Hi! New to FitBit and a couple of questions.
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shrinkyy
Posts: 21 Member
Hi,
I got a FitBit yesterday and have synced it to My Fitness Pal. I'm logging food, water and extra exercise (cycling, elliptical) through my fitness pal.
I have a couple of questions that Google hasn't answered. The FitBit website in my country has been down for more than 2 days and is not helping me.
1. How reliable is the basal metabolic rate estimated calories burned? Is there any way to see your calories burned purely from steps and not from resting burn?
2. Is what shows up in MFP as "FitBit adjustment" the calories you burned solely from steps or activity? Because my FitBit says I burned 1900cal so far but the FitBit adjustment on MFP is only about 400. So does it exclude the BMR calories when it syncs to MFP and adds it to your exercise?
3. Why does my fitbit say I've done some steps in the morning, after I've slept? Does this have something to do with the day starting at midnight? Because I did walk around after midnight before I went to bed, so are they just leftover steps from then?
4. Finally, does the FitBit ever count steps when you're not moving, as your BMR? Or is the BMR only added in the Calories Burned function? Or does it ever count steps for any other reason apart from actually taking steps (on purpose)? Sorry if that's a weird question but someone said something that confused me. Something about when you come from sleep mode, it adds steps, or something?
Thanks for your help!!
I got a FitBit yesterday and have synced it to My Fitness Pal. I'm logging food, water and extra exercise (cycling, elliptical) through my fitness pal.
I have a couple of questions that Google hasn't answered. The FitBit website in my country has been down for more than 2 days and is not helping me.
1. How reliable is the basal metabolic rate estimated calories burned? Is there any way to see your calories burned purely from steps and not from resting burn?
2. Is what shows up in MFP as "FitBit adjustment" the calories you burned solely from steps or activity? Because my FitBit says I burned 1900cal so far but the FitBit adjustment on MFP is only about 400. So does it exclude the BMR calories when it syncs to MFP and adds it to your exercise?
3. Why does my fitbit say I've done some steps in the morning, after I've slept? Does this have something to do with the day starting at midnight? Because I did walk around after midnight before I went to bed, so are they just leftover steps from then?
4. Finally, does the FitBit ever count steps when you're not moving, as your BMR? Or is the BMR only added in the Calories Burned function? Or does it ever count steps for any other reason apart from actually taking steps (on purpose)? Sorry if that's a weird question but someone said something that confused me. Something about when you come from sleep mode, it adds steps, or something?
Thanks for your help!!
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Replies
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Click on your Fitbit calorie adjustment for details. It's the difference between your Fitbit burn (which is your TDEE) and your MFP activity level.0
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1 - Their BMR is based on close to Mifflin BMR formula that MFP uses. It's decent estimate near goal weight if of average bodyfat %. As weight goes up it starts to inflate, because rarely does anyone maintain as much LBM and BF% ratio when overweight as at healthy weight.
No way to separate it outside just doing the math.
Go look at your Fitbit daily burn graph that shows 5 min calorie burn when sleeping or not moving. Divide by 5, x 1440 = BMR being used. Take total daily burn - BMR = activity burn (which may be steps or correctly manually logged non-step activity).
Notice it doesn't count the fact you burn more when awake not moving, nor digesting/processing food, ect, so it actually underestimates.
2 - Totaly daily burn, which is steps and activity. There is no steps "or" activity, wrong concept.
MFP already estimated your daily burn with no exercise by your selection of activity level and BMR. Fitbit reports total burn it's estimating. Calorie adjustment is the difference, which may be exercise or just increased daily activity because you selected wrong activity level.
3 - day starts at midnight, steps done then count to new day.
4 - Huh? I think this is part of your confusion of there being no "or" - steps "is" activity to Fitbit. No steps, no activity, so then BMR level calorie burn.
Which is why you must log non-step based activity. Like doing squats. No steps for 1 minute, but obviously burning a whole lot more than BMR doing squats.0 -
Sorry, " Is what shows up in MFP as "FitBit adjustment" the calories you burned solely from steps or activity?" meant " Is what shows up in MFP as "FitBit adjustment" the calories you burned solely from steps/activity OR also from BMR as well", worded it weird!
MFP has been telling me to eat like 1400cal a day, and it only goes up a bit based on manually entered exercise. Now with using the fitbit, it's saying I'm burning 2500+ cal a day through steps and BMR and telling me to eat 2000+ calories a day, and I haven't even worked out lately (as in high intensity cycling that I normally do 3x a week when it's not Christmas time). I don't think I would lose weight if I followed what the fitbit dashboard is telling me to eat, and I have it on the "kinda hard" 750 cal deficit option. I was eating 1500cal a day to lose weight slowly, with 30 mins of high intensity cycling 3x per week and same amount of steps and activity level during an average day as now. So I think if I followed fitbit and ate over 2000 cal a day, there's no way I will lose weight. I've also been reading people online saying following fitbit's recommendations made them gain weight. I'm not sure whether to try and change my BMR by entering the wrong age or something, or if I should leave it and see if I lose any weight. It just doesn't seem right..
Thanks for your replies0 -
Sorry, " Is what shows up in MFP as "FitBit adjustment" the calories you burned solely from steps or activity?"
No. Click on your adjustment to see the exact calculation, but it's the difference between your Fitbit burn (which is your TDEE) and your MFP activity level.
Enable negative calorie adjustments: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings
Set your activity level to sedentary: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided & set your goal to .5 lb. per week for each 25 lbs. you need to lose.
Follow your MFP goal, eating back your Fitbit adjustments.0 -
editorgrrl wrote: »Set your activity level to sedentary:
Why should this be the default setting if you are NOT sedentary in your daily non-exercise life?
All this does is increase the amount of positive adjustments, and make planning harder because your default eating goal could be way less than what it could be in reality.
It also impacts the amount of deficit you are really given, say you could have a reasonable 750 cal deficit, and it would be easy as Fitbit on non-exercise days shows you being easily Lightly Active.
But - if you selected Sedentary on MFP, you could easily get only a 500 cal deficit by default, and the fact that every day sees you with a 250 cal positive adjustment or more, doesn't actually cause the deficit to ever be 750.
Since MFP treats those adjustments as exercise and merely increases the eating goal, someone that could safely be losing more would be artificially restricted by selecting the wrong activity level.
Just saying, I've seen more than majority discover that even on their non-exercise days, they have decent positive adjustments, indicating they are not sedentary, but lightly active by MFP definition.0 -
Everyone gives advice based upon their own experiences. I'm really short, and I only burned 1,179 calories today. If larger people follow my instructions and get annoyed by the huge adjustments, they can raise their activity level.
You've made me realize I need to stress "everybody's different, and it'll take trial & error to find what works for you."0
