Need help figuring out your TDEE? Get a Fitbit.

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  • jenbroussard71
    jenbroussard71 Posts: 222 Member
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    Bump to read later. What I've read so far has me interested in purchasing a Fitbit.
  • CountryGirl8542
    CountryGirl8542 Posts: 449 Member
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    The fitbit one estimates your TDEE just like every website does with your vital stats. Then it divides that by 24 and uses that value when you're not doing anything. It's just a glorified pedometer so it can only measure what a pedometer can. It does vertical too, which is a bonus.

    A heart rate monitor is way more accurate.

    I agree ^ I have a fitbit and I wish I would have got a HRM for more accuracy
  • RivenV
    RivenV Posts: 1,667 Member
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    The fitbit one estimates your TDEE just like every website does with your vital stats. Then it divides that by 24 and uses that value when you're not doing anything. It's just a glorified pedometer so it can only measure what a pedometer can. It does vertical too, which is a bonus.

    A heart rate monitor is way more accurate.

    I agree ^ I have a fitbit and I wish I would have got a HRM for more accuracy

    More accuracy when?
  • BarbieAS
    BarbieAS Posts: 1,414 Member
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    OK, please do some more math for me. I got my FitBit One for Christmas. I started a spreadsheet on 01 January to track stuff.
    IIFYM.com TDEE for no exercise calories is 1605
    MFP maintain sedentary is 1670
    BMR is 1338

    I set MFP for .5 loss per week. It gave me 1430 calories. FitBit (set at .5 pounds for loss) gave me 1567 calories. My average caloric intake for the past 9 days is 1353. I have actually lost 1.2 pounds in 9 days. Average calories burned per day is 257.

    I'm guessing my MFP TDEE is the 1670? How do I know what my FitBit TDEE is?

    MFP considers your TDEE the 1670, which is based exclusively on the settings you enter.

    When you say Fitbit gave you 1567 calories, is that your starting for each day (based on your settings) or is that what it's calculating based on actual activity for each day?

    To find what Fitbit is calculating your TDEE at, you just need to review each completed day and take an average.

    At 9 days in, you don't have a large enough data set to apply your actual loss and intake against your Fitbit data to see if it's accurate. I'd estimate you need at LEAST 6 weeks for that to be a worthwhile exercise, maybe 4 weeks if you didn't really change your habits when you started using it (and therefore didn't have much of an initial water weight loss).
  • 1Cor1510
    1Cor1510 Posts: 413 Member
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    Bump
  • meganmoore112
    meganmoore112 Posts: 174 Member
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    Great news! I got mine for Christmas. On totally lazy days, I burn about 1800, but I don't have many of those days. My average for last week was 1967. My goal is 2164, so I'm trying to get it higher on a regular basis. All it takes to get there is 30 minutes of good, hard exercise but most days so far I've just been walking to meet my step goal.

    Glad to hear it's been useful for you. I hope it helps me too!!!
  • dauvis
    dauvis Posts: 57
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    I have a fitbit that I used to have connected here. I found the synchronization between fitbit and MFP to be unreliable. Some days it worked as it should but some days it not. Is there a trick that I missed?
  • scrapjen
    scrapjen Posts: 387 Member
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    @bekahlou ... when you go to the Fitbit website, in the top right corner you will see your profile picture. Click on it and it will take you to a summary page. Here you'll have your average daily burn for the last 30 days. If you are logging food in MFP and have connected the two, it will also show your intake and give you a 30-day average there too (once you've had it for 30 days that is *Ü*). Your daily numbers are graphed, and I TRY to keep those lines from touching (making sure my burn is higher than my intake).

    I am a huge Fitbit fan ... I have a HRM too and I appreciate it's feedback for specific exercise sessions, but love the Fitbit for it's ease, convenience and comfort (I still am always painfully aware of my HRM every moment I have it on). I pretty much wear mine 24/7. Unlike a plain pedometer, the Fitbit's wireless syncing and chronological visual display of steps is so motivational to me.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    I set MFP for .5 loss per week. It gave me 1430 calories. FitBit (set at .5 pounds for loss) gave me 1567 calories. My average caloric intake for the past 9 days is 1353. I have actually lost 1.2 pounds in 9 days. Average calories burned per day is 257.

    I'm guessing my MFP TDEE is the 1670? How do I know what my FitBit TDEE is?

    Your FitBit TDEE is what they call "Calories Burned". It will vary each day based on how active you are. FitBit will subtract 250 calories from it's estimate of your total daily burn based on your activity level, but it will adjust throughout the day. When I first started using FitBit, the numbers it gave me and MFP gave me were somewhat different, but after adjusting settings on both to match (changed from sedentary to lightly active and then active) and adjusting my calorie goal in MFP to about 250 less than the average Calories Burned from FitBit over a period of several weeks, they now are usually within 30 calories of each other.
  • NavyKnightAh13
    NavyKnightAh13 Posts: 1,394 Member
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    Bumping for later read
  • bekahlou75
    bekahlou75 Posts: 304 Member
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    OK, please do some more math for me. I got my FitBit One for Christmas. I started a spreadsheet on 01 January to track stuff.
    IIFYM.com TDEE for no exercise calories is 1605
    MFP maintain sedentary is 1670
    BMR is 1338

    I set MFP for .5 loss per week. It gave me 1430 calories. FitBit (set at .5 pounds for loss) gave me 1567 calories. My average caloric intake for the past 9 days is 1353. I have actually lost 1.2 pounds in 9 days. Average calories burned per day is 257.

    I'm guessing my MFP TDEE is the 1670? How do I know what my FitBit TDEE is?

    MFP considers your TDEE the 1670, which is based exclusively on the settings you enter.

    When you say Fitbit gave you 1567 calories, is that your starting for each day (based on your settings) or is that what it's calculating based on actual activity for each day?

    To find what Fitbit is calculating your TDEE at, you just need to review each completed day and take an average.

    At 9 days in, you don't have a large enough data set to apply your actual loss and intake against your Fitbit data to see if it's accurate. I'd estimate you need at LEAST 6 weeks for that to be a worthwhile exercise, maybe 4 weeks if you didn't really change your habits when you started using it (and therefore didn't have much of an initial water weight loss).

    Yes, 1567 is what Fitbit says I should eat to lose .5 per week.

    thanks
  • GadgetGuy2
    GadgetGuy2 Posts: 291 Member
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    Regarding the pedometer (e.g. FB) vs. HRM arguments.

    Neither are right. You need both an HRM for "exertion not related to walking" (e.g. push-ups) AND a pedometer for the 7/24 calorie burns which are mostly (say 70% as a wild guess) related to walking.

    So, IMHO, trying to decide which is best for all activities is a futile effort since they do different things (i.e. you are comparing apples and oranges).

    You need both...if you want to capture most of the EE part of TDEE (BMR excepted).
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
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    Regarding the pedometer (e.g. FB) vs. HRM arguments.

    Neither are right. You need both an HRM for "formal exercise not related to walking" (e.g. push-ups) AND a pedometer for the 7/24 calorie burns which are mostly (say 70% as a wild guess) related to walking.

    So, IMHO, trying to decide which is best for all activities is a futile effort since they do different things (i.e. you are comparing apples and oranges).

    You need both...if you want to capture most of the EE part of TDEE.

    The calorie expenditure calculated by an HRM during a push-up session will be horribly inaccurate. HRMs are good at estimating calorie burn only during steady-state cardio that lasts a significant amount of time when your VO2max is known.

    They are not meant to estimate calorie burn during resistance training in any capacity.
  • Denjo060
    Denjo060 Posts: 1,008
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    Ill hav to read this later thanks
  • GadgetGuy2
    GadgetGuy2 Posts: 291 Member
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    ...
    You need both...if you want to capture most of the EE part of TDEE.
    The calorie expenditure calculated by an HRM during a push-up session will be horribly inaccurate. HRMs are good at estimating calorie burn only during steady-state cardio that lasts a significant amount of time when your VO2max is known.

    They are not meant to estimate calorie burn during resistance training in any capacity.
    I stand corrected. Thank you!
  • tigger9759
    tigger9759 Posts: 55 Member
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    So I have the new Fitbit Force and love it already; have had it for about 4 weeks now. I synced it with MFP and it adjusts my calories up each; so when it shows my new calorie goal for the day on MFP, is that taking into account my weight loss goals on here?
  • miavitabellla
    miavitabellla Posts: 6
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    I do love my Fitbit One but I wish I would have purchased a heart rate monitor instead. I may go back and get a Polar FT7 watch with a chest strap.
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
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    So I have the new Fitbit Force and love it already; have had it for about 4 weeks now. I synced it with MFP and it adjusts my calories up each; so when it shows my new calorie goal for the day on MFP, is that taking into account my weight loss goals on here?

    Yes, it should be. MFP gives you the calorie adjustment based on the difference between how many calories Fitbit says you are burning versus how many MFP expected you to burn.
  • kgreenRDLDN
    kgreenRDLDN Posts: 248 Member
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    So i'm sure at some point this was asked, I just don't have the time or energy to scan all 11 pages of comments. What exactly does the fitbit track? Is it a high tech pedometer? I guess i'm not understanding how a thing clipped to your waist can tell how long/how well you have slept, or how many calories you burned doing high impact exercise (other than by tracking steps)
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
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    So i'm sure at some point this was asked, I just don't have the time or energy to scan all 11 pages of comments. What exactly does the fitbit track? Is it a high tech pedometer? I guess i'm not understanding how a thing clipped to your waist can tell how long/how well you have slept, or how many calories you burned doing high impact exercise (other than by tracking steps)

    Well the real answer is that no one quite knows. They don't make the algorithm public.

    The device has a 3-axis accelerometer in it. This means it can measure motion, to a pretty high degree of precision, in 3 dimensions. The software translates this motion, via said unknown algorithm, into energy expenditure. It clearly tracks steps, and it can also determine speed to some extent.

    There's nothing all that mysterious about burning calories. It takes a certain amount of energy to accelerate a human body of a given mass in a given direction. The Fitbit tracks this and somehow calculates calorie consumption from it. It seems to do it surprisingly well.

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