Is my fitbit too generous?

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ChayB
ChayB Posts: 50 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all,
I'm having an issue where im just not losing weight, just kinda sitting around 193 give or take a little for normal fluctuations, and I was wondering if it's because my fitbit is being too generous and I'm still eating too much?
I've got my mfp thingy set to sedentary and let my fitbit add calories from exercise and I add my workouts using my hrm, I did it this way as every day is different for me, some days I do very little, some days I do a lot. I know my diet isn't the best but shouldn't I at least be losing something as I'm definitely eating less and moving more than I used to, I have my fitbit set to 12500 steps a day which I get no problem and I either jog (c25k week6) or do a jillian michaels workout each day but I override the fitbit on these and use my hrm.
I think I'm rambling now as I'm confused...but basically should I be eating back less of my exercise calories?
Ps: yes I drink lots and weigh my food
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Replies

  • ChayB
    ChayB Posts: 50 Member
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    Bump up to see if anyone has any ideas?

    In the absence of any feedback in the meantime I'll try dropping my target another 250 so that's the equivalent of eating less exercise calories back and see how that goes...
  • electrickazoo
    electrickazoo Posts: 55 Member
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    I could be wrong - I just got my fitbit yesterday... But, I was reading that if you have calorie estimation turned on it may show your calorie burn as being higher than it should be for your lighter days (because it's guessing what your burn is based on previous days). However, if you're synching it every day, it shouldn't really matter.

    Just a thought.
  • ChayB
    ChayB Posts: 50 Member
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    I shall have a wee look into that, thanks :)
    I do sync it a few times a day but it's still worth checking!
  • emontag
    emontag Posts: 4 Member
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    I've been using mine for over a year now and am down over 40 pounds. I don't eat perfectly and am less active in the winter (my goal is 7000 steps right now versus 10000 in the milder months). I aim for between 1400-1600 calories usually.
  • wilsoje74
    wilsoje74 Posts: 1,720 Member
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    You say your diet isn't the best, do you realize weight loss happens in the kitchen. Doesn't matter how much you exercise if you eat too much. Do you track your food?
  • ChayB
    ChayB Posts: 50 Member
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    Yep, every morsel is weighed and tracked, by not the best I mean I don't touch much of the green stuff (veggies) and like my chocolate but I keep it within my calorie goals...

    Emontag - well done with your loss :) I'm less active in the winter too so you've given me a good reference point there
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    Do you wear your fitbit during your workouts though? You might be counting some things twice if you do that.

    What I'd do personally is eat 20% below what your fitbit tells you. How far is that from your average MFP goal (with the fitbit adjustment, but without your workouts)?

    And how long have you been stuck at 193? If it's just a couple weeks, it's totally normal.
  • ChayB
    ChayB Posts: 50 Member
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    Yes I do but it gets automatically overridden by my manually entering my hrm data...or so I was led to believe? I log it in the fitbit app and it seems to adjust correctly to me

    I'm not far off a month stuck at this now and I guess I just expected more...even a little would be nice!

    My fitbit tells me to aim for 2543 so -20% im looking at 2034
    Mfp tells me to aim for 1330 then the fitbit adjustment varies but its usually around 600-700 additional per day
  • laurie62ann
    laurie62ann Posts: 433 Member
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    I just started working out with a new trainer. She doesn't' encourage eating back exercise calories. I'm five weeks in and 5 pounds down and 8 inches. I eat alot of protein! She has me shooting for 30-35 grams at each meal. This was a struggle at first because I had to change my eating to accommodate high protein foods. I don't get hungry any more. I feel pretty full all the time and have to remember to eat my snacks.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,708 Member
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    Hi all,
    I'm having an issue where im just not losing weight, just kinda sitting around 193 give or take a little for normal fluctuations, and I was wondering if it's because my fitbit is being too generous and I'm still eating too much?
    I've got my mfp thingy set to sedentary and let my fitbit add calories from exercise and I add my workouts using my hrm, I did it this way as every day is different for me, some days I do very little, some days I do a lot. I know my diet isn't the best but shouldn't I at least be losing something as I'm definitely eating less and moving more than I used to, I have my fitbit set to 12500 steps a day which I get no problem and I either jog (c25k week6) or do a jillian michaels workout each day but I override the fitbit on these and use my hrm.
    I think I'm rambling now as I'm confused...but basically should I be eating back less of my exercise calories?
    Ps: yes I drink lots and weigh my food
    Don't use your HRM. Just use the Fitbit and see how that goes.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • Swiftdogs
    Swiftdogs Posts: 328 Member
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    It took me a long time to learn to trust my Fitbit adjustment, but it seems pretty accurate for me. I've never paired it with a HRM, though. I only log exercise that involves very few steps. Getting stuck for a while is entirely normal, though frustrating.
  • LexiMelo
    LexiMelo Posts: 203 Member
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    Hi all,
    I'm having an issue where im just not losing weight, just kinda sitting around 193 give or take a little for normal fluctuations, and I was wondering if it's because my fitbit is being too generous and I'm still eating too much?
    I've got my mfp thingy set to sedentary and let my fitbit add calories from exercise and I add my workouts using my hrm, I did it this way as every day is different for me, some days I do very little, some days I do a lot. I know my diet isn't the best but shouldn't I at least be losing something as I'm definitely eating less and moving more than I used to, I have my fitbit set to 12500 steps a day which I get no problem and I either jog (c25k week6) or do a jillian michaels workout each day but I override the fitbit on these and use my hrm.
    I think I'm rambling now as I'm confused...but basically should I be eating back less of my exercise calories?
    Ps: yes I drink lots and weigh my food
    Don't use your HRM. Just use the Fitbit and see how that goes.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    +1!
    I only use the # given by fitbit now. It's great for those of us with sedentary jobs but that walk around a lot. Yesterday I got my 10k steps, spent 15 mins on the treadmill and did a 30 minute heavy weight lifting program (doing NROF4W). It gave me about 300 calories back, which I think is appropriate.

    I paced back and forth in order to get my last 2500 steps in my apartment last night (stupid snow!) :sad:
  • farfromthetree
    farfromthetree Posts: 982 Member
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    For the most part, I do not eat back exercise calories, if I did I am certain I would either not lose or gain some weight back.I am no expert but on the days I exercise I try and up my protein with a protein shake and high protein foods. Good Luck!
  • prattiger65
    prattiger65 Posts: 1,657 Member
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    I just started working out with a new trainer. She doesn't' encourage eating back exercise calories. I'm five weeks in and 5 pounds down and 8 inches. I eat alot of protein! She has me shooting for 30-35 grams at each meal. This was a struggle at first because I had to change my eating to accommodate high protein foods. I don't get hungry any more. I feel pretty full all the time and have to remember to eat my snacks.

    Its according to what method you use to track your calories. If you use the TDEE (minus) method, you would not eat them back. If you use MFP method, you should eat them back. I will assume your trainer knows what method you are using. You should not regularly end the day with a calories surplus on the MFP method.
  • ChayB
    ChayB Posts: 50 Member
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    Thank you for all your input everyone, I really appreciate it :)

    If I were to not eat exercise calories back would that be all of them (some days this is over 1000) or just the extra 200-300 I do jogging/jmbr?
  • prattiger65
    prattiger65 Posts: 1,657 Member
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    I use the fitbit one and find it to be spot on accurate. If you open up your diary I might be able to give you some more specific advice.
  • cclarocque
    cclarocque Posts: 15
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    Did you adjust your MFP calories down to agree to the Fitbit starting point? So for example I am suppose to eat 1260 calories per the "standard" mfp calculation which would be 2260 of an estimated average TDEE so lets us that as an example. Now this INCLUDES an assume basic level of activity, aka even the desk job setting in MFP assumes you get out of bed, the Fitbit does not. It starts you everyday with the assumption that you slept for 24 hours then adds calories based on what you actually do which is why it is more accurate, as you said not everyday is the same some days you putter around the house and some days you walk miles running errand and it would be silly in my mind to think I burned the same calories on those days but MFP makes that assumption since it is just a computer program.

    So I had to manually adjust MFP to 1041 so when it adds the calories throughout the day with the sync function I am getting to the correct desired calories. Unless you are exceeding the MFP calories for an average day (aka my 2260 or what ever you have determined through trial and error/medical advice is your average TDEE and eating that less you desired deficit) you are not really earning exercise calories just getting to your daily output less desired deficit differently. This is the summary of what I found worked to maximize MFP/FitBit for me....others may have different results.

    MFP W/ FitBit w/ No adjustment No Adj/Standard Macros

    Estimated Output -2260 - 2260 -2260 -1808
    Calories Recommended 1260 1044 1260 1260
    Adjustment (average, I update) 0 216 216 216
    Deficit -1000 -1000 -784 -332
    Estimated Weight Loss 2lbs 2lbs 1.5lbs .5Lbs

    I also had to manually change the macros in MFP since it was WAY off from what I have found works for me and my personal hormonal balance/metabolism, etc. I have found the standard macro can reduce my loses by up to 20-25% but everyone is different so play around with them if you want. Don't be afraid of the custom option, since no one size fits all option really fits all.
  • travelgirl77
    travelgirl77 Posts: 99 Member
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    Two things:

    You should probably set MFP to "lightly active" to better correspond with FitBit.
    And, I always make sure that whatever calories I put in MFP are the same as what I put in FitBit.

    I usually get a couple hundred calories per the adjustment, and eat half of those, unless I am super hungry.

    Good Luck...I love my fitbit.
  • ChayB
    ChayB Posts: 50 Member
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    Did you adjust your MFP calories down to agree to the Fitbit starting point? So for example I am suppose to eat 1260 calories per the "standard" mfp calculation which would be 2260 of an estimated average TDEE so lets us that as an example. Now this INCLUDES an assume basic level of activity, aka even the desk job setting in MFP assumes you get out of bed, the Fitbit does not. It starts you everyday with the assumption that you slept for 24 hours then adds calories based on what you actually do which is why it is more accurate, as you said not everyday is the same some days you putter around the house and some days you walk miles running errand and it would be silly in my mind to think I burned the same calories on those days but MFP makes that assumption since it is just a computer program.

    So I had to manually adjust MFP to 1041 so when it adds the calories throughout the day with the sync function I am getting to the correct desired calories. Unless you are exceeding the MFP calories for an average day (aka my 2260 or what ever you have determined through trial and error/medical advice is your average TDEE and eating that less you desired deficit) you are not really earning exercise calories just getting to your daily output less desired deficit differently. This is the summary of what I found worked to maximize MFP/FitBit for me....others may have different results.

    MFP W/ FitBit w/ No adjustment No Adj/Standard Macros

    Estimated Output -2260 - 2260 -2260 -1808
    Calories Recommended 1260 1044 1260 1260
    Adjustment (average, I update) 0 216 216 216
    Deficit -1000 -1000 -784 -332
    Estimated Weight Loss 2lbs 2lbs 1.5lbs .5Lbs

    I also had to manually change the macros in MFP since it was WAY off from what I have found works for me and my personal hormonal balance/metabolism, etc. I have found the standard macro can reduce my loses by up to 20-25% but everyone is different so play around with them if you want. Don't be afraid of the custom option, since no one size fits all option really fits all.

    Oh man...I think my brain just melted...learning Chinese is easier than this...

    A good first point is that I didn't adjust my mfp down to the fitbit starting point, how do I do that?

    My tdee is 2007, bmr 1670 and mfp has me at 1330...
  • ChayB
    ChayB Posts: 50 Member
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    I use the fitbit one and find it to be spot on accurate. If you open up your diary I might be able to give you some more specific advice.

    Have done, thanks :)

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