Understanding Fitbit

Oh, and in your example your net is 400.

On a side note: you seem to be confused about just what your BMR is. BMR is the amount of calories your body uses if you were to lay in bed and do nothing, i mean no lifting your arm or leg, no turning over, no getting up to pee etc. You should not (without doctors supervision) eat below BMR, or if you do it should not be for any length of time. Even if you were sedentary, meaning you sit at a desk for 8-10 hours, sleep 6-8 hours, and sit on the couch the other 8 hours, you are likely burning about 350 more calories a day than your BMR. That is why people keep trying to help you understand what your TDEE and activity factors are.

JUST keep track of the section where is says total calories burned. For your goals you're gonna need that to say 2900 everyday. So get walking or running or whatever it is that you do. You'll find as you lose weight you'll have to walk more to reach that 2900.

Fitbit is an all day total calorie measuring device. It is meant to be worn all day to track all your activity, not just when you are exercising. With its accelerometers it measures your activity and based on that adds calories to your BMR to give an estimated number for you Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE).

To explain further, Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the number of calories your body burns simply staying alive. It is used to keep your heart beating, your brain functioning, and your various other bodily functions functioning. That means in your case your burn 73 calories an hour even if you are doing nothing at all (1753/24). Generally it is considered a bad idea to eat less calories than your BMR since those calories are needed to keep the necessary functions of your body provided for. This is also the number that fitbit uses for your calorie burns if you are doing nothing.

From the BMR you can estimate your daily calorie burns from your non-exercise activity through various multipliers. For example, a truly sedentary person burns 1.2 times their BMR through their daily non-exercise activity. So if you are sedentary you probably burn 2100 calories a day or so from the activity of moving around to make meals, go to the washroom and the like.

To that number you then add exercise calories. The number that you would get from BRM, Non-Exercise Calories, and Exercise Calories is your TDEE. What fitbit does is take your BMR and the activity it senses as you wear it all day to come up with this TDEE number. That is synced with MyfitnessPal to either add or take away calories from your daily goal if you have negative adjustments enabled.

If you are not wearing your fitbit all day, you are not using it correctly.

BTW, the reason it does not measure stairs climbed on a stair climber is because the flights climbed is based on the changes is barometric pressure as you go up and down actual stairs. With a stair climber you are not actually going up or down in elevation, but are on a simulated stair.

stephaniechukwu31 wrote: »

I should be subtracting my calorie deficit from my TDEE.

So BMR 1753-1000 =753
TDEE: 753+1000 = -1753 net?

No

BMR:1753
TDEE: 3833

If these are your numbers then your equation should be:

3833 - 1000 = 2833

You should have consumed 2833 to have a 1000 deficit. If you truly only ate 1000 cals that day, then your deficit was 2833 and you are severely under-eating.

Yes, you need to think of TDEE as a range, not as an exact number. You move a different amount each day. Hence your daily TDEE changes each day.

But after a few weeks or months of data, you'll start to see your average and your range.

stephaniechukwu31 wrote: »

Also on Saturday during my 12 hour shift. I burned over 3000 calories. And yes I wore it and reset from the start of my shift till the end. I also ate about 1800 calories. What was my net burn?

So on Saturday your TDEE was 3000 ...now subtract what you ate 1800 so your net burn was 1200 calories.
3000 burned
-1800 eaten

---

1200 deficit

So at this current pace you will lose 2.4 pounds per week if you continued to have a 1200 deficit everyday.

Wear your Fitbit 24 hours in a day. It will get more accurate the longer you wear it. Just look at your total calories burned and then Subtract what you've eaten....that will be your deficit. You need to add up those deficits and each time you get to 3500 you will lose a pound.

But you have to wear it for the entire 24 hours not just your 12 hour shift otherwise your data will be inaccurate.