Fitbit Calories Out - Do you eat them back?

Options
shan11180
shan11180 Posts: 110 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I'm just curious what others may do here... I recently purchased a fitbit flex and the 'calories out' that syncs with MFP calculates my daily calories burned. This is great, but I'm struggling with whether or not I should eat those calories? I try to eat back about half my burned calories, but that's typically only when they are burned with extra exercise and not the typical walking I do (to car, from car, etc.).

I'm just curious what others do. I'm still getting used to it, so for all I know, I'm doing it completely backwards!!

Thoughts?
«1

Replies

  • cheekydon
    cheekydon Posts: 12 Member
    Options
    I'm still wondering the same
  • Altagracia220
    Altagracia220 Posts: 876 Member
    Options
    I don't feel too comfortable doing it, so right now I'm sticking with just eating 1500 calories a day. I think once I go to maintenance mode I'm going to try eating them back and adjusting based on whether I lose or gain weight.
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    edited May 2015
    Options
    This doesn't really answer your question, but...

    IMO, the benefit of the fitbit is to have a fairly personal estimate of daily calories burned based on lifestyle/activity level. Use your fitbit every day for a week, then use that data to figure out an average number of cals you burn each day. Then use THAT number as your basis for how much you eat. Eat a little over that number to gain weight, eat at that number to maintain, eat below it to lose.

    If you still want to use MFP to log food, then you can set custom goals in MFP using your fitbit number (or some % over/under that number) as your daily calorie goal.

    I never liked having my fitbit account linked with my MFP account.
  • snarlingcoyote
    snarlingcoyote Posts: 399 Member
    edited May 2015
    Options
    LOL, decide whether to eat them? This week I'm trying to figure out how to make up for the cake I ate on Sunday.

    Short answer - it depends.

    Long answer - I don't if I want to lose weight fast, but normally, I do for two reasons: it's motivation to run farther (more calories for me to eat!) and otherwise I'm hungry.
  • cmbauer99
    cmbauer99 Posts: 184 Member
    Options
    I would not eat them back, unless you are actually doing exercise. The wristband craze of tracking steps and calculating calories burned by simply walking around would be sketchy. If you do some actually walking like 30 minutes or actual exercise then I would try to eat back only half of those.
  • shan11180
    shan11180 Posts: 110 Member
    Options
    cmbauer99 wrote: »
    I would not eat them back, unless you are actually doing exercise. The wristband craze of tracking steps and calculating calories burned by simply walking around would be sketchy. If you do some actually walking like 30 minutes or actual exercise then I would try to eat back only half of those.

    This is what I was thinking... I log my exercise into MFP and TRY (really hard!) to keep a deficit of 50% or so.
  • cmbauer99
    cmbauer99 Posts: 184 Member
    Options
    Wait what? YOu are eating at a 50% deficit? Maybe I misunderstood. You should NOT being doing more than 25% and even that is not really advised for long term success
  • shan11180
    shan11180 Posts: 110 Member
    Options
    cmbauer99 wrote: »
    Wait what? YOu are eating at a 50% deficit? Maybe I misunderstood. You should NOT being doing more than 25% and even that is not really advised for long term success

    I only eat my deficit when I add exercise - NOT my daily activities and calories burned according to the fitbit.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    Options
    I eat every single calorie of my fitbit adjustment. It seems to be reasonably accurate for me and my loss/maintenance is as expected.
  • cmbauer99
    cmbauer99 Posts: 184 Member
    Options
    phew! HAHAHA

    I thought I must have misunderstood.
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    Options
    I eat back about 75% of my Fitbit calories because I think they are reasonably accurate. I don't trust the exercise database as much so I eat back closer to 25% of my logged exercises. Over the course of a week, I probably eat back about 50% of earned calories overall.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    Options
    cmbauer99 wrote: »
    I would not eat them back, unless you are actually doing exercise. The wristband craze of tracking steps and calculating calories burned by simply walking around would be sketchy. If you do some actually walking like 30 minutes or actual exercise then I would try to eat back only half of those.

    The thing is, fitbit does not start you at TDEE level of sedentary like MFP does. It starts you at your RMR, which is way lower. Sometimes the adjustment is negative, meaning on some days you may need to eat less than you thought you should, and other times it's positive which means you have had a more active day than usual. Burning calories is more than just exercise. In fact the majority of calories burned over RMR are from non-exercise activities for the average person.

    Fitbit is not a metabolic chamber, so you shouldn't take the numbers as an absolute, but I found the estimate to be well within what's to be expected in terms of weight loss while eating back the calories for me.

    Keep in mind I work from home so I rarely use the car. For some reason fitbit has not yet made a tracker that accounts for that (although a simple app like Moves can!). Similarly, if you are using a wristband rather than a clip on like I do, expect a few false steps from moving your arm.

    My suggestion would be to eat back the calories for a few weeks and see how that translates to weight loss, and adjust the % you eat back accordingly if it's way off.
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    Options
    cmbauer99 wrote: »
    I would not eat them back, unless you are actually doing exercise. The wristband craze of tracking steps and calculating calories burned by simply walking around would be sketchy. If you do some actually walking like 30 minutes or actual exercise then I would try to eat back only half of those.

    Fitbit does figure in your regular activity level, as entered into MFP, and assigns extra calories based on your level. If you are sedentary, it will start giving extra calories after you reach ~ 3000 steps. Lightly active, ~ 5000 steps. You don't need to do targeted exercise, just do more than your activity level.

  • cmbauer99
    cmbauer99 Posts: 184 Member
    Options
    I get how the fitbit works. Where I believe society is going to fail with this fad is that people are thinking just cause they have a fit bit or whatever on they only need to move around all day. You should add in an actual walk or actual exercise. Not just get up and do your normal wallking around to your car and to your desk and to the bathroom. This is all normal activity that we all do everyday and it wont help you lose weight. I just see so many people with them and hope they realize just tracking your movements everyday isnt going to do anything.
  • shan11180
    shan11180 Posts: 110 Member
    Options
    cmbauer99 wrote: »
    I get how the fitbit works. Where I believe society is going to fail with this fad is that people are thinking just cause they have a fit bit or whatever on they only need to move around all day. You should add in an actual walk or actual exercise. Not just get up and do your normal wallking around to your car and to your desk and to the bathroom. This is all normal activity that we all do everyday and it wont help you lose weight. I just see so many people with them and hope they realize just tracking your movements everyday isnt going to do anything.

    I tend to agree with this. I've found it especially useful because my normal activity doesn't come close to the recommended 10,000 steps/day. I'm trying to get more steps, while also adding additional exercise.

    There seems to be a fairly significant difference between the MFP and fitbit food trackers, so I'm sticking with MFP. It's just an awesome bonus that they sync up. :smile:

    All that being said, I'm VERY new to the fitbit. Maybe I'm completely wrong!! Only time will tell... I'm LOVING all the responses! It's so great to see how others are using it and finding out what works for others, too. This will be especially helpful once I have a better understanding of the fitbit, nutrition, as well as all the lingo that I'm still working on (like TDEE and RMR). :smiley:
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    Options
    cmbauer99 wrote: »
    I get how the fitbit works. Where I believe society is going to fail with this fad is that people are thinking just cause they have a fit bit or whatever on they only need to move around all day. You should add in an actual walk or actual exercise. Not just get up and do your normal wallking around to your car and to your desk and to the bathroom. This is all normal activity that we all do everyday and it wont help you lose weight. I just see so many people with them and hope they realize just tracking your movements everyday isnt going to do anything.

    But moving more does help. Especially if you start off like I did where you weren't even meeting MFP's expectation of a sedentary person and with exercise I would meet the Sedentary expectation. Fitbit was taking calories away from me when I first got it. It helped me realize I needed to move more.

    __________________________

    Anyway, to the OP. Yes I do eat mine back. I've had mine long enough that when working out the math (loss vs expected loss based on intake/fitbit burn) that it's actually fairly accurate for me. With previous models that I owned it was actually about 200-300 under on average. I have the Surge now and it's under by about 50-100 on average.

    However, the only way to know if the burn is accurate for you is to compare at least 4 weeks of data. I am constantly re-evaluating mine, because while the estimate might be okay for now that could always change as I lose weight. I compare what I lost to what my intake vs Fitbit calorie burn estimates I should have lost.

    Example:
    30 Day Average Fitbit Burn - 2584
    30 Day Average Intake - 1938
    30 Day Average Deficit - 646
    30 Day Total Deficit - 19380
    Expected Loss based on Intake & Fitbit Calorie Burn - 5.53xxx
    Actual Loss - 5.4

    Either my logging is off by approx 16 calories a day or the Fitbit estimate is too high. It's highly possible that my own logging is a bit off. There were a couple days the past month that I had to completely estimate my intake because I went to eat at a restraunt that doesn't provide calorie information.

    However, just because it comes out this close for me, doesn't mean that it will for everyone. Some people have found the calories burned to be around 10% too high. So my suggestion is give it some time and then do your own comparison like I do (cheat: 30 day average burn and 30 day average intake are on your Fitbit profile page).
  • jetortola
    jetortola Posts: 198 Member
    Options
    shadow2soul wrote: »
    However, the only way to know if the burn is accurate for you is to compare at least 4 weeks of data. I am constantly re-evaluating mine, because while the estimate might be okay for now that could always change as I lose weight. I compare what I lost to what my intake vs Fitbit calorie burn estimates I should have lost.

    Example:
    30 Day Average Fitbit Burn - 2584
    30 Day Average Intake - 1938
    30 Day Average Deficit - 646
    30 Day Total Deficit - 19380
    Expected Loss based on Intake & Fitbit Calorie Burn - 5.53xxx
    Actual Loss - 5.4

    Either my logging is off by approx 16 calories a day or the Fitbit estimate is too high. It's highly possible that my own logging is a bit off. There were a couple days the past month that I had to completely estimate my intake because I went to eat at a restraunt that doesn't provide calorie information.

    However, just because it comes out this close for me, doesn't mean that it will for everyone. Some people have found the calories burned to be around 10% too high. So my suggestion is give it some time and then do your own comparison like I do (cheat: 30 day average burn and 30 day average intake are on your Fitbit profile page).

    I really like this approach! I am getting a FitBit (hopefully today), so am interested in this.

    *************************
    Not to hijack this thread... but I am looking at this calculation, and I realize that I could calculate my TDEE using historical data as well... right?!?

    If I take my 4 week average daily NET calories: 1818/day + my 4 week average daily deficit of 250 calories (based on my 2 lbs loss in 4 weeks... 7000 cals/28 days = 250 deficit/day)... can I then presume my TDEE is 2068 calories?

    Personally -- I like the concept of being able to burn more/eat more, as I find it motivates me to get out and move more... so I don't think I could work with the TDEE calculation approach to setting constant calorie goals. But I find the calculation interesting. I just checked using an online TDEE calculator, and its pretty close.

    [/hijack] *************************

    Thanks for posting this OP!
  • shan11180
    shan11180 Posts: 110 Member
    Options
    Not to hijack this thread... but I am looking at this calculation, and I realize that I could calculate my TDEE using historical data as well... right?!?

    If I take my 4 week average daily NET calories: 1818/day + my 4 week average daily deficit of 250 calories (based on my 2 lbs loss in 4 weeks... 7000 cals/28 days = 250 deficit/day)... can I then presume my TDEE is 2068 calories?

    Personally -- I like the concept of being able to burn more/eat more, as I find it motivates me to get out and move more... so I don't think I could work with the TDEE calculation approach to setting constant calorie goals. But I find the calculation interesting. I just checked using an online TDEE calculator, and its pretty close.

    [/hijack] *************************

    Thanks for posting this OP![/quote]

    Haha! Hijack away!! :smiley: All info is good info!!!
  • jeremywm1977
    jeremywm1977 Posts: 657 Member
    Options
    Here's my opinion (Bear in mind before you shower me with your scorn that this is my opinion, opinion sprinkled with some facts). This will likely be an unpopular viewpoint.

    The thing with FitBit is that it is tracking your steps.......that's it. It's not tracking your effort in making those steps. If you did 5000 steps just walking around your house.......up and down to the bathroom, back and forth to the kitchen to make a sandwich. Maybe a few errands to pick up a gallon of milk, get the kids from school, etc., go ahead and pat yourself on the back for moving around, but I don't think any drastic change to your caloric intake is mandated.

    On the other hand, if you did 5000 steps speed walking around your block, holding weights, walking uphill, etc............something to actually make you breathe hard or break a sweat, then maybe (again, "MAYBE") you might consider having a snack.

    I'm sorry, I've been crucified in this forum for this viewpoint..........walking is great, and is loads better than sitting on your *kitten*. On the other hand, I see too many people caught up in FitBit-land, thinking that casually strolling their way to 10000 steps means they should pat themselves on the back for their effort, eat more food as a reward, and then *kitten* when they don't get their intended results.

    I'm down from my soapbox.............and now the hatestorm can begin.
  • jeremywm1977
    jeremywm1977 Posts: 657 Member
    Options
    cmbauer99 wrote: »
    I get how the fitbit works. Where I believe society is going to fail with this fad is that people are thinking just cause they have a fit bit or whatever on they only need to move around all day. You should add in an actual walk or actual exercise. Not just get up and do your normal wallking around to your car and to your desk and to the bathroom. This is all normal activity that we all do everyday and it wont help you lose weight. I just see so many people with them and hope they realize just tracking your movements everyday isnt going to do anything.

    Thank you.......I just scrolled back up and read this post, realizing that I just elaborated on your excellent point.

Categories