Fitbit Flex step calories advice please

JenPass1977
JenPass1977 Posts: 89 Member
edited November 28 in Fitness and Exercise
Hi - I had a fitbit flex for Christmas and love it. I used to do a fair bit of exercise but now have small children and work full time with a husband on shifts...etc...and don't do very much so the fitbit has really made me think about how much I move and is motivating me to move more. My issue is - I have synced my flex with MFP and am wording whether I should be eating my steps calories or not. My instinct is that I shouldn't be as this should be normal every day movement rather than specific exercise and I feel like I am cheating if I do eat them. What does everyone else do and if you eat your step calories are you still loosing weight?

P.S I did look at the fitbit group information but it was so complicated I gave up reading!

Thanks all

Replies

  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    The burns it gives me seem pretty excessive; I eat part of them back (well, it balances to part; some days I eat all of them, others I eat none). I would suggest keeping an accurate log of your weekly deficit according to fitbit and your weekly weigh ins. Monitor your rate of loss and see if it is accurate for you or not, and then adjust your intake accordingly.
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    JenPass1977 wrote: »
    Hi - I had a fitbit flex for Christmas and love it. I used to do a fair bit of exercise but now have small children and work full time with a husband on shifts...etc...and don't do very much so the fitbit has really made me think about how much I move and is motivating me to move more. My issue is - I have synced my flex with MFP and am wording whether I should be eating my steps calories or not. My instinct is that I shouldn't be as this should be normal every day movement rather than specific exercise and I feel like I am cheating if I do eat them. What does everyone else do and if you eat your step calories are you still loosing weight?

    P.S I did look at the fitbit group information but it was so complicated I gave up reading!

    Thanks all

    I think that's a good mindset.

    I also think it's good to keep things simple. Pick a calorie intake goal that is reasonable for your age/weight/activity level and start with that. Don't worry about eating back or the odd day that is unusually active or inactive... just go with it and see how that serves you over a longer time frame (say, 4-6 weeks).
  • hellokristen
    hellokristen Posts: 20 Member
    I do not eat back my calories. But I have a fair bit of weight to lose, so the more I burn and the less I take in (reasonably of course) the better I'll do.
  • puddintot
    puddintot Posts: 41 Member
    I found when I got the fit bit I stopped losing as much as I was. That being said it was 4 months into my weight lose so not sure if it was a normal slow down or my eating the extra calories. Hard choice when your starving and see extra calories.
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    puddintot wrote: »
    I found when I got the fit bit I stopped losing as much as I was. That being said it was 4 months into my weight lose so not sure if it was a normal slow down or my eating the extra calories. Hard choice when your starving and see extra calories.

    Probably some of both, but also likely that it was mostly the extra cals.
  • angethespaz
    angethespaz Posts: 1 Member
    I found that fitbit over estimates what you burn. So much so that when I ate based on how many calories it said I burned I put weight on. After doing some reading, I realized that walking burns very few calories, so even though I was walking twice as far as I previously had it wasn't enough to justify extra food everyday.
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