Increasing calorie deficit with Fitbit - making up calories?

wookiemouse
wookiemouse Posts: 290 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I had been at a plateau for a while, so I got a Fitbit - and found I was 600 cals/day under what I should be for a 1 lb/week weight loss! So I increased my daily intake from 1500 to 1800 and am finding I am STILL 200-300 cals behind!

The problem is I log all my food for the day in the morning (except snacks, but those are always 150-200). At that point in the day, I'm spot-on calorie-wise, according to MFP. But as the day goes on, my Fitbit says I'm burning more calories than MFP alloted and makes it's adjustment. It was 34 calories left at lunchtime, now at dinnertime it's 283! With ALL my meals for the day logged.

I'm getting frustrated in trying to make up that deficit every evening. It's not completely consistent - weekends (when I don't exercise) are lower and easier to manage. But on days like today, when I have to eat back my exercise calories (400) plus the Fitbit adjustment (126 as of right now), it's HARD to find what essentially is a 6th meal for the day. I'm eating 99% clean, and most of the foods I eat are low in calories and I need a lot of them to make it up. And at that point in the day....I'm just not hungry. But I know I need to eat in order to avoid starvation mode.

Has anyone else encountered this? Have you just padded your meals throughout the day and hoped you didn't go over by too much? Or have you found evening snacks that are healthy and can make up the deficit?

Replies

  • wftiger
    wftiger Posts: 1,283 Member
    I use my fitbit as motivation. Nothing more. I have never eaten back one exercise calorie and I have had no difficulties. I have had a plateau but those happen and even through that I still lost a nice bit of weight for the month.

    Do some research on reputable sites and see if you should really be eating all that back for the best results. By all means if you are hungry then I suppose do it but if you are not and just doing it because of the ridiculous mumbo jumbo on this site then you should look into that elsewhere and see if it is right.
  • mfpcopine
    mfpcopine Posts: 3,093 Member
    I use my fitbit as motivation. Nothing more. I have never eaten back one exercise calorie and I have had no difficulties. I have had a plateau but those happen and even through that I still lost a nice bit of weight for the month.

    Do some research on reputable sites and see if you should really be eating all that back for the best results. By all means if you are hungry then I suppose do it but if you are not and just doing it because of the ridiculous mumbo jumbo on this site then you should look into that elsewhere and see if it is right.

    I also use the Fitbit only for motivation, although the basic daily amount it recommends I eat is less than that which MFP recommends. I pay no attention to the calorie credits generated by Fitbit's calculation of my activity.

    If you work out regularly and vigorously (which I can't at the moment) you quickly develop a sense of whether you should eat more. Going under a few hundred calories every week is not going to make a difference, especially since, given the probability of underestimating calories, many people eat more than they think.
  • trosewine
    trosewine Posts: 88
    The timing of the adjustment is frustrating for sure as it is hard to make it up by the end of the day, especially on exercise days. Try changing your activity level on MFP to one higher than it is. Then MFP will start you off with more cals for the day overall and there will be less adjusting as the day goes on. You should see a smaller adjustment on exercise days and no or a very small adjustment on non-exercise days.
    Hope that helps...

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