Fitbit calories or MFP calories as target?

Sued0nim
Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I've searched for a similar thread but can't find one - I've recently got a fitbit and have synched it to my MFP account, My settings are the same on both and I log all foods on MFP

Mt fitbit currently says

1124 calories eaten
275 calories left

MFP says
1123 calories eaten
-849 exercise (fitbit adjustment)
274 net
926 remaining

I tend to go with fitbit and try to eat 1200 - 1500 calories a day - I workout in the gym 3x a week and my weight loss has been steady at 2lbs a week on average

But am always left wondering why the huge difference between the two when the adjustment is from fitbit. Does anybody out there know please?

Replies

  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    Do you have both sites set to the same rate of loss? Double check your food plan settings. If they are both set to the same weight loss rate, then the calories left should be very similar.

    example:
    fz3vpd.jpg
  • fushigi1988
    fushigi1988 Posts: 519 Member
    Set MFP to sedentary activity, it takes your activities from Fitbit.
    And log your lifting and such on MFP, not on Fitbit site.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    are you logging any activities? I wonder if something is getting double counted.

    I use a One (since December) and have it synced to MFP. Both sites, I have my goal set as 1 pound per week for a 500 deficit.

    During the day Fitbit changes constantly as its guessing what I'll do for the rest of the day. MFP works a little differently in its guesses. But at the end of the day they end up about the same.

    For yesterday: Fitbit 17,877 steps & 2217 burned. I logged 1578 and MFP shows I ended the day w/ 151 remaining. Fitbit said 139 remaining. They're usually close like that.

    What I suggest: based on your Fitbit end of day burn #s, set a goal for yourself on how much to burn each day. Move enough to hit this #. Look up your BMR, divide it by 24 and know about what you burn at rest per hour. Use that to extrapolate what your final # will be if you were to sleep the rest of the day away. Base your calories to consume on this goal.

    My goal is 2150 per day to burn, and I eat 1400-1600. Leaving a little leeway as I know Fitbit is just an estimate of burned calories and not perfect.
  • meltedsno
    meltedsno Posts: 208 Member
    The difference, I believe, is that MFP has you eating back the calories you burned from exercise and Fitbit doesn't. I follow the MFP target but seldom eat back the calories -- so I suppose I am actually following the fitbit target. haha....At least I know-- on the rare occasion that I do eat more than normal -- I do have a little bit of a safety net...with the exercise calories.

    For the sake of simplicity, I go by MFP because that's where I log my food in... the important thing is that I have a nice, steady, consistent weight loss and "if it works, why try to fix it"...
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    The difference, I believe, is that MFP has you eating back the calories you burned from exercise and Fitbit doesn't. I follow the MFP target but seldom eat back the calories -- so I suppose I am actually following the fitbit target. haha....At least I know-- on the rare occasion that I do eat more than normal -- I do have a little bit of a safety net...with the exercise calories.

    Technically Fitbit has you eating back exercise calories too. It takes a deficit off of your TDEE for the day (bmr+daily activity +exercise). MFP on the other hand gives you a deficit before exercise and then adds the exercise calories back in. The numbers should come out to be about the same on both sites unless a setting is off somewhere.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    For MFP, you designate an activity level. From that and your stats, MFP says well you should burn X calories per day. It then gives you a calorie intake goal that is X - Y, where Y is your goal deficit.

    Fitbit sends info to MFP about what Fitbit says your total calorie burn is so far - we'll call it Z - based on your last Fitbit sync & activity so far in the day. MFP compares X to Z. If you're ahead of schedule (that is, you've burned more than MFP thinks you should have at this point in the day) then you've earned extra calories. If you're behind schedule it either subtracts calories from your day or has no adjustment, depending on whether you've enabled that feature.

    The end goal, however, should be to move enough so that you earn at least 1 extra calorie. That way you know you're being at least as active as MFP expects.

    I've had issues when syncing too many things. I disconnected MapMyWalk for example - because it gave me a very high calorie burn and that got back into my #s and inflated them. I still use the app to track my distance, but just let Fitbit count all step based activity as it sees fit. For me, Fitbit seems conservative in its calorie burn rate. Based on my heart rate when I walk or run - and burn rate calculators online that use heart rate - the # of calories per minute that Fitbit shows is lower than my heart rate would indicate. Which I think is fine because there are probably other times when it overestimates.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    Yes I have them both set to 2lb a week loss

    I have MFP at lightly active and Will reset to sedentary to see if that evens it out

    I log the gym workouts on MFP by time and believe that overwrites the fitbit steps

    It's rather odd it doesn't match
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    And log your lifting and such on MFP, not on Fitbit site.

    Why not on fitbit's site? That's where I log all my additional activities.

    I've had the sites glitch when talking to each other and change the start time of my workouts when I logged on MFP. As such the calories burned ended up being counted twice. I personally don't like having to double check to make sure that MFP sent the correct start time to fitbit. After having it happen several times last year, I just decided it was easier to log workouts on Fitbit. I don't need my exercise to show up in my news feed here.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    How many calories are you logging for strength workouts and where do you get that info from? That might be the issue, more than the Fitbit...
  • QuietBloom
    QuietBloom Posts: 5,413 Member
    .
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    How many calories are you logging for strength workouts and where do you get that info from? That might be the issue, more than the Fitbit...

    Today is a no gym day so the variance in my OP is just based on steps (target 10K and I've done about 8K at 6.50pm)

    Yesterday was a gym day and I logged 875 additional cals, only 13 were from fitbit adjustment the remainder from the 65 min workout (25 mins cardio the rest weights and press-ups, squats, abdo work etc). I ate 1305 cals and MFP had me at 434 net so 766 left to eat and fitbit said 524 left to eat. I suppose that's quite close.

    I use the ARK trainer and calisthenics from the basic MFP exercises list to log - I work out with a PT twice a week so I know I'm at full throttle when I do that. I only eat a few hundred of my exercise cals back though and I've heard MFP over-estimates

    I appreciate everyone's thoughts and help - thank you all
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    Be careful with what you log as extra calories. I don't know your size, but 875 burned in 65 minutes is very high. The body doesn't burn much during strength training. Not much more than from general activity, that is. You burn more in cardio because you're moving multiple major muscle groups for an extended period of time. If the cardio is step based, I would not log it at all personally and let Fitbit pick it up.
  • Llamapants86
    Llamapants86 Posts: 1,221 Member
    How many calories are you logging for strength workouts and where do you get that info from? That might be the issue, more than the Fitbit...

    Today is a no gym day so the variance in my OP is just based on steps (target 10K and I've done about 8K at 6.50pm)

    Yesterday was a gym day and I logged 875 additional cals, only 13 were from fitbit adjustment the remainder from the 65 min workout (25 mins cardio the rest weights and press-ups, squats, abdo work etc). I ate 1305 cals and MFP had me at 434 net so 766 left to eat and fitbit said 524 left to eat. I suppose that's quite close.

    I use the ARK trainer and calisthenics from the basic MFP exercises list to log - I work out with a PT twice a week so I know I'm at full throttle when I do that. I only eat a few hundred of my exercise cals back though and I've heard MFP over-estimates

    I appreciate everyone's thoughts and help - thank you all

    First my guess is that FitBit might be not syncing quite right for the work out cals. I personally log my non step activities on fitbit NOT on MFP.

    Also FitBit and MFP extrapolate from the current time to the end of the day in different ways. As such, a variance (242 cals on a non work out day at 6:30) can be equated to this until the end of the day.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    Be careful with what you log as extra calories. I don't know your size, but 875 burned in 65 minutes is very high. The body doesn't burn much during strength training. Not much more than from general activity, that is. You burn more in cardio because you're moving multiple major muscle groups for an extended period of time. If the cardio is step based, I would not log it at all personally and let Fitbit pick it up.

    I'll try not logging tomorrow - thanks
  • edstreiff
    edstreiff Posts: 24 Member
    My Fitbit one and MFP are vastly different too, they are both set to 2lbs a week and sedentary, according to my Fitbit I should be consuming 1,500 calories a day, but this site says 2,030 which is a big difference. I manually adjusted this site to match what FitBit says since its actively tracking my movement.

    My weight loss hasn't changed ie I'm still losing the same amount of weight each week (never 2 lbs always like 1.4lbs), really the only difference I feel at 1,500 calories is that I constantly feel tired, my actual food intake calorie wise is 987 each and every day (I eat the exact same meals every single day), the rest of my calories come from a hard apple cider beer and a glass of milk.
  • mayfrayy
    mayfrayy Posts: 198 Member
    if you set it up correctly both are the same..
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    if you set it up correctly both are the same..

    But as far as I can tell it is set correctly
  • fushigi1988
    fushigi1988 Posts: 519 Member
    And log your lifting and such on MFP, not on Fitbit site.

    Why not on fitbit's site? That's where I log all my additional activities.

    I've had the sites glitch when talking to each other and change the start time of my workouts when I logged on MFP. As such the calories burned ended up being counted twice. I personally don't like having to double check to make sure that MFP sent the correct start time to fitbit. After having it happen several times last year, I just decided it was easier to log workouts on Fitbit. I don't need my exercise to show up in my news feed here.

    I have the feeling it does not count activities properly when I log them on Fitbit's site.
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    if you set it up correctly both are the same..

    But as far as I can tell it is set correctly
    If you hit the 1200 floor at MFP (and I think most non-obese women do), I believe there will be differences, sometimes large. Fitbit doesn't use a floor.

    If I told Fitbit I want to lose 2 lbs/week, it'd tell me to eat 600 calories a day (and more if I exercise). MFP would say 1200 (and more if I exercise, and no deficit over 400 for you no matter how much exercise you do). :smile:

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