Fitbit calories

shed77f
shed77f Posts: 41 Member
edited December 1 in Health and Weight Loss
Can someone please explain how the transfer of activity calories from Fitbit to mfp should be used?

For example today my Fitbit says I burned 1,800 (rounding up). Mfp has my intake at 1,200 for a loss of 0.5lb per week & has added 600 calories for exercise which it has taken from the Fitbit.

If I ate all these calories back would I not just be eating at maintenance & erasing my deficit? Do I eat back all but 250 of them for the 0.5lb loss? Am I missing something obvious here? I'm feeling pretty stupid.

Apologies if this is a common question or I've posted in the wrong forum. Any advice would be great!

Replies

  • kaylajane11
    kaylajane11 Posts: 313 Member
    edited April 2016
    Your deficit should already be built into the 1,200 calorie target. At 0.5 pounds a week, your approximate maintenance would be 1,450, with the 250 calorie deficit bringing you to that 1,200 calorie per day goal. Also, your Fitbit will continue to add burned calories until midnight, so if it is saying you've burned 1,800 calories by mid afternoon, that number should increase by bedtime.

    Personally, I eat back most of the calories I get back from my Fitbit and have still be successful in losing, but you may want to only eat back around 50% of them to start, just to get an idea of the accuracy.

    There is a Fitbit group on here that you may want to check out: community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users. You will likely find the answer to any other questions you might have.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited April 2016
    What time of day is it?

    Fitbit sends MFP your current burn at whatever the last sync was.

    MFP uses that information and tries to do a future predict for the rest of the day based on your activity level setting.

    Example:

    MFP set to active estimates a 2043 calorie maintenance level. That breaks down to:
    85.125 calories per hour
    1.418 calories per min

    Fitbit sent MFP a calorie burn of 1322 at 1:59 pm.
    That leaves 10 hrs 1 min unaccounted for in my Fitbit calorie burn.
    So MFP does this:

    10 * 85.125 = 851.25
    1*1.418 = 1.418

    1322 + 851.25 + 1.418 = 2174

    MFP thinks that around 11:59 pm, Fitbit will say I have burned 2174 calories for the day. So:
    2174-2043 = 131 calorie adjustment

    The math is recalculated each time your fitbit is synced and as such the end of day prediction that MFP makes can increase or decrease as the day goes on.


    In my case MFP thinks I will burn 131 calories more than it estimated.

    In your case it looks like MFP is thinking you will burn 600 calories more than it estimated.
  • shed77f
    shed77f Posts: 41 Member
    It's 20:20hrs here & I'll be off to bed in a couple of hours (very rock and roll I know
  • shed77f
    shed77f Posts: 41 Member
    Sorry it deleted part of my post for some reason!
    Thanks for the explanations & especially group link. I'm still a bit confused but hoping it will sink in when I'm less tired.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    go to your exercise diary and click the "i" next to your fitbit adjustment
    or
    go to your diary in the app and tap your fitbit adjustment 2x

    It should show you the math.

    Also make sure that your accounts are set to the same time zone (that can mess up the adjustments as well).
  • shed77f
    shed77f Posts: 41 Member
    Ok this is weird the fit bit adjustment says;
    Fitbit calories burned 0
    Mfp calories burned 0
    Calorie adjustment 588

    I'm wondering if I've done something wrong when linking them up?
  • Colorscheme
    Colorscheme Posts: 1,179 Member
    shed77f wrote: »
    Can someone please explain how the transfer of activity calories from Fitbit to mfp should be used?

    For example today my Fitbit says I burned 1,800 (rounding up). Mfp has my intake at 1,200 for a loss of 0.5lb per week & has added 600 calories for exercise which it has taken from the Fitbit.

    If I ate all these calories back would I not just be eating at maintenance & erasing my deficit? Do I eat back all but 250 of them for the 0.5lb loss? Am I missing something obvious here? I'm feeling pretty stupid.

    Apologies if this is a common question or I've posted in the wrong forum. Any advice would be great!

    MFP sets it up so you eat back exercise calories. But you don't have to if you're not hungry or if you're not below 1200 net cals [minimum].
  • april_slusher03
    april_slusher03 Posts: 19 Member
    edited April 2016
    shed77f, you didn't do anything wrong linking them up. There's an issue with MFP & Fitbit.
    If you use an internet browser it will give you the correct information.
    The issue is with the iOS app and has been ongoing since last week with the newest MFP update.
    They are working on a solution as I was told in an email from MFP after I submitted a bug report.
  • shed77f
    shed77f Posts: 41 Member
    Thankyou April for letting me know! Feel reassured that I'm not going daft.

    Thanks to everyone else for trying to explain how it works .... My brain is not maths inclined at the best of times.
  • Colorscheme
    Colorscheme Posts: 1,179 Member
    The only thing that would be nice is if Fitbit calculated exercise calories and TDEE seperately on the app.
  • shed77f
    shed77f Posts: 41 Member
    I've logged in on my pc & I get it now I can see the calculation :)
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