Established Fitbit charge hr users
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I have a shiny new fitbit charge HR and have been glued to it since xmas day. My question is to those of you that have been using it for a period of time. I have been exercising moderately, cardio and weights, and it gives me back calories throughout the day, so, What do you do with these earned calories? do you ignore them or have you successfully been losing weight by keeping them in you CI<CO totals?
Personally, I find that when I eat ALL of them back at a supposed 500 calorie deficit, I maintain my weight perfectly--the numbers are a bit off for me. That said, I eat some of them back when I want them, but I make sure to not eat them all back. Do what works for you--eat them back for a while and see what happens with your weight. If you continue to lose, great! If not, keep tweaking until you find your perfect medium.
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I've had a Charge HR for about 2 months (before then I had a Fitbit Flex). I "eat back" some of the calories I burn - but so far I'm getting a 2-3kg a month weight loss by aiming for a 1300 net calorie goal. I also try to overestimate how much I eat.
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Well, I attend a weight loss center and have been losing weight with MFP, a personal trainer, a nutritionist and a doctor. I was advised by my doctor to not eat back my calories. My calorie goal is my calorie goal, regardless of what activity I do throughout the day. On high-intensity days if I'm extra hungry and happen to go over I just don't freak out about it. But overall, I do not eat them back per the instructions of my medical provider.0
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I can run about 4 days on a fully charged battery for my Charge HR. I tend not to dip into my Fitbit adjustment unless it's stupidly large (800+). I use it as a buffer to account for any errors in my food logging or the standard variations of calories for packaged foods (which I tend to eat a lot of). 33 lbs since the first week of August puts me right on track for my 1.5 lb/week loss, so I think my method is working pretty darn well, especially considering how many off days I've had with vacations, sickness, etc.0
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ok, so eating back the calories is not necessary, but you can eat them all back without too much of an issue, but a nice buffer would be to, if your going to eat them, eat half back
= that works for me.
Battery life for me is about 2 days so I'm going to revisit settings to see what I don't need on to try and increase this.
Now, what if your fit bit is throwing back an unreasonable amount of calories? e.g. I did 30 minutes cardio on top of my daily routine and it gave me 900+ excess calories which seemed wildly excessive.0 -
and i'm in a few challenge groups and charged my HR this morning, leaving it there forgetting it when I went out, losing me half days steps
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I have mine connected and eat back about half of my calories it gives me. It seems to be fairly accurate but I am trying for at least a two pound loss each week which is why I am not eating all back.0
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I have a shiny new fitbit charge HR and have been glued to it since xmas day. My question is to those of you that have been using it for a period of time. I have been exercising moderately, cardio and weights, and it gives me back calories throughout the day, so, What do you do with these earned calories? do you ignore them or have you successfully been losing weight by keeping them in you CI<CO totals?
Sometimes I eat back the calories, sometimes I bank them for a future treat, and sometimes I put them toward my deficit and don't eat any of them back. A lot of it depends on how active I was the day I earned them, and how active I plan to be the next day. I found if I just go for the deficit I run out of energy on day 3.
I have also found that MFP over estimates the added calories from FitBit, so I usually try not to go over 75% of those calories earned, though lately I have been using FitBit's calories left to determine how much more I will eat as I feel it's more accurate. I still log everything in MFP though. Enjoy your FitBit!0 -
Hi Twincle45,
I noticed that when I first got my Fitbit, my calorie count was high, it was struggling registering steps, etc. It took a couple of weeks for my Fitibt to know my strides, etc., and it eventually equaled out. Are you logging your cardio? That could be duplicating. The newest update will register common exercises (walking/running/eliptical) if you do it for longer than 15 consecutive minutes, so always doublecheck that it did not log the activity for you before you manually add. Hope this helps!0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I recommend not eating back the calories. Not really a reason to.
I can think of lots of reasons why one might not want to create a larger deficit: preserving muscle mass, fueling heavier exercise, maintaining energy, preparing for maintaining weight loss, avoiding hunger.
My Fitbit gives me an average of 500-600 extra calories a day. Since I'm maintaining, not eating those would really mess up my health and my energy.
This isn't about maintaining it's losing. Also I don't get why everyone thinks your body just eats muscles for fun. If you eat protein your body won't just attack your muscles to breakdown extra for no reason. Your heart is a muscle you body isn't going to digest it for fun. You need to be really starving to do this.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I recommend not eating back the calories. Not really a reason to.
I can think of lots of reasons why one might not want to create a larger deficit: preserving muscle mass, fueling heavier exercise, maintaining energy, preparing for maintaining weight loss, avoiding hunger.
My Fitbit gives me an average of 500-600 extra calories a day. Since I'm maintaining, not eating those would really mess up my health and my energy.
This isn't about maintaining it's losing. Also I don't get why everyone thinks your body just eats muscles for fun. If you eat protein your body won't just attack your muscles to breakdown extra for no reason. Your heart is a muscle you body isn't going to digest it for fun. You need to be really starving to do this.
Nobody said that your body will breakdown your muscles "for no reason." A large deficit is actually a reason why you might experience muscle loss. That's not "no reason." Nobody claimed that your body will "eat muscles just for fun," so I'm not sure why you feel the need to rebut that. If you have a very large deficit, even if you eat protein, you will experience some muscle loss. Minimizing your deficit is a way to help avoid unnecessary muscle loss.
This board is for people at all stages of weight loss -- including maintaining weight loss. I brought up maintaining as a reason why someone might want to eat back calories burned through exercise because the blanket statement was made that there was "no reason" to eat them.0 -
MorganMoreaux wrote: »I have a shiny new fitbit charge HR and have been glued to it since xmas day. My question is to those of you that have been using it for a period of time. I have been exercising moderately, cardio and weights, and it gives me back calories throughout the day, so, What do you do with these earned calories? do you ignore them or have you successfully been losing weight by keeping them in you CI<CO totals?
Sometimes I eat back the calories, sometimes I bank them for a future treat, and sometimes I put them toward my deficit and don't eat any of them back. A lot of it depends on how active I was the day I earned them, and how active I plan to be the next day. I found if I just go for the deficit I run out of energy on day 3.
I have also found that MFP over estimates the added calories from FitBit, so I usually try not to go over 75% of those calories earned, though lately I have been using FitBit's calories left to determine how much more I will eat as I feel it's more accurate. I still log everything in MFP though. Enjoy your FitBit!
Same here!0 -
Agreed 100%. I eat some of the exercise calories back, and leave a little (room for error).0 -
MorganMoreaux wrote: »I have also found that MFP over estimates the added calories from FitBit, so I usually try not to go over 75% of those calories earned, though lately I have been using FitBit's calories left to determine how much more I will eat as I feel it's more accurate. I still log everything in MFP though. Enjoy your FitBit!
How could MFP over estimate the added calories from Fitbit?
Actually, they aren't added calories from Fitbit - Fitbit merely reports to MFP here's what it thinks you burned today, based on actual activity levels.
Compared to MFP basing a guess on what you'll burn based on your guess of non-exercise activity level.
MFP is merely correcting it's rough estimate with a better one - end of the day they both should end up the same.
You might want to read the FAQ in the Fitbit group, because I sense a misunderstanding as to what's going on - and it's hard to think you are correcting something if you don't actually understand how it works in the first place.0 -
maybe, but yesterday fitbit reported I had a 1000+ excess calorie deficit so not entirely confident its working as I expect
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I eat a portion of them back. Probably 50 to 75% depending on how hungry I am.
I used to think fitbit was horribly inaccurate. I'm 5'1 and wasn't technically overweight at 128lbs when I got it back in late October. And I was getting huge calorie burns. Like 2300 to 2850.
I have MFP set to lightly active. But most days I'm not lightly active. I take 15000 to 25000 steps a day....just from work and and chasing my toddler around.
So I estimated my TDEE to be about 200 to 300 calories less than what fitbit says.
I'm now 113lbs.
I recently tracked the trend over the past 8 weeks. I was losing 1.45lbs per week. Not 1lb per week like I intended to.
Guess what...fitbit was right. And that 200 to 300 buffer I added was just a bigger deficit. My deficit was around 700 to 800. Not 500.
And I'm still breasfeeding my toddler...so my deficit is actually a little bigger than that.
Now that I'm smaller and fitbit knows me better it says I burn from 2000 to 2500 depending on my activity. On lazy days I burn about 2000 and on crazy busy days I burn closer to 2500. Most of that comes from running around a lot at work or when I'm doing errands or housework. Exercise is maybe like 300 calories.
I know I should probably eat them all back now. But I like the extra buffer to account for inaccuracies in the data base..0 -
I've had my Charge HR since July. I'm 5'3.5", I was 139 pounds and now I'm 115 pounds. I used to be afraid to eat all of my exercise calories back assuming Fitbit was overestimating and I'd gain weight; I'd eat back 25% maximum. What happened after that? I started to lose around 3 pounds per week instead of 2 pounds, which even 2 pounds was an aggressive goal for my size. People want quick results, so they think the greater the rate of loss, the better it is. Not for me. I was very active over the summer and there was just one day where I didn't want to get out of bed. I tried, but my body was like "nope, you're going to stay in bed and only get out to eat a bunch". My normal day was a morning run for 5 miles, then I'd come home and eat, then I'd take a quick shower, then I'd go run errands, then I'd lift or do more cardio in the evening, then sleep. I'd get 20000+ steps per day but only eat 1200 to 1400 calories. There were even days I had a negative net at the end of the day. "There's no way I can eat THAT many calories in a day!" I didn't know better and it caught up with me. Luckily I quickly learned that I CAN eat as many calories as Fitbit says I can per day.
At 115, I still lose weight at 1800 to 2200 calories per day. When I look back and think about how much I could have been eating over the summer, I get sad. I didn't suffer any detrimental effects besides fatigue, but that's because I figured out and fixed the calorie issue pretty quickly. Please eat your calories back. It doesn't have to be 100% of them, but start from 50% and work your way up if your rate of loss is greater than two pounds per week unless you have 100+ pounds to lose. I know it can be hard because eating a lot of food and/or lack of activity is what got us here, but food is also fuel for your body. No matter whether you do yoga, aerobics, running, walking, lifting, powerlifting, or no exercise at all, food is a huge part of what keeps your body moving and your brain functioning. You need an adequate amount of it to be at your best.0 -
My Charge is supposed to arrive today. Excited to get started with it - but realizing I have a lot to learn.
I eat back my activity calories sometimes - usually about half. If I know I have been very accurate in tracking food, I eat back more. If I had to estimate a lot of my daily calories (I travel for work a lot, so restaurant meals are tough), I tend to eat back a portion, based on my confidence in tracking. That way I have a buffer for underestimating my calories.
Historically, I have found (for me) that NOT eating back a chunk of those calories is counterproductive. The challenge can be to eat those calories in smart ways - and not just grabbing a handful of chips!0 -
maybe, but yesterday fitbit reported I had a 1000+ excess calorie deficit so not entirely confident its working as I expect
I'm trying to figure out what to do with those cals as well. I just got my Fitbit for Christmas and it produces much higher calorie burns than my polar HRM did when I wore it. This morning my gym session consisted of a mix of cardio and weights and for 92 minutes, and it's giving me 1100 exercise calories. At 6ft tall and about 90 lbs overweight, MFP is set to lose 1.5 lbs at 1870 cals per day. I always thought that I should just focus on eating within my calorie goal MFP established and disregard the exercise calories.
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