Please someone explain the fitbit for an idiot!!

slimiranda

Ok, i have had my fitbit for a week now and i dont get how it works out my exercise calories. If i say on mfp that i am sedentry it says i should eat 1200 cals a day and the fit bit tops up my exercise cals, for example today i have 602 extra. Now if i put my activity levelup to say very active, mfp says i should eat 1600 cals - but the fitbit exercise cals stay the same, at 602 meaning that i could technically eat 2200 cals. But the fitbit surely should adjust those depending on what i have done in the day.

If i have set it to lose 2lbs a week, which i have. Surely if i am burning 2700 cals as the fit bit says then i should be eating 1700 cals no?? I am sooooo confused and masively stuck in a rut and not losing frequently!!


Help!!!

Ready2Rock206

I could be wrong but I think if you're going to eat back your FitBit calories you should leave your settings as sedentary.

jasonheyd

If you've got MFP and Fitbit synced, then the activity level on MFP shouldn't really matter much (although -- if you're not using sedentary -- then, personally, I think you should definitely enable the negative adjustment in your profile settings, just in case you're not as active as you're thinking).

MFP calcs the adjustment based on the difference between Fitbit's full-day estimated calorie burn and MFP's estimated calories burned at that time (which is based off your BMR calculations).

So, if MFP's estimated calorie burn is higher because you've set your activity level to active, then that difference (and your calorie adjustment) should be smaller.

With that said, if you're changing your activity level back and forth to see the difference, I'm not really sure how quickly those changes will settle in... There could be some lag. If you go to the Exercise tab and click the little blue "i" icon next to the calorie adjustment, it should show you the numbers used to calculate your current adjustment.