Using Fitbit Charge HR but gaining weight
Sprayed
Posts: 2 Member
I need some help. I'm sure that this has been talked about in the past, but I'm not able to find any info. I am using a Fitbit Charge HR trying to lose roughly 30lbs. I am a 40 year old 5'9" male weighing 200lbs and would like to get down to 165lbs. I would say that I'm fairly strong with roughly 20% body fat. I walk 30000 steps on average and lift weights for roughly 30 minutes every day.
I have been doing this for several months and I'm getting no where. I have myfitnesspal and fitbit down to losing 2lbs a week and I'm eating back the calories that they say I'm burning. Some days I am eating roughly 4000 calories which seems crazy to me but that is what fitbit says I'm burning.
Can someone tell me what I should do? Should I not pay attention to fitbit's calorie burn numbers and only concentrate on a hard and fast number each day based off of a calculator or something?
I have been doing this for several months and I'm getting no where. I have myfitnesspal and fitbit down to losing 2lbs a week and I'm eating back the calories that they say I'm burning. Some days I am eating roughly 4000 calories which seems crazy to me but that is what fitbit says I'm burning.
Can someone tell me what I should do? Should I not pay attention to fitbit's calorie burn numbers and only concentrate on a hard and fast number each day based off of a calculator or something?
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Replies
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First thing to determine: Is your logging accurate?
read: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1
Not using a food scale, picking "generic-" or "homemade" entries from the database, skipping days, and not logging everything you eat/drink can all mean that you could actually be eating more than you think.
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Next step, if you don't want to do the above or you are sure that your log is accurate is to adjust how many of the calories you eat back. Since your already at 100%, why not drop to 75 or 50% and see what happens?0 -
If you're steadily gaining weight (not just fluctuating), then you're eating more calories than you burn. Open your diary for personal advice, but the most likely reason is that you're not logging everything you eat & drink accurately & honestly.0
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Good advice about making sure you're logging accurately. That's the hardest part for me.
According to the guidelines I've seen here, your weight loss goal is too high. If you've got less than 50 pounds to lose, then you should aim to lose a maximum of 1 pound per week and if you've got less than 25 pounds to lose, you should aim to lose a maximum of 1/2 pound per week. With 30 pounds to lose, I would think 1/2 pound per week is the realistic goal to aim for especially if your body fat percentage is lower than is typical for someone of your height, weight and gender (I don't know if that is the case or not but you're very active and mentioned that you're fairly strong).
If you go to your Fitbit profile page (I don't know if this info can be seen on the phone app), you'll see a graph that tells you your average Fitbit burn and your average calorie intake for the past 30 days. That will enable you to calculate your expected loss over that time. ((Burn-intake)*30)/3500 Then, look on MFP for your actual results. Take the difference and you can compute how far off your estimates (Fitbit burn and/or food logging) are from reality. I take that figure and add a "Quick Add Calories" entry of about that amount each day. After I've been using that figure for a month, I can go back and check again to see if my expected weight loss matches my actual and readjust the number if necessary. This not only allows for any burn estimation error on Fitbit's part, but also allows me to not obsess about my food logging.
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So that is a big calorie burn, which could indeed be possible, but depending on activity causing the calorie burn, small inaccuracies will add up.
Since Charge HR is not valid calorie estimate for anything non-steady-state and anaerobic - do you use it's calorie burn for lifting, circuit training, intervals, similar where HR is constantly up and down and going anaerobic from time to time?
That would be inflated calorie burn - and should be manually logged, like lifting as Weights on Fitbit's site.
Ditto to accuracy on food logging too - though to overcome a true 1000 cal deficit would require some really bad logging.
Food is logged weight weight, not spoon or cup measurement.
More on the burn side - ever reviewed your daily graph per 5 minutes, steps and calorie burn, and confirmed they both appear accurate for what you remember the day being?
If for example a 45 min bus ride causes a big burn 2 x daily - then that's no good. And I've seen that with someone.
Little false steps usually don't add up to much in the way of calorie burn, so not bad.
But if daily step distance is badly inflated, then inflated calorie burn too.
Ever tested on treadmill that Fitbit gave about the right distance for normal average daily pace as treadmill showed?
Ditto to deficit being too big for last 35 lbs, 1 lb weekly until last 10-15 if doing strength training.0 -
I actually don't eat all of the calories that it says I have left to eat. I try and leave roughly 500 or more calories at the end of the day. Also, I have my daily calorie intake down to 1500. I just came off of a high fat low carb diet a week ago so maybe that has something to do with it as well.0
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I just came off of a high fat low carb diet a week ago so maybe that has something to do with it as well.
You lose weight by eating fewer calories than you burn—period. Set your goal to .5 lb. for every 25 lbs. you're overweight, and enable negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings.
Log everything you eat & drink accurately & honestly. Do not log any step-based activity. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit or in MFP—never both.
Eat back your adjustments for a few weeks, then reevaluate your progress.0 -
I actually don't eat all of the calories that it says I have left to eat. I try and leave roughly 500 or more calories at the end of the day. Also, I have my daily calorie intake down to 1500. I just came off of a high fat low carb diet a week ago so maybe that has something to do with it as well.
So you have probably a 1000 cal deficit built in to your eating goal already.
And then you try to miss your goal by another 500?
Or maybe even more?
I'm betting your body is rebelling against such treatment - bigger isn't better.
The Fitbit estimates for calorie burn are for average healthy body with your stats.
If yours is unhealthy with disease or sickness or you made it such - those burns aren't accurate anymore.0
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