Calorie recommendations
shrinkyy
Posts: 21 Member
Hi everyone (sorry I've editing this because I just found an answer to some of my questions and realised I have other questions now lol)
I'm not sure whether to follow FitBit's calorie recommendations or not. They seem off but you'd think a device like this should be good at telling you how much to eat? Seems to be telling me to eat way too much.
I'm having trouble coming to terms with fitbit calorie adjustments on MFP as well. It also seems like too many calories. But maybe it's just my attitude. According to fitbit, I'm doing a lot more steps/activity in a day than I realised. I've only had the fitbit 2 days and I'm used to just using MFP, not logging any kind of activity I do other than when I'm at the gym and doing elliptical/cycling. So I never logged any walking or tried to estimate my activity at work (I walk a fair bit at work, 6 days a week). So now I have the fitbit putting in 600-800 calorie adjustments and then MFP is telling me to eat way more than I'm used to as well.
I'm not sure if I'm just having an attitude problem, and viewing weight loss in an unhealthy way. If my fitbit is telling me I'm doing a lot of walking (12,000 steps) in a day, then I know it makes sense I will have burned a fair amount of calories that I never bothered to include in MFP exercise before.
I guess I'm concerned my metabolism isn't as fast as what the fitbit is estimating... I probably have MFP on sedentary or lightly active at most.
Sorry if my posts are silly and confusing, I'm a fitbit noob lol
I'm not sure whether to follow FitBit's calorie recommendations or not. They seem off but you'd think a device like this should be good at telling you how much to eat? Seems to be telling me to eat way too much.
I'm having trouble coming to terms with fitbit calorie adjustments on MFP as well. It also seems like too many calories. But maybe it's just my attitude. According to fitbit, I'm doing a lot more steps/activity in a day than I realised. I've only had the fitbit 2 days and I'm used to just using MFP, not logging any kind of activity I do other than when I'm at the gym and doing elliptical/cycling. So I never logged any walking or tried to estimate my activity at work (I walk a fair bit at work, 6 days a week). So now I have the fitbit putting in 600-800 calorie adjustments and then MFP is telling me to eat way more than I'm used to as well.
I'm not sure if I'm just having an attitude problem, and viewing weight loss in an unhealthy way. If my fitbit is telling me I'm doing a lot of walking (12,000 steps) in a day, then I know it makes sense I will have burned a fair amount of calories that I never bothered to include in MFP exercise before.
I guess I'm concerned my metabolism isn't as fast as what the fitbit is estimating... I probably have MFP on sedentary or lightly active at most.
Sorry if my posts are silly and confusing, I'm a fitbit noob lol
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Replies
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Fitbit prorates your calories by time of day & goes way below 1,200 calories per day. Please ignore your Fitbit calorie goal!0
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Here's something I posted in the "getting started" thread:
Everybody's different, but here's what worked for me:
Connect your accounts: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/apps/show/30
Do not log any step-based activity. Your Fitbit is already tracking that for you.
Log non-step exercise (like biking or swimming) in Fitbit—never MFP.
Log food & drink (including water) in MFP.
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. Your Fitbit burn is your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). If you eat less than your Fitbit burn, you will lose weight.0 -
Ohh I thought you should log everything in MFP, including exercise. What's the benefit in doing it in fitbit instead?
I'm not sure whether to enable negative adjustments because I don't have a phone that's compatible yet so I can only sync late in the day with the dongle. Also there are some days and times where I can't wear the fitbit, but those times would be when I'm not walking around much at all0 -
If you disable negative calorie adjustments, you won't eat at a deficit on less active days. Your adjustments are wonky at first. But they get better, as if the system is "learning" your routine.
Ignore MFP's red day/green day thing. All that matters is your 7-day nutrition. (It's easier to see in the app.)
Logging exercise in MFP overwrites your Fitbit data during that time.0 -
You do have a tough case then, and Fitbit actually has an option exactly for that.
In your settings - called Calorie Estimation. It'll be based on history days, so the longer the better for accuracy.
But with it enabled it assumes your daily burn will be close to prior history, so it starts off with that and with no syncs to adjust the settings during the day, that assumed amount will be reported to MFP, who of course then adjusts for the day as a whole.
This allows your eating goal to be hopefully closer to reality as the day goes on.
Of course, by the time you sync late at night, could have a big negative or positive adjustment.
So you'll need to get good at thinking about how the day is going - or looking at your Fitbit for burned calories and doing the math yourself. How hard to subtract 500 from whatever number you see, and that is eating goal?
With calorie estimation disabled, Fitbit assumes you'll burn barely over BMR, so like awake barely moving all day, and that's what is reported to MFP through the day.
When you sync and show you have burned more, then that burn amount is reported to MFP. MFP will give positive adjustments if your daily burn at that point is more than it estimated it would be.
But with that option disabled and syncing late in day, you'll always be getting negative adjustment until you sync.
But again - you can visually see what your goal is, log your food on MFP, and no matter what it says the daily goal is, you know what it is and you know it'll be adjusted when you do finally sync.
So just depends on what you'd care to see on MFP, negative adjustments until end of day, or probably positive adjustments that are reduced at end of day after you finally sync.0 -
Is that really how Fitbit calorie estimation works? When I tried it, my couch potato weekends seemed to made it think I'd forgotten to wear my Fitbit. I got the same adjustments as an active weekday. Not cool!0
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I do plan on upgrading my phone but probably won't for a few weeks. It seems to be working okay as I am more prone to overeating at night, so I sync it in the afternoon to know how much I should eat for dinner. But I do weird work hours. When it's time to do my night shifts and sleepover shifts at work, it's going to be frustrating not being able to sync it. But basically it's like I'm sticking to about 1300 calories, then when I sync it, it's always adding 400-600 adjusted fitbit calories. I've never had a time so far where it tells me I should eat less (I don't think it could as I have the calories on MFP set the absolute lowest of 1200), and I don't have negative adjustments turned on because my calories are so low and I'm doing 10,000 steps or more every day.. so I just aim to eat about 1500 cal a day for weight loss and by the time I sync the fitbit, my 1200 MFP limit always goes up to like 1500 or 16000
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Yep, until you have syncs that prove the day is NOT going as history has shown, your initial estimated daily burn will indeed be higher than a rather bump-on-a-log day.
And the weekend is indeed where the theory of it working well falls apart.
@shrinkyy - that's a good plan. If you find that you are getting rather healthy positive adjustments on non-exercise days - your daily life is probably not the sedentary you have selected - you'd benefit with planning by being honest and selecting lightly-active.
That shift description makes me think nurse - so on your feet for the shift is hardly sedentary if that is the case.0 -
Is calorie estimation automatic? Is that what my fitbit's doing? Or do you have to turn that function on? I'm assuming at the moment my fitbit is just showing my BMR if I haven't synced it yet... then is adding any extra calories burned walking/running when I sync it... is that right?
If I'm lightly active and select sedentary (which MFP is on right now), does that mean I'm INCREASING my positive adjustments with the fit bit? If I changed my activity level to lightly active, will my fitbit adjustments be lower (less calories)?
Because today for example it's saying I burned 600cal walking at work, but imagine if I also went to the gym! I burn an average of 350 cal doing 30 min cycling, that would mean if I synced the fitbit and also added manual exercise, it's going to be telling me to eat insane amounts of calories isn't it? But then if I change it to lightly active, even MFP is gonna tell me to eat more calories, isn't it? aaargh I'm confused haha. I just don't want it to keep telling me I can eat 1800-2000cal a day to lose 1kg per week cause that' sounds crazy. But then maybe I am just in denial about not needing to cut my calories so hard to lose weight in a good amount of time. But my instinct tells me I need to eat no more than 1400-1500cal a day to lose 1/2 to 1 kilogram per week. That's what worked for me in the past even with cycling and walking 8000-10000 steps a day at work. But I only did that for short bursts at a time for 1 -2 weeks to lose a few kg and motivate myself. I think I just need to accept that my body needs more cals than I want to admit!0 -
Calorie Estimation is enabled by default.
When disabled, it assumes a very sedentary day until a sync proves otherwise, it's like barely above your BMR burn.
And that's not what the Fitbit device is doing and showing, that's what the website is doing until it gets data from your device.
Hence my comment to look at your device calorie burn, and merely subtract 500 to get an idea of where you are for food goal during the day.
Yes - selecting an MFP activity level that is lower than reality means you get bigger calorie adjustments once MFP is informed how much you really burned.
- Some find that makes for hard planning, because you base your eating during the day on an artificially low goal, that you know is bigger. Wait too late, may not eat enough to reach your goal then.
And bigger deficit is not better, nor wiser.
You aren't confused - you burn a lot of calories - and you simply have no concept of what is a normal level until now. You have probably only ever seen eating levels mentioned around 1200 calories, with no bearing on how much a person burns - that's stupid diet plans.
Is your instinct based on actual info, or just the fact you could do something and lose weight, but you don't know why really, except you ate very little and did a lot of exercise?
And yes, you merely need to eat a little less than you burn to lose fat.
Do a whole lot more, you lose muscle too.
Then you can come back and do a diet again in the future, because a lowered metabolism, less muscle mass, and less daily burn, and lower eating level for maintenance - all spell putting the weight back on easier and losing it harder next time.
Why yo-yo dieting is so easy.
So yes - set to Lightly active so you can plan your eating better.
With 13 kg to go, set to 1/2 kg weekly loss goal.
When you get to 5 kg, set to 1/4 kg weekly.
Manually correct the biking exercise, MFP or Fitbit site, since Fitbit will be badly underestimated. Or any other non-step based workouts, like elliptical, swimming, rowing, lifting, ect.
Don't mess with the step based or class workouts, close enough.
Then meet your daily goal, getting an idea through that when you do more, when you burn more, you need to eat more. And you will be keeping the same deficit for weight loss in place.
So if you burned 350 in biking, and haven't synced yet, you better get good at having a snack prior or post workout to compensate - or enjoy desert with dinner.0 -
Is calorie estimation automatic? Is that what my fitbit's doing? Or do you have to turn that function on?
Disable (or enable) Fitbit calorie estimation in your settings, via the gear icon at the top of every page: https://www.fitbit.com/user/profile/edit0
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