FITBIT is whack!!!
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flynnfinn
Posts: 209 Member
just got a fitbit flex. love all the information it's giving me but holy shizznack...TDEE of 2445 calories per day on average? is this for realz? i mean, i do my fair share of exercise (cardio & strength). i never even manually log-in those calories burned either. they say i should log in my strength training calories but i'm afraid i'd end up with a TDEE of like 3000 calories!!!
should i just ignore that number and just eat at my proposed calorie deficit & weight loss goals according to MFP? granted, i'm only trying to lose a measly 5lbs which i know is irrelevant when my focus is body recomp anyway. but, i got the fitbit to give me "hard numbers" so to speak.
anyone else experiencing this? fyi, i'm 5'6" and weigh about 125lbs. i eat a straight 1600-1800 cals per day. i don't bother with eating my exercise calories back because i do a straight TDEE deficit. BF% somewhere around 20-21% (not even sure that's accurate but i've followed formulas provided by the "in place of a roadmap" post from way back when...).
should i just ignore that number and just eat at my proposed calorie deficit & weight loss goals according to MFP? granted, i'm only trying to lose a measly 5lbs which i know is irrelevant when my focus is body recomp anyway. but, i got the fitbit to give me "hard numbers" so to speak.
anyone else experiencing this? fyi, i'm 5'6" and weigh about 125lbs. i eat a straight 1600-1800 cals per day. i don't bother with eating my exercise calories back because i do a straight TDEE deficit. BF% somewhere around 20-21% (not even sure that's accurate but i've followed formulas provided by the "in place of a roadmap" post from way back when...).
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How much do you exercise? I have my FitBit TDEE set to 2,500 and I can reach that easily by just walking my dog for an hour after my normal day of work (but I also weigh a lot more than you).0
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i walk about 12km per day. i walk my son to school, then i walk back, then i pick him up (walk again) then we walk back. that alone is about 4km. i live in europe so i very rarely use my car. so...i walk to the market, to the local farmer to pick up eggs and fresh produce, to the post office, etc. i average about 16,000 steps per day. but i don't know if that all should be considered exercise anyway since it IS part of my regular daily routine. then 3 days a week, i do resistance training with either weights or resistance bands. i'm not an extremist by any means. i'm just doing enough to make me "tired" before bed...if that makes sense.0
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It doesn't matter if it's part of your daily routine or not, moving that much and being active burns more calories than if you were just sitting. Your activity level is very high; 16,000 steps is fantastic! Have you tested it on a "rest" day where you don't walk anywhere? I would suggest doing that to see what your step count and daily burn is. Then you'd see how all of your routine movement adds up!
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i walk about 12km per day. i walk my son to school, then i walk back, then i pick him up (walk again) then we walk back. that alone is about 4km. i live in europe so i very rarely use my car. so...i walk to the market, to the local farmer to pick up eggs and fresh produce, to the post office, etc. i average about 16,000 steps per day. but i don't know if that all should be considered exercise anyway since it IS part of my regular daily routine. then 3 days a week, i do resistance training with either weights or resistance bands. i'm not an extremist by any means. i'm just doing enough to make me "tired" before bed...if that makes sense.
This is a lot of activity. I think a TDEE of 2445 sounds very fair for your activity level and height/weight.0 -
i walk about 12km per day. i walk my son to school, then i walk back, then i pick him up (walk again) then we walk back. that alone is about 4km. i live in europe so i very rarely use my car. so...i walk to the market, to the local farmer to pick up eggs and fresh produce, to the post office, etc. i average about 16,000 steps per day. but i don't know if that all should be considered exercise anyway since it IS part of my regular daily routine. then 3 days a week, i do resistance training with either weights or resistance bands. i'm not an extremist by any means. i'm just doing enough to make me "tired" before bed...if that makes sense.
You're doing a LOT of exercise everyday. Even if it is routine it is still exercise and you should be making sure you're eating enough to just fuel yourself for your daily routine.0 -
really? wow. i guess so. i don't know any other lifestyle other than to walk everywhere. on weekends, i average about 8000-10,000 steps since i don't have to walk my son to school (and back).
i guess i better start eating more!0 -
I've had my fitbit over 2 years and I average 11,500 steps daily and my daily burn averages to 1800. On a high day when I get 20,000 steps (my day off work) I barely hit 2000 calories. I'm only just over 5 feet tall though. But I've used that fat2fit radio calculation and it seems to be in agreement that 1800 calories would be my maintenance. I work a desk job 4 days a week and drive my car to work in another town. But I live in a small town and take advantage of walking to the store vs. driving I would love to walk everywhere but it's not convenient here. 0
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Sounds about right to me.0
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How much do you exercise? I have my FitBit TDEE set to 2,500 and I can reach that easily by just walking my dog for an hour after my normal day of work (but I also weigh a lot more than you).
ditto.0 -
It doesn't matter if it's part of your daily routine or not, moving that much and being active burns more calories than if you were just sitting. Your activity level is very high; 16,000 steps is fantastic! Have you tested it on a "rest" day where you don't walk anywhere? I would suggest doing that to see what your step count and daily burn is. Then you'd see how all of your routine movement adds up!
on a rest day, it's about 8000-ish. but i don't even know what is considered a rest day. i just walk everywhere...it's my lifestyle. i guess the lowest i've ever seen my fitbit is about 8000 steps.
i also have calorie estimation disabled. so it basically takes my BMR and just adds my "exercise calories burned" as the day goes. and like i said, i do NOT add any strength training calories burned.0 -
I think it sounds about right. I average 11-13K steps/day, anywhere from 2100-2300 cal burned usually. So I think for your steps and activity level, around 2500 TDEE would be right. I do put strength training or other non-step activities in MFP and it will adjust for those calories in both systems. It may not just add them to your TDEE - if you are wearing your FitBit while you are doing them, it is recording some movement and some exertion - by entering what you did in MFP with the start and stop time, it then reconciles that activity with what FitBit already "noticed". Like if I do an exercise DVD with circuit training - FitBit tracks that and my cals and steps go up, but when I put it in MFP it now realizes what kind of movement it was - sometimes I get a positive adjustment and sometimes the FitBit adjustment goes down on MFP because it is "crediting" me for that type of activity. Not sure if that makes sense, you kind of just have to put it in and see how it works a few times and then you will start to trust it.
I'm also encouraged by your comments about how many steps you get in day to day life in Europe - we are going to be spending a month in Florence and I am hoping all the walking we will be doing with no car will offset all the pasta, wine and gelato I'm going to be eating!
Also - you should definitely take this opportunity to eat more!0 -
On the Fitbit website dashboard, if you click on "log" and then "activities" and then "calories burned" you can look at your past week and see how many you burned each day. Friday and Saturday were my highest calorie burns and I burned 2049 and 1901. I had 16000 steps Friday and just over 10,000 Saturday.
Sunday I sat on my butt all day, only got 2500 steps, and still burned over 1400.
Monday/Tuesday, work days, I sat at a desk 7 hour a day, but still got 10,000 steps. I burned 1815 and 1777 those days. I'm not sure what hurt me there - the fact that I sat so long? Or did I burn more on Saturday because I did a 20 min circuit workout that was more intense? Not sure....
Also, do you look at your weekly email report? Mine said my average burn for the past week was 1898 a day and I averaged 11655 steps for that week.0 -
i walk about 12km per day.
Yes, the Fitbit is right. That's about 700 calories a day just from walking.0 -
on a rest day, it's about 8000-ish. but i don't even know what is considered a rest day. i just walk everywhere...it's my lifestyle. i guess the lowest i've ever seen my fitbit is about 8000 steps.
i also have calorie estimation disabled. so it basically takes my BMR and just adds my "exercise calories burned" as the day goes. and like i said, i do NOT add any strength training calories burned.
Incorrect, it doesn't start at BMR add exercise calories. BMR is indeed used for all non-moving time. Then all moving time is based on weight and pace. Pace of course based on stride length and time.
Hence the reason you must manually log non-step based activity, underestimated. Well, accept biking if you could get it to register each step somehow, that would be very over-estimated.
And your are correct too - that TDEE is underestimated because Fitbit is going to be terrible at lifting, rowing, biking ect.
You do need to manually log those as more accurate.
And indeed, that means you get to eat even more and still have a reasonable deficit.
And your lifting will improve better with a reasonable deficit too.
Log it, follow those adjustments.
Oh, if you are getting big huge adjustments because of all that walking - you selected the wrong MFP activity level. If you selected sedentary, you know that ain't right, move it on up to Lightly Active.
That will increase MFP's estimate of non-exercise maintenance, and reduce the size of the adjustments from Fitbit.
Meaning you can plan your day better.0 -
on a rest day, it's about 8000-ish. but i don't even know what is considered a rest day. i just walk everywhere...it's my lifestyle. i guess the lowest i've ever seen my fitbit is about 8000 steps.
i also have calorie estimation disabled. so it basically takes my BMR and just adds my "exercise calories burned" as the day goes. and like i said, i do NOT add any strength training calories burned.
Incorrect, it doesn't start at BMR add exercise calories. BMR is indeed used for all non-moving time. Then all moving time is based on weight and pace. Pace of course based on stride length and time.
Hence the reason you must manually log non-step based activity, underestimated. Well, accept biking if you could get it to register each step somehow, that would be very over-estimated.
And your are correct too - that TDEE is underestimated because Fitbit is going to be terrible at lifting, rowing, biking ect.
You do need to manually log those as more accurate.
And indeed, that means you get to eat even more and still have a reasonable deficit.
And your lifting will improve better with a reasonable deficit too.
Log it, follow those adjustments.
Oh, if you are getting big huge adjustments because of all that walking - you selected the wrong MFP activity level. If you selected sedentary, you know that ain't right, move it on up to Lightly Active.
That will increase MFP's estimate of non-exercise maintenance, and reduce the size of the adjustments from Fitbit.
Meaning you can plan your day better.
yes, i've already switched from sedentary to light activity! and still the huge adjustments! i feel totally happy eating 1800 calories per day...i never feel hungry except when my body knows mealtime is coming up. at this rate, i should basically be eating like 2200 (based on fitbit's 2400 daily projection) calories because i'm only doing a deficit of 10%. i did give up peanut butter for lent...guess i'll gladly throw that back in to make up 400 calories easily! LOL! and i can finally justify eating MORE cadbury chocolate mini eggs! woohhoo!!!
just to give background, i got the fitbit because i honestly thought my HRM was crazy. my HRM was pretty much giving me the same amounts for calories burned as my fitbit during my walks. i'm not a slow walker by any means either. i don't do this "walking 15min per km - walking the dog" pace. my average pace is about 9min per km so my heart rate is 140-150ish. time is tickin'! LOL!0 -
Changing the MFP activity setting will only change the adjustments you see during the day, when MFP is estimating calorie burn for the remainder of the day. At the end of the day, the adjustment will be the same no matter what MFP's activity setting is. You want to choose the activity setting that causes the adjustment to vary the least as time goes by.0
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just to give background, i got the fitbit because i honestly thought my HRM was crazy. my HRM was pretty much giving me the same amounts for calories burned as my fitbit during my walks. i'm not a slow walker by any means either. i don't do this "walking 15min per km - walking the dog" pace. my average pace is about 9min per km so my heart rate is 140-150ish. time is tickin'! LOL!
I'm confused about your confusion. You basically runwalk 7-8 miles a day and are astonished that you burn basically sedentary TDEE + 700-800 calories a day?0 -
I use a Bodymedia. I average over 2800 TDEE even when I don't go to the gym. 190lbs, 5'9" male.
I have been tracking my daily walking around since Dec 18, 2013.
Average daily steps is 10,413. Average daily distance of 5.09miles.
I have covered 575.72 miles so far (I am tracking it to see how long till I walk to my son's house, which means walking across MO, KS & CO)
Longest day was 22,111 steps. Normal walking day, and then I walked 4.1 miles home from the gym...I hurt for 3 days after that.0 -
Changing the MFP activity setting will only change the adjustments you see during the day, when MFP is estimating calorie burn for the remainder of the day. At the end of the day, the adjustment will be the same no matter what MFP's activity setting is. You want to choose the activity setting that causes the adjustment to vary the least as time goes by.
^ This. The math is the same, at the end of the day you will end up with the same number of calories alotted if you have MFP and FitBit set up properly (same goals in both). What I found when I raised from Sedentary to Lightly Active was still about 300-400 cal adjustments that I had to figure out what to do with. When I changed to "Active" in MFP, which I move less than you so I think you probably are "Active" not "Lightly Active" I have a much higher starting number and my adjustments sometimes are only around 100-200 cal for just a normal day.
I also have negative calories enabled which you probably want to do also, since on the weekends you move far less. Very rarely have I ended up with a truly negative FitBit adjustment at the end of the day, but throughout the day, if I am sedentary at work, then the adjustment is negative, until I work out later. But since I know this is going to happen, I am still able to plan my day and be pretty close to where I need to be at bed time.0 -
I'm 42, 5'8" and 135 lbs. I average burn about 2300-2400 (sometimes more) calories a day. My exercise is usually just two 45-minute circuits with weights a week and walking/hiking whenever I can get it into my schedule.
It's been pretty accurate, as my weight has tracked reliably for 2 years.
Your numbers don't seem unusually high to me.0
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