Something doesn't seem to be right!
wezybee
Posts: 3 Member
I've a new fitbit HR and I'm finding it nice to use. I'm a myfitnesspal user and my wife bought me the fitbit to extend on that. Something is not right though!
My usual myfitnesspal calorie goal is 1380. I walk daily to about 200 calories. For the last fifty days I have averaged 1000 net calories daily and lost five+ kg.
Yesterday was the first day I wore my fitbit. I also had my work christmas function that saw me record a lowball myfitnesspal estimate of 2400 calories (I had many tasty treats).
If this had been last week, myfitnesspal would have shown I was way over my goal of 1380.
However, wearing fitbit myfitnesspal shows I am only 96 calories over my goal (924 extra clories earned) and the fitbit android dashboard shows me that I have 2400 calories in (synced through myfitnesspal), 3405 calories out and ....... 268 calories left!
I'm certain that if I follow the fitbit dashboard and take up it's tempting offer of the 268 calories I'll regain my loss in short time.
Does anyone know what is going on?
My usual myfitnesspal calorie goal is 1380. I walk daily to about 200 calories. For the last fifty days I have averaged 1000 net calories daily and lost five+ kg.
Yesterday was the first day I wore my fitbit. I also had my work christmas function that saw me record a lowball myfitnesspal estimate of 2400 calories (I had many tasty treats).
If this had been last week, myfitnesspal would have shown I was way over my goal of 1380.
However, wearing fitbit myfitnesspal shows I am only 96 calories over my goal (924 extra clories earned) and the fitbit android dashboard shows me that I have 2400 calories in (synced through myfitnesspal), 3405 calories out and ....... 268 calories left!
I'm certain that if I follow the fitbit dashboard and take up it's tempting offer of the 268 calories I'll regain my loss in short time.
Does anyone know what is going on?
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The first day on Fitbit is always fun with weird data.
I recommend reading, and re-reading the FAQ:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy0 -
Same here. My husband and I both have the Charge HR and MFP hasn't pulled in any exercise info since before 7:00pm.0
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"The first day on Fitbit is always fun with weird data."
Thanks, I thought it may be a first day bug too. The FAQ may well do the business too. I'm finding the discrepancy between the two a little concerning. I bridged the gap a little by setting my activity level to sedentary. I'll see how things go over the next few days.0 -
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Not first day bug showing bigger burn.
Not a bug either, because Fitbit assumes any time with no steps was sleeping calorie burn - BMR.
So on first day all the time up until your first steps recorded are assigned that really low calorie burn.
Normal occurrence on first day is low ball figure.
You just weren't aware of the fact you had your MFP activity level set wrong prior - and you burn more than you thought from daily activity.
Now the daily MFP adjustments when your device is not actually syncing with Fitbit account yet, that will start to be better as you have some historical averages.
If you sync frequently with mobile phone/tablet - that won't matter either.0 -
Not first day bug showing bigger burn.
You just weren't aware of the fact you had your MFP activity level set wrong prior - and you burn more than you thought from daily activity.
Agreed, this makes complete sense. What doesn't make sense is that I have been losing weight at a rate just under the MFP prediction. That let me me to believe that whilst I've been close, I must have been slightly overestimating my calorie burn and/or underestimating my intake.
If this is the case given the fitbit data, how is our estimation that 'I must actually burn more than I thought' congruent with the reasonably accurate results I achieved with MFP pre fitbit? Use of the fitbit is allowing me tangibly more calories a day than MFP alone, and I can't see myself attaining a weight loss with the extra.
Don't get me wrong, I really want this to work!0 -
Not first day bug showing bigger burn.
You just weren't aware of the fact you had your MFP activity level set wrong prior - and you burn more than you thought from daily activity.
Agreed, this makes complete sense. What doesn't make sense is that I have been losing weight at a rate just under the MFP prediction. That let me me to believe that whilst I've been close, I must have been slightly overestimating my calorie burn and/or underestimating my intake.
If this is the case given the fitbit data, how is our estimation that 'I must actually burn more than I thought' congruent with the reasonably accurate results I achieved with MFP pre fitbit? Use of the fitbit is allowing me tangibly more calories a day than MFP alone, and I can't see myself attaining a weight loss with the extra.
Don't get me wrong, I really want this to work!
It sounds like your estimates of food eaten, activity level and exercise done were accurate, but that could be luck, rather than skill. It's all just estimates, after all. I don't know how long you've been doing it or how much you have to lose, but I find that the longer I am at this weight loss thing, the more accuracy matters. When I first started, any exercise and just casual attention to what I ate were enough. Sadly, not any more. It could be that your Fitbit is overestimating your calorie burn. I think mine does. I also find that it isn't good for my mental health to weigh and measure my food to the degree necessary for exact accounting. So, I throw in a fudge factor of "Quick Add Calories" with my breakfast every morning that compensates for both any Fitbit overestimation and a certain amount of laxity in my food logging. However, I didn't start doing that until after I'd trusted my Fitbit for several months - complete with very careful food logging - and compared expected weight loss with actual weight loss.
So, trust your Fitbit, but if you feel concerned that eating all those extra calories will set you back, then leave some of them uneaten (just keep your calorie deficit reasonable and don't let yourself get too hungry). After a month, look at your calories eaten vs. calories burned (look at your Fitbit profile page for that) and your actual weight loss and see if you lost at the expected rate. Then adjust.0 -
Ditto's to above.
Inaccuracies are possible in several places that happen to balance each other out in the right direction - it easily could have gone the other direction.
Or as many have occur - there is no balance and all inaccuracies lead to bigger that reasonable deficit and cause problems.
Or all the other direction and no actual deficit in place.
It's the same way many people obtain a slow weight loss and proclaim when that happens they guess slower is better.
But they didn't get slower because of wise purposeful choices - the body ended up causing that because of the way the diet had been done up to that point.
I'm going with initial guess of you burn more daily activity but less exercise - but when you logged exercise it balanced out the wrong lower daily activity.
Food is in there somewhere too.0 -
I've been trusting my fitbit for 2 weeks and I had the same situation as you with the huge extra calories added. Weighed today and I am +6lbs!!0
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I've been trusting my fitbit for 2 weeks and I had the same situation as you with the huge extra calories added. Weighed today and I am +6lbs!!
Always do the math if you think that is anything more than water weight.
6 lbs x 3500 / 14 days = 1500 calories and more eating above true daily maintenance if you think it's fat.
Now - do you think your food logging is so awful that you could have eaten on average 1500 calories more each and every day over what Fitbit says you burned?
That would have to be one terrible memory or outright lying to oneself I'd suggest - so that likely didn't happen.
Do you think Fitbit is estimating a daily burn 1500 on average more than you really burn?
That would be one huge error.
Perhaps a combo of the two. But there's probably a better reason - but you need to investigate.
Have you confirmed anything to get a grasp if Fitbit is having accuracy problems?
Starts with steps - do you see massive amounts of steps in your daily 5 min graph where you actually had none?
Next is distance - during a walk of known distance was Fitbit close, or more like 2 x the distance?
Is sleeping calorie burn near correct Mifflin BMR?
Look at daily 5 min graph for calories during sleep, a 5 min block / 5 x 1440 = BMR. Now compare that figure to MFP - Apps - BMR calc. Should match.
You may have been caught in bug that despite Fitbit showing lbs, it's actually using the displayed figure as kg's - which is almost double.
But you really been eating upwards of 3000 or more calories daily?0 -
I'm not OP, but I'm getting strange numbers as well. Female, 5'3", 130lb, resting HR 74-79 bpm. MFP goal to lose 1/2lb per week is 1370 (activity level set to sedentary because I'm not consistent with my exercise and prefer to add it when I do it).
Yesterday was my first full day wearing the Charge HR - my end-of-day adjustment gave me 576 extra calories. I sat around for a majority of the day eating and spending time with family, and somehow I ended up with 11,000 steps and a total burn of 2197 calories... If that's the case then I wouldn't be gaining weight eating 1600+/- for the past few months because yesterday's activity was lower than a normal day for me...Look at daily 5 min graph for calories during sleep, a 5 min block / 5 x 1440 = BMR. Now compare that figure to MFP - Apps - BMR calc. Should match.
What if these don't match? My daily 5 min graph shows 5 cals per 5 min during sleep - this means my FitBit BMR is 1440, but the MFP calculated amount is 1297. So fitbit thinks0 -
So Fitbit thinks you are either taller or younger by decent amount - or weigh more.
That's the only way to have the BMR higher.
But that's not the bug of a visual 130 lb on Fitbit actually being calculated as 130 kg - which would be 287 lbs.
If it was that bug - they'd have your BMR at 2011, or 7.0 per 5 min block.
Hmmm - 63 inches as 63 cm?
Nope, wrong direction there at 24 inches, that would be lower BMR by a lot.
I'd say confirm your stats on Fitbit's site.
Otherwise - it appears, looking at my own stats - they have rounded the visual presentation of the number to nearest whole number, perhaps even always up. I get 6 now.
How annoying.
And unlike MFP where you can view tomorrow's eating goal to see unadjusted basis - Fitbit doesn't allow that.
So the question now is - despite them obviously rounding a visual figure - are they using a more accurate one in their calculations?
One way to test - log a manual workout of running at 1 hr and 5.9 miles. That is 10 METS.
Take the calorie burn given / 60 min / 10 METS = BMR per min they used in the formula.
Delete the workout.
Mine is 6.47 per 5 min - 1862 BMR - which is correct.
The 6 would have been 1728 which is wrong. So they do round down too.
I'm wondering - was Fitbit finding that people couldn't read decimal values - or the numbers didn't read easily?0 -
One way to test - log a manual workout of running at 1 hr and 5.9 miles. That is 10 METS.
Take the calorie burn given / 60 min / 10 METS = BMR per min they used in the formula.
Delete the workout.
Mine is 6.47 per 5 min - 1862 BMR - which is correct.
The 6 would have been 1728 which is wrong. So they do round down too.
I'm wondering - was Fitbit finding that people couldn't read decimal values - or the numbers didn't read easily?
1 hr, 5.9 miles logged = 542 cals. So that's 542/60/10=0.90333. 0.90333*60*24=1300 cals per day.
Same (within 3 cals) as MFP's calculation. Very strange, don't you think?
So instead of 5 cals per min I'm actually at roughly 4.5167 and they're rounding, right?
Not sure this provides an answer to why my fitbit calorie burn was so high... But yesterday it seemed to be better/more on par with what I was expecting.0 -
My ChargeHR isn't syncing its data with the app, and the app actually says I've gone inactive, despite wearing the tracker daily and starting challenges. I've synced it repeatedly, restarted it, and spoken to customer service, but to no avail. How do I get someone to help me?0
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jennismagic wrote: »My ChargeHR isn't syncing its data with the app, and the app actually says I've gone inactive, despite wearing the tracker daily and starting challenges. I've synced it repeatedly, restarted it, and spoken to customer service, but to no avail. How do I get someone to help me?
Suggest starting a new topic specific to that with details as to what you have done and what the effects are.
Be complete with your descriptions of what does and does not work exactly.0 -
ActuarialChef wrote: »One way to test - log a manual workout of running at 1 hr and 5.9 miles. That is 10 METS.
Take the calorie burn given / 60 min / 10 METS = BMR per min they used in the formula.
Delete the workout.
Mine is 6.47 per 5 min - 1862 BMR - which is correct.
The 6 would have been 1728 which is wrong. So they do round down too.
I'm wondering - was Fitbit finding that people couldn't read decimal values - or the numbers didn't read easily?
1 hr, 5.9 miles logged = 542 cals. So that's 542/60/10=0.90333. 0.90333*60*24=1300 cals per day.
Same (within 3 cals) as MFP's calculation. Very strange, don't you think?
So instead of 5 cals per min I'm actually at roughly 4.5167 and they're rounding, right?
Not sure this provides an answer to why my fitbit calorie burn was so high... But yesterday it seemed to be better/more on par with what I was expecting.
So the visual display is rounded - what is used in the math is correct.
This was just to prove out if they are using the correct base figure - and they are. Not strange at all.
Strange they won't display 4.5 anymore for some reason. Really goofy for a site/device/brand to be all about claimed accuracy and seeing your specific numbers - and then round visually one of them pretty badly.
So it would seem that high day - was indeed a big burn day. Unless you had some big spike in steps with matching calorie burn that day.0 -
I think there's more at play than just "first day use". I tested this myself by unlinking my fitbit from MFP and creating "maintenance" plans using identical information on both. I cross checked with multiple calculators around the web as well. By the numbers, manually calculating my daily calories for maintenance, I fall between 2800 and 3000 calories. Calculators on the web gave me anything from 2810-3015. Fine. Seems legit. MFP says 2950. Perfectly acceptable. Fitbit, on the other hand, with no tracking or logging remember, strictly the initial calculation of daily caloric intake for maintenance, came back with 3300 calories. It's the only outlier I found and I have no idea why. I find myself faced with the fact that I paid $180 for this thing and, quite frankly, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to use it now unless I find a satisfactory way to ensure it's not feeding bad data into MFP.0
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phentlosesit wrote: »I think there's more at play than just "first day use". I tested this myself by unlinking my fitbit from MFP and creating "maintenance" plans using identical information on both. I cross checked with multiple calculators around the web as well. By the numbers, manually calculating my daily calories for maintenance, I fall between 2800 and 3000 calories. Calculators on the web gave me anything from 2810-3015. Fine. Seems legit. MFP says 2950. Perfectly acceptable. Fitbit, on the other hand, with no tracking or logging remember, strictly the initial calculation of daily caloric intake for maintenance, came back with 3300 calories. It's the only outlier I found and I have no idea why. I find myself faced with the fact that I paid $180 for this thing and, quite frankly, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to use it now unless I find a satisfactory way to ensure it's not feeding bad data into MFP.
So that initial estimate of daily activity burn that Fitbit came up with has absolutely NO bearing on the math on MFP - unless you don't sync all day long with your device to anything.
Fitbit has 2 options for estimating your daily burn so it can do the math for eating level (suggestion, Fitbit for activity, MFP for eating level, don't mix the 2):
Sedentary - barely above BMR level calorie burn, and well below MFP's sedentary.
Personal - based on historical average, if no history, then population averages like MFP does.
If you sync your device with Fitbit account - actual data is sent to MFP to do math with.
If you don't sync device, the estimated calorie burn is sent to MFP to do math with.
So mine for instance is set to Sedentary or both sites, and I generally don't sync until right before dinner but after a workout usually.
So Fitbit is feeding MFP all day long a calorie burn that is less than what MFP estimates I'd burn - so I get negative adjustments until I actually sync the device, and then one huge adjustment of daily activity and that exercise at once.
So again - your test while interesting, is also not useful since that doesn't happen and doesn't matter anyway.
Read the FAQ in the stickies a couple times - especially the 2nd half if interested in the math behind the numbers.0
