Need help figuring out your TDEE? Get a Fitbit.

elyelyse

It gave you 13000 steps during your bumpy car ride?? I haven't heard of it doing that many before!

well... it may be because i keep it clipped to my bra, so when things are bumpy um... yeah lol. I had the same thing in the fall when I went on an off-road jeep ride.

For those who commented that we can account for that later on by adjusting that number via the web site, yes absolutely, on those days when it's this obvious. but the fact that it's sensitive enough to give me 13000 for car ride, leaves me with the impression that there are other, more subtle inaccuracies on a normal day to day basis.

cassylee

Sorry people, but what exactly is TDEE?

aliciaaw

I have FB, I guess I'm not using my right. Cause When I reset it in the morning it all ready has calories burn. I guess I need to go back to the FB SITE

Mia_RagazzaTosta

I have FB, I guess I'm not using my right. Cause When I reset it in the morning it all ready has calories burn. I guess I need to go back to the FB SITE

You burn calories just by being alive. I wake up to about 550 calories burned every day. If you have calories burned and you aren't wearing it, you have the calorie estimation setting enabled.

cyndilie

I don't know why I read these message boards. I have read each and every post on this stream and now I am completely and utterly confused about what to do, what to buy.

Ottinger13

I have a fitbit and have been using it for a week. My weight loss was stuck and everyone kept telling me to eat more, Well, with the fitbit, it tells me exactly where I am at the end of the day, how many calories I burned, takes the food I put into MFP, and tells me if I am over or under and what I need to do. I set my fitbit at 1.5 pounds loss each week.

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Ottinger13

It will have calories burned in the morning as you are burning calories when you sleep

shadow2soul

I have FB, I guess I'm not using my right. Cause When I reset it in the morning it all ready has calories burn. I guess I need to go back to the FB SITE

I'm guessing you mean when you sync it in the morning. Fitbit automatically resets at midnight every night. You burn calories even in your sleep, so it should have a small calorie burn estimate for you when you wake up.

luckyjuls

It gave you 13000 steps during your bumpy car ride?? I haven't heard of it doing that many before!

well... it may be because i keep it clipped to my bra, so when things are bumpy um... yeah lol. I had the same thing in the fall when I went on an off-road jeep ride.

For those who commented that we can account for that later on by adjusting that number via the web site, yes absolutely, on those days when it's this obvious. but the fact that it's sensitive enough to give me 13000 for car ride, leaves me with the impression that there are other, more subtle inaccuracies on a normal day to day basis.

If you know when you are driving and see a major inaccuracy of 13000 steps during that time, it will be pretty obvious that it's picking up bumps, I think? If you know you sat from 9-12 P.M. and it says you walked 13000 steps, there is something wrong with the device.

Serah87

Hopefully getting a Fitbit for Mother's Day!!

Maggie_Pie1

The argument of "it isn't 100% accurate all the time" against it being an excellent (and relatively inexpensive) tool to approximate TDEE is weak.

The person I quoted wasn't making that argument, either, so it's a moot point. I think the point was that whether you are using a fitbit, HRM, or some other tool, it's all estimated in the end. Just like the food you log, it's still, basically, estimates. Some estimates are better than others, some tools are better at measuring calories for different activities. for example, I'll trust the calorie expenditure using a HRM over a fitbit when I'm cycling. But HRM won't be as accurate when I'm doing things that aren't as strenuous, like walking.

So, IMO, it's just a matter of knowing the limitations of your tool, whether it be a HRM, fitbit, bodymedia, etc, and take those things into account.

coolraul07

Have the FitBit One... love it! I also have a Polar FT7 HRM... love it! Use HRM for purposeful cardio and yard work, use FBO for everything else, including sleep tracking. Our bodies are not computers, so NOTHING will be 100% accurate; however, for my purposes, FB+HRM work for me! A few tidbits:
• For those without pockets, FBO can clip to bras and underclothes, inside or outside. For sleeping, it comes with a velcro wrist band
• For those with 'car/plane ride counts as steps/flights' issues: FB has a workaround in their FAQ. The activity tracking feature can be turned on-off by holding down button for several seconds; timer will stop/start to indicate (same as sleep tracking). Later after you sync, you can go to FB website and change that logged activity to 'transportation' one. Alternatively, if you forgot the turn on/off the activity tracker, you can just manually enter an activity record via the website, but you'll need to remember the start/stop times. There's an MFP thread that details this: [http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/594590-adjusting-the-fitbit-for-driving-in-the-car].
My usual commute is so uneventful, that the difference was negligible so I stopped bothering to do the above.
• I turned on MFP/FBO syncing and allow my FBO to add additional exercise cals; however, I disable the 'negative cals' function because it's late in the evening before I can sync via personal laptop at home. Otherwise, I'd have a 'neg cal' entry most of the day and then around 7-8p I'd get a HUGE surplus and very little time to accomodate. What I did instead was have FBO tracks a truly sedentary day for me (e.g. lazily sat on @$$ all day except for bio breaks) and used that # for my custom MFP TDEE. That way, when I do anything above and beyond that, it'll automatically up my cals accordingly. WIN-WIN

jofjltncb6

I don't know why I read these message boards. I have read each and every post on this stream and now I am completely and utterly confused about what to do, what to buy.

Here's how I recommend you use the message boards here (based on years of observations of how other people do it):

Make up your mind about what you want to do. However you do that is entirely up to you...(and yes, using the message boards here is one source of information for this step). So is flipping a coin or rolling a die. Or read a book...or an article...or a blog post...or a random comment you find on the internet. How you arrive at your conclusion really isn't important to this process.

Once you have your decision made, *then* peruse the message boards looking for posts that support/justify/rationalize your decision. Reply to a lot of them with a resounding "^this". Send the posters FRs. Challenge anyone (and everyone) who posts information to the contrary. Seek out threads that differ from your choice and defend your decision beyond reasonable levels. Do not rest until you have persuaded everyone.

devariojay

Sorry people, but what exactly is TDEE?

Total Daily Energy Expenditure

heybales

For those arguing the FitBit won't log your exercise as correctly as a HRM would, especially for activities it admittedly isn't as good at.

What % of the exercise time do you have on those activities, or % of potential calorie burn?

Say 3 hrs weekly lifting weights.
3 / 168 weekly hrs = 1.8% of your FitBit time is probably under-estimated each week. That's avg 26 min daily.

Ok, lets go by calories for 3 hrs weekly lifting weights, 300 per session realistic.
900 / 14000 weekly TDEE = 6.4% of your FitBit calories is probably under-estimated each week. For a 2000 calorie TDEE, that's 128 calories. Easily the level of inaccuracies in food labels and measuring errors.

Same thing can be applied to any exercise it won't be good at measuring.

Now, where it would start to fall apart is say a cyclist riding 7 hrs weekly with calories burns around 900 / hr. Even though higher weekly TDEE, still bigger chunk of inaccuracy.

Now you will probably run in to undereating too much for your level of activity if you have reasonable deficit already.

But keep it in perspective for your own activity and do the math for potential, probably not a concern.

And a 1 hr bumpy ride out of rest of the week being better estimate.....

In fact, those possible inflations are nulled by the fact the device uses BMR level calories for ALL non-moving activities, when that really would apply to just sleep, with slightly higher RMR being used during awake non-moving times. So a failsafe already you might say.

And ya, calories based on walking and jogging formula's can be much more accurate than HRM's if the pace can be decently figured, weight and steps are already known.

Bekahmardis

Which fitbit do you have...does it matter?

I just looked at the flex. Im wondering if there are any advantages over the "one"

I think this is just personal preference. I love the One because it also measures stairs. On my trail runs it gives me the "flights" I've climbed over the 8-10 miles I run (Over 70 this past weekend!!)

My husband just got the flex, didn't even want the One knowing the flex was coming out. He doesn't care about the flights, just wants to monitor his sleep and increase his movement.

Yes, this. I waited for the FitBit Flex because I would end up losing something clipped to my pants or bra. The Flex is nice and inconspicuous (unlike me) and I rarely know it's there. I love mine.

luckyjuls

What I did instead was have FBO tracks a truly sedentary day for me (e.g. lazily sat on @$$ all day except for bio breaks) and used that # for my custom MFP TDEE. That way, when I do anything above and beyond that, it'll automatically up my cals accordingly. WIN-WIN

This makes a lot of sense, too. There are days when I'm pretty lazy and I want to know what THAT TDEE is. Just to know what my base is on average.

hkrchris

I have been using the Fitbit One since Christmas and totally agree that it makes figuring out how much I can eat pretty brainless! I like the One because it also keeps track of stairs too! It calculates activity level based on the the rate at which you are walking, so faster walk is more calories burned. It also tracks how many hours of restful sleep you are getting. Pretty cool all around, and when I want that ice-cream after dinner I use MFP to figure out how many calories I need and then power walk the neighborhood until Fitbit tells MFP that I have "earned" the ice-cream and won't blow the diet! I also have the Aria scale, which I just need to stand on each morning before I get dressed and it will wirelessly sync my weight and BMI to my Fitbit app....it doesn't get much easier or more motivating!

devariojay

Which fitbit do you have...does it matter?

I just looked at the flex. Im wondering if there are any advantages over the "one"

I think this is just personal preference. I love the One because it also measures stairs. On my trail runs it gives me the "flights" I've climbed over the 8-10 miles I run (Over 70 this past weekend!!)

My husband just got the flex, didn't even want the One knowing the flex was coming out. He doesn't care about the flights, just wants to monitor his sleep and increase his movement.

Yes, this. I waited for the FitBit Flex because I would end up losing something clipped to my pants or bra. The Flex is nice and inconspicuous (unlike me) and I rarely know it's there. I love mine.

Ok cool thanks, i already use a Polar FT7 HRM and I just put the strap on when it is time to workout. However I DO wear the watch all the time since it looks really cool

I didnt want to have two things like that so the FITFLEX is good for me since it is like a strap as opposed to it looking like I have two watches on or something.

Does fitflex also have some sort of chest strap? or is it all contained in that one small wrist strap? just want to make sure im not basically gonna be wearing a HRM all day.

cyndilie

Well I thought I wanted a Fitbit, so I've been following the TDEE/Fitbit topics on MFP, but this particular stream really has thrown me. I think I will decide for myself what works best for me and go from there. Thanks for your advice.