fit bit charger hr

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bfit2017
bfit2017 Posts: 22 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Still figuring out how my fit bit works. Wondering the accuracy. Do you eat back all or some of the calories burned?

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  • ogmomma2012
    ogmomma2012 Posts: 1,520 Member
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    I try not to eat back all of them because we can never be perfect with logging, even with scales. You can adjust your walking & running strides manually, there are youtube vids to show you how.
  • thunder1982
    thunder1982 Posts: 280 Member
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    I did a few months last year where I tracked my cals burnt and cals eaten while following a very strict food plan. I cant comment on its accuracy as it turned out I had thyroid issues which would have affected my actual burns but I did find that it helped produce a consistent weight loss over a period of 12 weeks. I used the data to come up with a weight loss predictor for me and it was pretty close. I had to burn more cals than 3,500 to get a pd of weight loss but thyriod issues would have contributed to that.
  • Karihappy
    Karihappy Posts: 116 Member
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    Just got mine, and I'm not yet trusting it 100%, as it seems like it says I burn a lot of calories during a normal day. Today I've been active, but have not exercised, per se. Washed the car is about all I did, and it says I've burned 453 calories from exercise. So I've been trying to stay as close to my MFP 1200 calorie allotment as possible on days I don't exercise. I'm still too new to the Fitbit to say whether I could eat back the extra calories they say and still lose. Guess I'll never know if I don't try, but I don't want to try and then not lose any weight, so I guess it's a Catch-22 for me right now. 5229779.png
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,847 Member
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    The term exercise adjustment used by integration is a misnomer.

    The adjustment is an accounting transaction that replaces the MFP estimate of what your burn will be with what Fitbit calculates your burn to be.

    1200 is often the result of picking a 2lb a week as a weight loss goal. Such a goal is not necessarily optimal, or even appropriate for everyone.

    Enable integration, enable negative adjustments to guard against really low activity days, pick an appropriate deficit which should usually not exceed 20% of your average burn as estimated by Fitbit (maybe 25% while still obese).

    Monitor your weight loss trend by connecting Fitbit.com with both/either trendweight.com and weightgrapher.com. This will allow you to stop responding to water weight variation and to get a feeling for your underlying weight trend.

    Review your performance in multi-week periods that include at least one lunar cycle if such applies to you.

    Because integration doesn't always work, review the data that flows between fitbit and mfp as to calories burned and eaten on a regular basis so that you have clean data on which you can base future decisions!

    In all probability you will discover that for the vast majority of people Fitbit is bang on and no less accurate than your own MFP logging.

    Over a period of more than a year and cross verified not only against weight lost but against body composition changes as per multiple dexa scans my individual Fitbit results indicate a range of 1% underestimation to 5.5% over-estimation of my daily caloric burn.

    Then again... it turns out that I am fairly non special and match the "typical" formulas... typically!
  • bfit2017
    bfit2017 Posts: 22 Member
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    ogmomma2012 wrote: »
    I try not to eat back all of them because we can never be perfect with logging, even with scales. You can adjust your walking & running strides manually, there are youtube vids to show you how.
    I was feeling the same.
  • bfit2017
    bfit2017 Posts: 22 Member
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    thunder1982 wrote: »
    I did a few months last year where I tracked my cals burnt and cals eaten while following a very strict food plan. I cant comment on its accuracy as it turned out I had thyroid issues which would have affected my actual burns but I did find that it helped produce a consistent weight loss over a period of 12 weeks. I used the data to come up with a weight loss predictor for me and it was pretty close. I had to burn more cals than 3,500 to get a pd of weight loss but thyriod issues would have contributed to that.

    Thanks for your post! Sounds like you had quite a trip trying to figure everything out.
  • bfit2017
    bfit2017 Posts: 22 Member
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    Karihappy wrote: »
    Just got mine, and I'm not yet trusting it 100%, as it seems like it says I burn a lot of calories during a normal day. Today I've been active, but have not exercised, per se. Washed the car is about all I did, and it says I've burned 453 calories from exercise. So I've been trying to stay as close to my MFP 1200 calorie allotment as possible on days I don't exercise. I'm still too new to the Fitbit to say whether I could eat back the extra calories they say and still lose. Guess I'll never know if I don't try, but I don't want to try and then not lose any weight, so I guess it's a Catch-22 for me right now. 5229779.png

    Great loss first of all! I'm in the exact boat. I feel like maybe I'll shoot for half and see if I am actually burning enough.
  • bfit2017
    bfit2017 Posts: 22 Member
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    PAV8888 wrote: »
    The term exercise adjustment used by integration is a misnomer.

    The adjustment is an accounting transaction that replaces the MFP estimate of what your burn will be with what Fitbit calculates your burn to be.

    1200 is often the result of picking a 2lb a week as a weight loss goal. Such a goal is not necessarily optimal, or even appropriate for everyone.

    Enable integration, enable negative adjustments to guard against really low activity days, pick an appropriate deficit which should usually not exceed 20% of your average burn as estimated by Fitbit (maybe 25% while still obese).

    Monitor your weight loss trend by connecting Fitbit.com with both/either trendweight.com and weightgrapher.com. This will allow you to stop responding to water weight variation and to get a feeling for your underlying weight trend.

    Review your performance in multi-week periods that include at least one lunar cycle if such applies to you.

    Because integration doesn't always work, review the data that flows between fitbit and mfp as to calories burned and eaten on a regular basis so that you have clean data on which you can base future decisions!

    In all probability you will discover that for the vast majority of people Fitbit is bang on and no less accurate than your own MFP logging.

    Over a period of more than a year and cross verified not only against weight lost but against body composition changes as per multiple dexa scans my individual Fitbit results indicate a range of 1% underestimation to 5.5% over-estimation of my daily caloric burn.

    Then again... it turns out that I am fairly non special and match the "typical" formulas... typically!

    Exactly the information ineeded. Summing it up. Lock in all food logging 100 percent (as possible) then fit bit tense to work well and eating back the difference between the mfp estimated and fit bits actual. Aka MFP # - fitbit# .... if negative - you'd eat back calories if positive you haven't burned over mfp estimate. RIGHT? However you wouldn't see a negative calorie adjustment unless you changed your settling to it.
    Of the adjustment calories fit bit ranges from 1-5.5 percent accurate - based on your data and you fit in the typical range.

    So if I constantly don't eat back 6 percent when applicable I should be fine. Thanks
  • mshelyla
    mshelyla Posts: 36 Member
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    I tend to eat back some of the calories. As a couple others have said, any calories that FitBit adds (or takes away if you have that setting enabled) is what you've burned over (or under) what MFP has predicted. So it makes sense to eat back some of the calories while giving myself some leeway for error.
  • Karihappy
    Karihappy Posts: 116 Member
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    Update: Returning my Charge HR. It always had me on way too many calories burned, and the last straw was when it said I burned 1000 calories over bmr when all I did was take a short walk.
  • ridge4mfp
    ridge4mfp Posts: 301 Member
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    I find mine very accurate, as long as I use DriveBit to mark my drive time (it gives me false steps). I have been eating back all my calories and have consistently lost at the expected rate.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
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    A sedentary person burns about 20% of their BMR per day in normal activity. How high is your BMR? It might not be so far off. Though if you move your arms a lot while not actually walking, that could give it a high read. A One or Zip might be better if that is the issue.
    Karihappy wrote: »
    Update: Returning my Charge HR. It always had me on way too many calories burned, and the last straw was when it said I burned 1000 calories over bmr when all I did was take a short walk.

  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    Karihappy wrote: »
    Update: Returning my Charge HR. It always had me on way too many calories burned, and the last straw was when it said I burned 1000 calories over bmr when all I did was take a short walk.

    Give it some time and trust the numbers before deciding it's inaccurate...

  • JennELKA_78744
    JennELKA_78744 Posts: 8 Member
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    I won't be adding burned calories back in. I'm going to just let that being my margin for error in eating. Less stress and I work better if there is a little left to the unknown rather than having the option to analyze and critique each and every detail.
  • Karihappy
    Karihappy Posts: 116 Member
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    1398 is my BMR, according to bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/. I'm only 5'1", 159 lbs, and 53 years old. I consider myself sedentary, but I do exercise every day, either walking or biking. MFP has me at 1200 calories unless I only want to lose .5 per week, then it's 1330.

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