Disconnect Fitbit to MFP & calculating busy days
cvpastore
Posts: 30 Member
Last week unsinced my FB and MFP because I was getting so many adjustments that I felt I was just eating too many calories and only lost 1 lb in 4 weeks. MFP has me at 1200 calories and I am adding in my exercise calories using a HRM and eating them back. Today I walked a very leisure 5K for charity and had a busy day of errands but no formal exercise. I logged about 20k steps and for exercised added 219 extra calories for 60 min of 3 mph walking. That really only brings me to 1400 calories and I ended up at 1700 today. For those that do it this way, how would you track a day like this?
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Reconnect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit
If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments, eating back your adjustments means you're eating TDEE minus deficit.
No need to log any step-based activity (like walking or errands)—your Fitbit is tracking it for you.0 -
As said above, I wouldn't be manually logging any step based activities, let the fitbit do the work/calculations for you.
Also, enable negative calorie adjustments for the days you aren't as active.0 -
I just assessed the accuracy of my Fitbit over the last 11 weeks (ending last Sunday). I had been trying to log my food very accurately during that time, but I know I wasn't 100% at that effort. I put in the data from my Fitbit Weekly Reports for calories burned and calories eaten. I used my weight from MFP, because the Fitbit report doesn't seem to give the right number for weight lost. The result - it seems that Fitbit is overestimating my calorie burn (or I'm under logging food) at about an average of 89 calories a day. I think that's pretty darn good.
However, I've decided how I'm going to compensate for that going forward. I'm going to put a "Quick Add Calories" entry in every day of 100 calories (nice round number). That should allow me to have a more accurate "remaining calories at the end of the day.
If you're really, truly accurately logging your food (when I'm being really good I weigh everything, I don't use measuring cups, even for liquids), then you can do basically the same thing. If your food logging isn't very accurate, you can still apply a fudge factor, it will just be less accurate. I think that is better than not using your Fitbit as designed.0 -
editorgrrl wrote: »Reconnect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit
If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments, eating back your adjustments means you're eating TDEE minus deficit.
No need to log any step-based activity (like walking or errands)—your Fitbit is tracking it for you.
Ok, this makes sense, except despite the fact that I am college degreed and love the metrics of fitness
I cannot seem to completely understand what "negative calorie adjustments" mean and eating TDEE "minus deficit". I read the bookmarked pages a few times and it just didn't stick. Maybe because it not applied in a relatable example, I don't know. But you try to explain that? I understand TDEE. 0 -
christinev297 wrote: »As said above, I wouldn't be manually logging any step based activities, let the fitbit do the work/calculations for you.
Also, enable negative calorie adjustments for the days you aren't as active.
Don't you mean my negative calorie adjustments should be disabled day to day as I have my MFP settings set for 'sedentary" and then log in my exercise - (either cardio or strength training) ... and then a day out of the ordinary, like my weekends of active housework/errands are enabled? ... I am so thick in the head.
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I cannot seem to completely understand what "negative calorie adjustments" mean and eating TDEE "minus deficit."
You lose weight by eating at a deficit—which means eating fewer calories than you burn. For every .5 lb. you want to lose per week, your deficit is 250 calories per day.
Your default MFP calorie goal is activity level minus deficit. Your Fitbit burn is TDEE (total daily energy expenditure, aka your maintenance calories). Adjustments are the difference between your Fitbit burn and your activity level.
Click on any adjustment to see the math MFP used to calculate it. For example:
Fitbit calories 1,238
MFP calories 1,413
Adjustment -175*
*If you disable negative calorie adjustments, your adjustment is zero—and you don't eat at a true deficit.
Edited to add that negative calorie adjustments never, ever put your calorie goal below 1,200. So if you set your goal too aggressively for your size, you still won't eat at a true deficit.0 -
If that still doesn't make any sense, please read the Sexypants post. It doesn't have anything to do with your Fitbit, but it should be required reading for every MFPer: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p10
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christinev297 wrote: »As said above, I wouldn't be manually logging any step based activities, let the fitbit do the work/calculations for you.
Also, enable negative calorie adjustments for the days you aren't as active.
Don't you mean my negative calorie adjustments should be disabled day to day as I have my MFP settings set for 'sedentary" and then log in my exercise - (either cardio or strength training) ... and then a day out of the ordinary, like my weekends of active housework/errands are enabled? ... I am so thick in the head.
LOL you're not thick! I was a blithering mess when I first starting learning about all of this, I thought I was going to lose my mind!!!!I was waiting for heybales (our resident expert) to reach through the computer screen and slap me on the back of my head haha
I'm set to sedentary too, but always have negative adjustments enabled, just in case I have a lazy day or my steps aren't as high as usual. I have never turned them off and on, just set and forget.
I usually always wake up minus 100 calories because of this, but I am soon able to make that up.
To put it simply, and because I'm hopeless at explaining stuff in written form... Enable negative adjustments and let fitbit do the work for you. trust in it's abilities.
Hopefully someone will be along soon and explain it in a more condensed, concise version than I can xx
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editorgrrl wrote: »I cannot seem to completely understand what "negative calorie adjustments" mean and eating TDEE "minus deficit."
You lose weight by eating at a deficit—which means eating fewer calories than you burn. For every .5 lb. you want to lose per week, your deficit is 250 calories per day.
Your default MFP calorie goal is activity level minus deficit. Your Fitbit burn is TDEE (total daily energy expenditure, aka your maintenance calories). Adjustments are the difference between your Fitbit burn and your activity level.
Click on any adjustment to see the math MFP used to calculate it. For example:
Fitbit calories 1,238
MFP calories 1,413
Adjustment -175*
*If you disable negative calorie adjustments, your adjustment is zero—and you don't eat at a true deficit.
Edited to add that negative calorie adjustments never, ever put your calorie goal below 1,200. So if you set your goal too aggressively for your size, you still won't eat at a true deficit.
Ok, this is a good explanation and I'm starting to get parts of it now. For some reason I wasn't picking up that deficit was referring to cutting calories for weightloss. several more questions and then I'm done:
1) why would someone want to disable neg. calorie adjustments and not eat at a deficit if you are trying to lose weight? (I know I read the reason somewhere but it would be helpful if you could explain)
2) In the example that you used, if MFP was 1238 and FB was 1413 would there be a positive adjustment?
3) How do I know if my FB is accurate with calories burned?
4) For the last month, I seemed to get calories added all day long to my goals. I sinc all day but it was hard to plan my meals. How can I eliminate so many adjustments?
Now I'm going to go back and ready sexypants, maybe if I just keep rereading things, it will all come together. BTW - I am 5'3, 146lb, over 40 and have a desk job. I set my goals for 1lb a week and I suppose that's why I have a 1200 calorie goal. I did play with .5 and it was the same.
TY!!0 -
christinev297 wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »As said above, I wouldn't be manually logging any step based activities, let the fitbit do the work/calculations for you.
Also, enable negative calorie adjustments for the days you aren't as active.
Don't you mean my negative calorie adjustments should be disabled day to day as I have my MFP settings set for 'sedentary" and then log in my exercise - (either cardio or strength training) ... and then a day out of the ordinary, like my weekends of active housework/errands are enabled? ... I am so thick in the head.
LOL you're not thick! I was a blithering mess when I first starting learning about all of this, I thought I was going to lose my mind!!!!I was waiting for heybales (our resident expert) to reach through the computer screen and slap me on the back of my head haha
I'm set to sedentary too, but always have negative adjustments enabled, just in case I have a lazy day or my steps aren't as high as usual. I have never turned them off and on, just set and forget.
I usually always wake up minus 100 calories because of this, but I am soon able to make that up.
To put it simply, and because I'm hopeless at explaining stuff in written form... Enable negative adjustments and let fitbit do the work for you. trust in it's abilities.
Hopefully someone will be along soon and explain it in a more condensed, concise version than I can xx
OK, I'm going to enable them again tonight. Interesting that I have never seen a minus 100 in the am, do you see that on MPF? Thank you for your lightheartedness, I'm glad I'm not the only one that this has take time to sinc in! Do you add in any exercise calories? How do you know your FB it accurate? I have about 15 lbs I'd like to lose and I'm a bit too far away for it not to be working. I think I might also need to weigh my food more as I prefer to measure and eyeball instead of weigh. I will weigh a slices/scoop of something but that's for another thread.
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1. I have no idea why people disable negative adjustments.
2. Yes, when your Fitbit burn is higher than your MFP activity level you get a positive adjustment.
3. The only way to gauge the accuracy is to trust your Fitbit for several weeks, then reevaluate your progress. I was shocked how many calories Fitbit said I could eat, but I lost the weight and have maintained for ten months.
4. If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments, then you can increase your activity level. You'll start with more calories but get smaller adjustments. It's entirely a matter of personal preference.
The less you have to lose, the more slowly it comes off. That's just the way the human body works. A healthy, sustainable loss is .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight. The smaller deficit will also help you transition to maintenance.
I'm 5'2" and over 40, have a desk job, and eat way more than 1,200 calories. Chronic undereating won't get you to goal any more quickly.0 -
editorgrrl wrote: »1. I have no idea why people disable negative adjustments.
2. Yes, when your Fitbit burn is higher than your MFP activity level you get a positive adjustment.
3. The only way to gauge the accuracy is to trust your Fitbit for several weeks, then reevaluate your progress. I was shocked how many calories Fitbit said I could eat, but I lost the weight and have maintained for ten months.
4. If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments, then you can increase your activity level. You'll start with more calories but get smaller adjustments. It's entirely a matter of personal preference.
The less you have to lose, the more slowly it comes off. That's just the way the human body works. A healthy, sustainable loss is .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight. The smaller deficit will also help you transition to maintenance.
I'm 5'2" and over 40, have a desk job, and eat way more than 1,200 calories. Chronic undereating won't get you to goal any more quickly.
4. Do you mean I can increase my activity level from "sedentary to lightly active"? TY0 -
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christinev297 wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »As said above, I wouldn't be manually logging any step based activities, let the fitbit do the work/calculations for you.
Also, enable negative calorie adjustments for the days you aren't as active.
Don't you mean my negative calorie adjustments should be disabled day to day as I have my MFP settings set for 'sedentary" and then log in my exercise - (either cardio or strength training) ... and then a day out of the ordinary, like my weekends of active housework/errands are enabled? ... I am so thick in the head.
LOL you're not thick! I was a blithering mess when I first starting learning about all of this, I thought I was going to lose my mind!!!!I was waiting for heybales (our resident expert) to reach through the computer screen and slap me on the back of my head haha
I'm set to sedentary too, but always have negative adjustments enabled, just in case I have a lazy day or my steps aren't as high as usual. I have never turned them off and on, just set and forget.
I usually always wake up minus 100 calories because of this, but I am soon able to make that up.
To put it simply, and because I'm hopeless at explaining stuff in written form... Enable negative adjustments and let fitbit do the work for you. trust in it's abilities.
Hopefully someone will be along soon and explain it in a more condensed, concise version than I can xx
OK, I'm going to enable them again tonight. Interesting that I have never seen a minus 100 in the am, do you see that on MPF? Thank you for your lightheartedness, I'm glad I'm not the only one that this has take time to sinc in! Do you add in any exercise calories? How do you know your FB it accurate? I have about 15 lbs I'd like to lose and I'm a bit too far away for it not to be working. I think I might also need to weigh my food more as I prefer to measure and eyeball instead of weigh. I will weigh a slices/scoop of something but that's for another thread.
How do I know my fitbit calories are correct? That was the very first question I asked, many times over. I just couldn't believe I was getting 1000 extra calories for 25,000 steps. I was too scared to eat them back. But in the end I just had to trust in the numbers and see what happened. If I put on weight I would reduce the amount of exercise calories I ate back, and if I lost too fast.....
pfffftttt who am I kidding, it's not in my dna to lose weight too fast :laugh:
I've only been using a fitbit since March 28, so I'm slowly getting some decent data. I did lose 1kg in the first month eating most of my calories back, but since then I've let my logging slide a bit and have been getting into the chips, dip and froot loops in the evenings and not logging them!!
So haven't lost anything in the past few weeks, which is my fault, not fitbits numbers.
I don't add any extra exercise into mfp, as all I do is walking. If I did gym classes I would definitely add them.
And yes, def stop eyeballing your food, a food scale is invaluable if you want spot on numbers, especially since your so close to goal. A few inaccurate guesses throughout the day can easily wipe out your deficit.
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I think I might also need to weigh my food more as I prefer to measure and eyeball instead of weigh. I will weigh a slices/scoop of something but that's for another thread.
There's your problem. It's a pain, but you gotta weigh your food. Especially when you've only got a few pounds to lose. You said you have only got 15 pounds to lose. That means a maximum goal of 1/2 pound per week and you've got to weigh pretty much every bite. Your Fitbit is probably giving you a fairly accurate estimate of your calorie burn, but if you don't truly know how much you're eating, it isn't going to help a lot. I found that out the hard way (a long plateau while I resisted accurate logging).
If you want/need to plan your eating for the day early, before you've "earned" extra calories, then use the average TDEE that Fitbit reports (see your Fitbit Weekly Report or the graph on your profile page) and plan on eating that minus your deficit (250 calories per day for a weight loss of 1/2 pound per week).0 -
You lose weight by eating at a deficit—which means eating fewer calories than you burn. For every .5 lb. you want to lose per week, your deficit is 250 calories per day.
Your default MFP calorie goal is activity level minus deficit. Your Fitbit burn is TDEE (total daily energy expenditure, aka your maintenance calories). Adjustments are the difference between your Fitbit burn and your activity level.
Click on any adjustment to see the math MFP used to calculate it. For example:
Fitbit calories 1,238
MFP calories 1,413
Adjustment -175*
*If you disable negative calorie adjustments, your adjustment is zero—and you don't eat at a true deficit.
Edited to add that negative calorie adjustments never, ever put your calorie goal below 1,200. So if you set your goal too aggressively for your size, you still won't eat at a true deficit.
This is the best explanation I have seen of fitbit negative calories. For the first time of reading about negative calories, I fully understand it now. Thank you0 -
This is the best explanation I have seen of fitbit negative calories. For the first time of reading about negative calories, I fully understand it now. Thank you[/quote]
I agree. Most explanations get lost in details - this is simple. This should be bookmarked.0 -
editorgrrl wrote: »1. I have no idea why people disable negative adjustments.
I want mine turned off because I have custom set macros and calories.
My FitBit TDEE is consistantly in the 2000 range. My calories in MFP are set to 1640. It's an arbitrary number that was created by setting my macros, that just happened to be about 17% below my TDEE. Perfect.
I want them to stay there. All I have to do is walk the dogs and MFP starts adding calories back in (both MFP and FitBit are set at lightly active).
More importantly I carb restrict and have my carb macros set to exactly where I want them. I do not want to eat more. As long as I can only set it up using %, having the adjustments turned off makes it easier for me.
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editorgrrl wrote: »1. I have no idea why people disable negative adjustments.
I want mine turned off because I have custom set macros and calories.
My FitBit TDEE is consistantly in the 2000 range. My calories in MFP are set to 1640. It's an arbitrary number that was created by setting my macros, that just happened to be about 17% below my TDEE. Perfect.
I want them to stay there. All I have to do is walk the dogs and MFP starts adding calories back in (both MFP and FitBit are set at lightly active).
More importantly I carb restrict and have my carb macros set to exactly where I want them. I do not want to eat more. As long as I can only set it up using %, having the adjustments turned off makes it easier for me.
It sounds like you don't want just negative adjustments disabled, you want all adjustments disabled. So, unlink the accounts. For those of us who have more variation in our TDEEs and/or are more focused on calories than macros, the Fitbit adjustment is a good thing, including negative adjustments.0 -
[editorgrrl wrote: »I have no idea why people disable negative adjustments.
I want mine turned off because I have custom set macros and calories.
I carb restrict and have my carb macros set to exactly where I want them. I do not want to eat more. As long as I can only set it up using %, having the adjustments turned off makes it easier for me.
Disabling negative calorie adjustments =/= turning off adjustments. The only way to do the latter is to disconnect your accounts (but then you can't see your MFP food & water in Fitbit) or to pay for MFP Premium.0
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