Fitbit help needed- former anorexic trying to be healthy

varizmendi
varizmendi Posts: 4
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi there,

I'm not regularly on MFP because I used to have an eating disorder and used it to lose more weight than I should. I have been weight-recovered from my disease for about two months now (21 years old, 5'3", 108-110 lbs on any given day. I realize this is a fairly low BMI, but it's where my body naturally falls). I recently ordered a fitbit because I noticed I was steadily losing, meaning I have been underestimating how many calories I need in a day. I work a fairly active retail job where I'm constantly walking around lugging clothes and helping customers for 8 hours on my feet, 4 times a week, and I also walk everywhere (on days when I leave the house haha). I don't want to be thinner. Calorie counting so far has been a great help in getting me on track, so I though fitbit's ability to track my physical activity would be useful in letting me know when I need to eat more (hunger signals are still iffy).

However, my numbers have been a huge problem. I think it's been overestimating my calories burned in a day. In a separate calculator, I saw that I'd burn around 200 calories if I had to walk home from work (a walk that takes me about 40 minutes, roughly 2.6 miles). So, that's a McDonald's soft serve cone I could treat myself during my walk. After I got home, and I saw that my calories burned in fitbit jumped up 700 calories. I realize it calculates activity calories on top of BMI but this seems really, really off from 200. It's been doing this for days now, if I go on a really light 1 hour hike (basically a walk) without having done much the rest of the day, it suddenly says I burned 3000 calories and under-ate by nearly 1000 by the time I'm ready for bed. So then I try to eat more to make up for it, despite the fact that I'm not hungry at all, end up feeling super bloated and full all day the next day, my hunger cues get even more screwed up, etc. Really, the fitbit has been more of a hassle than anything else, which sucks, because I really really want to know how much I need to maintain. I don't know if I should trust a non-personalized online calculator because it's so general and I am a fairly small person naturally.

Replies

  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    From the sounds of it, your FitBit is whacked.

    You could do what a lot of us do. Start with an online calculator. Maybe try the one that uses % body fat as an input (Katch-MCardle, I think). Since you definitely don't want to lose weight, err on the side of a higher usual activity level. Keep to those calories for a month or so. See if you're losing weight. If you are, raise your calories by 100 per day and go another month. Do the reverse if you find you're gaining. Continue until you find your maintenance level and then you can tweak your intake depending on your goals from there.
  • varizmendi
    varizmendi Posts: 4
    Yeah, I guess that's what I have to start doing. It's difficult because my activity changes from day-to-day depending on how many hours I work, when, at what times, etc. but oh well. Thanks for the help.
  • 10XCHADD
    10XCHADD Posts: 2 Member
    Good luck to you! I know it will be hard but you are doing a great job!
  • Bekahmardis
    Bekahmardis Posts: 602 Member
    Reset your FitBit. https://help.fitbit.com/customer/portal/articles/1041329

    If that doesn't help, then call their HELP line because yes, your FitBit is, as the other poster said, "Whacked."

    In the meantime, yes, go to the other online calculators and take an average....

    My FitBit started acting up one day, I reset it using the information in the link above, THEN I updated the firmware (check to see if you have an update available!) and it's been working fine ever since.

    FYI: Aside from being 42 years old, I have almost the exact same stats as you: 5'3" and 108 -110 maintenance weight now You're fine there. :)
  • schnarfo
    schnarfo Posts: 764 Member
    I love my fitbit! What type did you get? I find it really useful to know how many calories I need to consume to keep me healthy too
  • ShoShoyi
    ShoShoyi Posts: 34 Member
    I agree with the others that your Fitbit appears to have some sort of manufacturing error. Right now, I own a Bodymedia and it's been working pretty accurately. Personally, I don't recommend the calculators too much because I realized that I underestimate a lot when they ask me about my daily activity. Simply standing and walking burns a lot more calories than we realize.
  • Followingsea
    Followingsea Posts: 407 Member
    Check your Fitbit settings on their website - does it have your height/weight/age/gender/pregnant/nursing status correct?
  • BrawlerBella
    BrawlerBella Posts: 400 Member
    What food plan/goals did you select on the FB site? That could be why your numbers are off.
  • Binkie1955
    Binkie1955 Posts: 329 Member
    It's both sad and ironic that you're not willing to trust your body over a device bought on line as to when to eat but given your complicated medical history, I guess I appreciate your wanting some outside confirmation of when it's ok to eat and how much.

    but what you want to be striving for is a healthy body that gives you these signals in a healthy way.

    the ideal would be to trust your body to tell you when it is hungry. I've found that by going low carb those signals have become more reliable. interestingly, by going to under 50 net grams carb per day, my overall caloric intake declined to that exact number of calories that I'm supposed to consume for my target body weight. given that I don't target caloric intake at all, I just target the carbs, I found this rather a stunning testament to the body's natural wisdom. you might try that approach.

    you can use a ketogenic calculator on line to reset MFP to your proper targets. I target the carbs and let my body speak to what it needs and when. sometimes I'm higher than the MFP targets sometimes lower. depends on the day, exercise, whatever. I track the daily results in excel an 'observe' the results, in effect, watching the trend lines. that's when I noticed that over two months my caloric intake was 'naturally' moving towards 10 calories per pound of target body weight which is not a half bad rule of thumb.

    you might try that approach, with patience and see if your body's own wisdom and programming doesn't prove smarter than the fitbit.
  • csuhar
    csuhar Posts: 779 Member
    After I got home, and I saw that my calories burned in fitbit jumped up 700 calories.

    Are you talking about the fitbit reading on MFP, or on the FitBit site? I've found that the interface between the FitBit and MFP can be tricky to deal with. Eventually, I wound up abandoning letting MFP incorporate my FitBit data and just started doing calculations on a spreadsheet.


    Something else that may explain an unusually high jump play in is how often your fitbit updates. This is another place where the issue of if the jump you're talking about takes place on the FitBit, the FitBit site, or MFP. If you have a long period of time between when the FitBit you wear actually synchs with the website, you may see a large jump once it does link up.


    In my case, I cannot plug anything into my office computer, so the FitBit I wear only updates the site when I'm home. The result is that, when I get home from work, there's a big jump in what MFP says my FitBit says I burned, because from 7 AM through 5 PM, my most active part of the day, my FitBit is not updating anything.

    Yesterday, for example, I got home at 5 PM and fitbit.com said I'd burned 1428 calories, which is based on my BMR burning 7 calories every 5 minutes. The MFP "FitBit adjustment" fit this information. Both systems assumed I was sedentary all day. However, once I synched my FitBit with the fitbit.com site, the numbers went up because I had burned an additional 490 calories over the day.
  • varizmendi
    varizmendi Posts: 4
    It's both sad and ironic that you're not willing to trust your body over a device bought on line as to when to eat

    That's the nature of eating disorders. You mess up your hunger signals, and sometimes it can take ages to repair them. I'm only two months weight-recovered, and I think I am doing very well overall, but if left to my own devices I wouldn't get hungry past 1500 calories. For a very active person, that's not okay. Today was a struggle to get to 2100, I had to drink two protein shakes and I was bloated all day. So the FitBit is for as long as I need to be able to feed intuitively.

    The low-carb diet might work and I'll keep it in mind for later, but I feel that I'm too fresh out of recovery to mindfully restrict myself in any healthy way. I love carbs, I love my oatmeal in the mornings and I am finally baking all the time like I used to. Maybe in about a year I can work towards less carbs (which could very possibly be contributing to my delayed hunger signals) but right now I'm re-learning how to enjoy my favorite foods!
  • varizmendi
    varizmendi Posts: 4
    After I got home, and I saw that my calories burned in fitbit jumped up 700 calories.

    Are you talking about the fitbit reading on MFP, or on the FitBit site? I've found that the interface between the FitBit and MFP can be tricky to deal with. Eventually, I wound up abandoning letting MFP incorporate my FitBit data and just started doing calculations on a spreadsheet.


    Something else that may explain an unusually high jump play in is how often your fitbit updates. This is another place where the issue of if the jump you're talking about takes place on the FitBit, the FitBit site, or MFP. If you have a long period of time between when the FitBit you wear actually synchs with the website, you may see a large jump once it does link up.


    In my case, I cannot plug anything into my office computer, so the FitBit I wear only updates the site when I'm home. The result is that, when I get home from work, there's a big jump in what MFP says my FitBit says I burned, because from 7 AM through 5 PM, my most active part of the day, my FitBit is not updating anything.

    Yesterday, for example, I got home at 5 PM and fitbit.com said I'd burned 1428 calories, which is based on my BMR burning 7 calories every 5 minutes. The MFP "FitBit adjustment" fit this information. Both systems assumed I was sedentary all day. However, once I synched my FitBit with the fitbit.com site, the numbers went up because I had burned an additional 490 calories over the day.

    I don't use the fitbit with MFP and my fitbit syncs to my phone app whenever I can get to it. I usually go by the numbers burned on the actual device, so it's not a reading on the website that's messing me up or anything. But thanks for the suggestions!

    I think today was okay? I burned about 2200 calories and i was on my feet all day, with a total of 7.2 miles walked at work. That sounds about right, so I think the glitch might be gone!

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