Fitbit exercise calories WAY too high

mkzara
mkzara Posts: 73 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
So I am looking at my fitbit calories for yesterday that were applied to my food log.

I walked about a 1000 steps, and my fitbit just ended up using sedentary calories because it's negligible activity.

According to my fitbit the sedentary calories are 1843. That seems extremely high. I am a 23 year old female who weight 121 lbs.

there were days a few weeks ago when I was walking about 3000 steps and my total calories burned were about 1500, which seems reasonable.

Is anyone else having a similar problem? Do you have any idea on how to fix it? Otherwise my logs on both MFP and Fitbit will be wrong.

Also if I turn off calorie estimation on the fibit, how would my fitbit steps/calories translate here on MFP. Any advice would be appreciated.

Replies

  • Nic620
    Nic620 Posts: 553 Member
    Bump!

    Interested in responses. I just tonight linked my fitbit to MFP account. It's only my first full day wearing it. Once I linked the account it added a adjustment to my exercise diary which I'm not sure what's that's based on?
  • jaz050465
    jaz050465 Posts: 3,508 Member
    Have a look at the help section at the top of the page and look at the info about the Fitbit linking which will explain how it all works.
  • d3zd3z
    d3zd3z Posts: 2
    I have been using the fitbit linking as well, and given that I general am under my goal, but am not losing my weight, I'm also thinking that the fitbit calorie estimate is way too high.

    I'm not really sure how to fix this, or even address it. I'm considering removing the fitbit linking entirely, since it seems to be making my target calories meaningless.
  • rocket_ace
    rocket_ace Posts: 380 Member
    yeah - I agree. If I have an active day of walking like 15000 steps, part of which is running for 30 min, it'll show something insane like a negative 1400 calories. In theory makes sense, but I wouldn't be losing wright like that. I try to stay close to my base value w/o fitbit or exercie....so for me my sedentary base is 1800....I try not to go to much above that (like 2100 or so)...that being said, I also think the MFP base is set too low. On Loseit, its set a few hundred calories higher.
  • ladyraven68
    ladyraven68 Posts: 2,003 Member
    Bump!

    Interested in responses. I just tonight linked my fitbit to MFP account. It's only my first full day wearing it. Once I linked the account it added a adjustment to my exercise diary which I'm not sure what's that's based on?

    If you look at your Goals section on your home page, there is a section called Calories burned through daily activity.

    This is where MFP takes it's defict from.

    i.e it thinks you will burn 2000 so sets you a goal of 1500 to lose 1 lb.

    lets say your fit bit says you used 2250 calories, then MFP compres that to your 2000 it estimated and then makes an adjustment of 250, so for you to still have a 500 defict from your Daily activity calories you now need to eat 1750.

    If it regularly does this, then you have set your MFP activity setting too low.

    I was originally set at sedentary but my Fitbit was giving me a 100+ adjustment every day, so I changed the setting to lightly active so now I don't get so much of an adjustment.

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