Re-posting: eat back Fitbit automatic calorie adjustments?

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photosarah
photosarah Posts: 32 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I didn't get any responses last night, so I am trying again. I have had a Fitbit for a while, but just recently synched it up to MFP. As a result, MFP has been adding an extra 600 calories (minimum) to each of my days (I live in NYC so I walk about 15,000 steps/day). I am really unclear as to what these calories mean - am I supposed to eat them back? Or should I only eat back a percentage (that's what I normally do with regular exercise logging)? Or should I just ignore these numbers? Any advice would be much appreciated.

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  • msurads06
    msurads06 Posts: 66 Member
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    I usually eat back most of my calorie adjustment just like I do with exercise. My activity level varies pretty significantly from day to day with some days being sedentary and some being pretty active. I have my account set for negative adjustments so on days I am less active I get to eat fewer calories. Its pretty rare that I end up with a negative adjustment for the day but having been sick this week, there were a few days where I was negative for the day.

    What is your activity level set at? If you are consistently getting 600 extra calories a day, you may want to think about upping your MFP activity level which would also increase your calorie allowance but decrease the extra calories added by fit bit. I have my activity level set to sedentary because I hate to see negative adjustments but I rarely have 600 adjustment from fitbit.

    If you take the bus/subway you may want to check to make sure that it isn't adding additional steps you haven't done. In my in-town driving this isn't a big deal but when I drive to a nearby town for grocery shopping it can sometimes add 3,000 steps due to bumpy roads. I use an android phone app called drivebit to help correct this, though you could just keep an eye on the start/stop time and log that in fitbit to correct for this tendency.

    Hope some of this helps.
  • lyssad86
    lyssad86 Posts: 31
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    I'm doing the TDEE method where you're not supposed to eat back your calories--unfortunately, when I could see the adjustments on my screen due to TDEE, I was more tempted to eat them back and often did. I've unlinked my accounts for now, just so I don't eat back my TDEE calories and get past my weight loss plateau.

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