Fitbit calories?

Fitbit calculates your TDEE. I got one last week and I was surprised with my burn since I walk a lot, but your fitbit calorie adjustment on MFP will have your deficit built into it. It works the same as exercise calories.

I also got a FitBit about a month ago and linked it to MFP. No, I don't think those burns are high. We are similar. I am 41, 5'8", and @185. If I use 39, 5'5" and @175 your TDEE is 1839. If you are active, that makes sense.

I was a little confused by my MFP target going up and down all day, but someone spelled it out for me. After a few weeks of wearing my FitBit, I was able to easily see a pattern of about 2,350 TDEE per day. I want to lose @25 lbs. (safely) so I set my FitBit to target a 500 calorie deficit daily which equals 1,850 calories per day. So I set MFP to a target of 1,850 and regardless of what it says throughout the day, I try to stay right at that. I track all my food in MFP.

Feel free to add me as a friend. We can support and motivate each other.

I've been pretty close to my goal weight a few times in the last few years, but after getting comfortable, let some of the pounds creep back on.

WalkingAlong: you may have been one of the lovelies that simplified it for me. And I THANK YOU because it's so much simpler that way!

I use the MFP plan and the MFP calories based on setting myself as lightly active when I'm working and sedentary during my vacations. This way, as others noted, I do not have a moving target for calories everyday which was really hard to figure out when I started using fitbit.

I link my fitbit to my account. I do not turn on the negative adjustments because, let's be honest, the steps thresholds for sedentary, lightly active, active, highly active, and the basic 10,000 steps a day goal is completely arbitrary. It was absolutely made up out of the blue because some company in Japan thought it'd be a good idea for their workers. Do sedentary people normally have less steps? Yes. Typically under 3,000. Do you have to have 5000-7500 steps a day to qualify as lightly active or 7501-10,000+ steps a day to qualify as active? No.

What determines if you're lightly active or active is what kind of job do you have and how many hours a day are you sitting on your rear doing nothing, that's it. Fitbit doesn't account for the increased burn of your NEAT, standing (which alone burns more calories but to fitbit it thinks you're sitting because you're holding still) or activities where you are working on things and/or cleaning but taking few steps, or seated exercise like biking, rowing, etc. Fitbit misses a LOT of the steps I take around my house. It's more accurate on hard surface flooring.

So, use your MFP plan for your calories. Eat the calories for your plan with your planned deficit already calculated for you (-250, -500, -750, -1000).

Wear your fitbit everyday, and if you're going about your normal day and you find that you were exceedingly busy and logging a lot of steps from work or from your run and it gives you a fitbit adjustment, it is safe to eat back some of those calories. Just like it's safe to eat back (some) of your exercise calories when you log workouts on MFP.

I love my fitbit for keeping track of my super busy on my feet days without me having to look at the clock and wonder how long I really was running around to try to log activity for those 'above and beyond' work days.