Fitbit Making Me Fat?

I wouldn't trust an electronic device to calculate burn..waaay too inaccurate. You should weigh your food to make sure your accurate.

Also, DRINK LOTS OF WATER! It helps a lot.

Fitbit consistently tells me to eat *less* than what MFP has as my calorie allowance per day.. if I ate what Fitbit told me to, I don't think I would be getting enough!!!

Also, when it says you burned 2080 calories, thats just telling you what you burned...which is not the same as what you should be eating. If you put in that your goal is to lose weight and how aggressively, it will calculate what your deficit should be. That is what you should be eating...

Anyway, because I have mine set to custom..and use what I actually burn instead of a set number, the amount I burn / should eat changes throughout the day, every day. Every so often, Fitbit is close to the same calories MFP tells me I have left to eat, but usually its lower by 100-200 calories. Check your goal settings on Fitbit maybe?

I set MFP for the amount I can eat to still be able to lose 1lb per week without any exercise. For me that's my sedentary TDEE of 1500-500 = 1000 calories.

That way if there are calories added on to that amount based on my exercise I know I can eat this extra amount and still lose, but generally, whatever the total says even if it comes to 2000 I usually cap the total I eat at 1500-1600 maximum to allow for overestimation by the Fitbit or my workouts. If I only end up at 1500 for the daily burn, I'll eat no more than 1300 and so on.

JessaLee0324 wrote: »

Ok perfect example. I set my Fitbit so that I'm at maintenance. I want to see exactly where I am at and since I do the deductions on MFP it's all good. Here is what Fitbit says

I ate 1682
I burned 2030
Cals left 704

WHAT??????

Okay, I just looked at your diary. It looks like you're getting a FitBit credit every day, and it's throwing you off? Because based on MFP, you have 153 calories left, not 704.

What I recommend doing is picking a website to track your calories. Either FitBit or MFP - don't use both. I use MFP, with FitBit as an accessory to keep me active. I don't log or track anything on FitBit. In fact, I mostly ignore it.

If you choose MFP, you need to adjust your activity level (sedentary, lightly active, active, etc) to better match your actual activity level, instead of getting different adjustments every single day. This way your calorie target will be more fixed, and easier to meet.

JessaLee0324 wrote: »

Ok perfect example. I set my Fitbit so that I'm at maintenance. I want to see exactly where I am at and since I do the deductions on MFP it's all good. Here is what Fitbit says

I ate 1682
I burned 2030
Cals left 704

WHAT??????

Because your day does not rest until midnight. Even if you sleep for the remainder of your day you still burn calories just by breathing. Fitbit is estimating what it thinks you will have burned for the whole entire 24 hours based on your previous history. So therefore it estimates how many more calories you can eat to never even for that whole 24 hours. I hope this made sense.

My Fitbit seems to be very, very accurate for me, but everything on the Fitbit dashboard is confusing & way off. The calories/amount left to eat never matches up with MFP & I haven't been able to figure out why. So, I just have my Fitbit syncing to MFP (I think I also enabled negative calories & adjusted some other setting) & then I eat what MFP tells me I can eat. Most days I eat back ALL of the exercise calories given by Fitbit and I still lose weight at the 1lb a week I'm set for.

redheaddee wrote: »

If you burn 2030 a day and eat 2030 a day = maintain your current weight. To lose weight, eat less than you burn. Seems straightforward enough.

Yes, this. Fitbit provides an estimate for your TDEE, so if you are eating that number, you will not lose weight. If you are estimating servings instead of using a food scale, you could easily be eating over maintenance and start gaining.

You have to set a deficit on Fitbit. To do this on the app, go under account. Click goals, then go down to where it says "diet." Click on "food." It will help you set your goal. Make sure it is the same goal you have in MFP. A 250 cal deficit = 0.5lb lost a week, 500 = 1lb, etc.

I would definitely look into tightening my logging, too. A food scale is the calories counter's best friend! If that doesn't work, you may want to just not eat back a percentage of your calories earned. But I find earning calories really motivating, so I'd probably try the first two before that. Up to you!