Fitbit - Do you eat your extra calories?

Technically you should be eating back some calorie to hit your target lbs per week goal and not lose weight too fast. However, many people find that they cannot eat back the full amount of exercise calories if their weight loss goal is moderate (e.g., 1 lb per week), but find eating back 1/2 to 2/3 still works to maintain their target weight loss. the biggest reasons for this are that most estimates of calories burned from fitbit, other electronics, or even online guidelines tend to be a bit overestimated. Another reason is that other small amounts of error creep in that tend to reduce the actual deficit you end up with. Calories burned is based on averages for BMR for the human population, but there is some variation among individuals and if any group is actually going to be biased toward slower than average BMR values it is people who are overweight to begin with or have already been dieting. Many estimates of calories in food in the MFP database also tend to be underestimates, and many people also underestimate portion sizes. the point being, some people are close enough to their metabolic tipping point that eating back all of the exercise calories can erase their deficit and slow their weight loss too much. Others are just fine. You may need to experiment a bit to find what the right amount is, but I would recommend that you start by eating back most of those exercise calories and adjust your proportion after a couple of weeks when you get an idea of the results.

I've had a Flex for about a few weeks now and it's convinced me that I need to stop eating back exercise calories completely. I started doing that and I was eating in total some days over 2,500 calories. I just wasn't losing or even maintaining. Fact is, as nice as apps and tools are to help figure your burn, they aren't entirely accurate in my understanding. They're rather generous.

It's best, in my completely anecdotal experience, to err on the side of caution and not view this all as some magical new gift of allowable calories from the heavens. My opinion, of course.

I usually eat back about 50-75% based on how hungry I'm feeling.

I don't see eating exercise calories as rewarding myself, I'm fueling my body and making sure that I am getting the nutrients that I need.

I have my mfp set to the lowest activity, and use the fitbit caloric adjustment (negative enabled). Log all my cardio with hrm results and log them with the correct time. When I'm cutting I go as close as I can to the calorie remaining in mfp so I don't lose to much muscle. I find the steps work well with general activity, much better than mfp settings.

It all depends on how well you log and what you normally do in a day (some activities can mess with fitbit, I take it off or pause it if I'm not just walking around).

You don't want to eat too little. a lot of people say they dont want eat exercise calories, that's just ignorant, its all about the net.

I wouldn't call it ignorant...... nothing wrong with burning more calories than you take in...that's the whole point of weight loss... If you're that concerned...when you change you're activity level to very active or whatever...then it will recalculate how many calories you should be eating on a daily basis to achieve 0.5-2 pound weight loss... like ...eating back calories is petty to me...as long as your eating at least 1200 calories a day.. you'll live.

If your mfp is set at a 1000 deficit, and you burn 500 calories and still only eat what you would have needed without exercise you have a 50% higher deficit. I'm not a nutritionist, and everyone is different, but having a very high deficit can be unhealthy.

You can't just go with 1200 calls, way to many factors.

This is what I have been doing, I pay attention to the calories fitbit ays, not mfp and I log my activities on the fitbit and wear a Heart rate monitor. When I logged all this stuff in my fitness pal, somehow point a got lost on its way to b and I was very upset and only maintaining and not losing any weight whatsoever

Sometimes I eat them, sometimes I don't. I only have mine set to 1lb/week which is a 500 calorie deficit, so I feel like I have some flexibility. I just watch and make sure I don't have more, or at least much more than 1000 calorie deficit.

I also have negative adjustments allowed, so if I don't move enough throughout the day my calorie goal goes down. It keeps me honest.

I set myself a TDEE-15% daily calorie allowance and ignore my Fitbit. I mostly use it to challenge myself and up my step totals.

But if I am having a hungry day, I will eat a little more, at least I know I've got the room to do so!