

For example, my BMR is ~1400 and according to my Fitbit One, I burned 1875 yesterday. If it didn't include my BMR, it'd say I only burned 475. However, FitBit shows me as burning 1875 because that's what my body burned throughout the entire day and thus that's how many calories I can eat to maintain my weight. Knowing this number lets me (and MFP) alter my calorie goal based on my burns and goals. So if I want to maintain, I can eat 1875. If I wanted to lose 1/2 pound per week, I could eat 1625 yesterday, and so on. If I wanted to just get calories burned from exercise, a HRM is probably the way to go.

As for how the websites link, can you be more specific with your question? Do you not know HOW to link them, or what the purpose of doing so is, etc?

TheRealParisLove

Your fitbit doesn't assign you calories like MFP does, if tells you how many calories your have burned since midnight. Once you link it up to MFP, it will add back any calories you burn over your TDEE as exercise calories.

If you take a look at my profile, you'll see that I have burned something like 250 calories from my fitbit. It is pretty easy once you get the two apps linked together. MFP and Fitbit work together very well. You shouldn't have to worry about adding or subtracting calories once the two are linked.

thefatveganchef

There are a few other forum posts that talk about this same thing. In addition to what the previous poster said, MFP and FB uses slightly different formulas or ways of using those formulas to come up with the calories. I think MFP gives you a total including what it thinks is going to be your resting calorie burn while Fitbit uses more of a real time number. Be sure that your personal stats are the same on both sites. I don't enter any details on Fitbit, I just use that to transfer over my walking calories burned stats. Food and other activities I enter on mfp because it seems to be easier to get an accurate calorie burn measurement especially for odds and ends like washing dishes or walking at a 3.4mph pace. I would decide which site to use to monitor your calories and stick with it. I personally like mfp better than fitbit for that.

bellesouth18

I have a One also. I've had it a year now. You burn calories every moment of every day. That's what your RMR is--your resting metabolic rate. That's how many calories you burn just doing nothing but managing bodily functions, like your breathing, your heart beating, your lungs moving, etc. Fitbit predicts a calorie deficit or surplus using the information you gave it when you created your profile: Height, weight, age, activity level, etc. So while you were sleeping, you burned that amount of calories according to your Fitbit.

You can force a sync to MFP and the information will be transmitted immediately. If you don't do this, it takes about two hours for the information to go from Fitbit to MFP. I've noticed that my exercise calories are the last information to roll over. The accelerometer senses and tracks movement. So, the more you move, the more calories it says you've burned. But it's just an educated guess really based on the information you gave it. The only way to know that information is to get a heart rate monitor (HRM). Fitbit cannot track the intensity of a workout. A HRM can. Fitbit knows you moved for 30 minutes, but it doesn't know how much exertion was put forth. A HRM does because it uses your pulse as a measuring tool.

I love my Fitbit. You'll get more familiar with it. Give it time.

2essie

To link the two websites go to your home page and at the top you will see (amongst other things) Apps. Click on Apps and scroll down to 'fitbit tracker'. Click on fitbit tracker and over the right hand side you will see Connect accounts (or similar wording). Click on that and then follow the links. That will connect the two accounts. Log all your food in MFP and it will transfer over to fitbit.

Again I am no expert but have had my fitbit for 18 months and I love it.

By noticing what you burn when you are asleep that will give you a good indication of your BMR and you will soon be able to see your TDEE when you have worn it for a week or so as it gives you your average burn. That will then help you to work out a % off your TDEE in order to lose weight.

I love my fitbit. Hope you soon come to love yours.

TakinSexyBack

I have had 3 fitbits. You actually burn calories sleeping.......that is my guess of why we have cals burned when we wake up? That is my guess anyway. Just make sure your profile on fitbit matches what you are working for on MFP!

Raitanj1

Thanks so much everyone. All of your posts were a HUGE help!

editorgrrl

Here's a little Fitbit 101 I posted in another thread:

When you set up your MFP account, you specified an activity level: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided MFP used your answer, plus your age, sex & height, to estimate how many calories you burn every day (your TDEE). Then you set your weight-loss goal, and MFP subtracted the appropriate deficit to calculate your daily calorie goal.

Once you link an activity tracker to your MFP account (via the "Apps" tab at the top of every page), you start getting calorie adjustments. If your tracker says you burned more calories than MFP estimated, you get a positive adjustment (meaning more calories to eat). If you enable negative calorie adjustments and you burn less than the MFP estimate, you will lose calories. (But negative calorie adjustments will never drop your daily calories below 1,200.)

I wasn't losing much weight when I got my first activity tracker. At first, the adjustments didn't seem very accurate. But they got better, almost as if the system was "learning" my routine. It took a lot of trial & error to find the settings that worked best for me. But then everything clicked. I changed my MFP settings from sedentary to lightly active (even though I have a desk job), and now my adjustments are pretty minimal. And I'm losing!

I find my daily step goals really motivating. If I get home at night and see I'm thisclose to making goal, I'll walk around the block. A little bit more every day really adds up.