fitbit users...,question!

2

Replies

  • Clarewho
    Clarewho Posts: 494 Member
    hiyomi wrote: »
    Does anyone know why sometimes it adds calories, and then they dissapear as if it took them back? lol I get that sometimes where at 1PM I have 50 extra calories, then by 7PM they are gone and it says zero again :/ lol

    Because it assumes your activity level will remain constant for the rest of the day - so if you do loads of steps in the morning it assumes you'll do about the same each hour until midnight, so it gives you the extra calories. Then when you don't it adjusts back to the actual activity level. Hope that makes sense!
  • Maxematics
    Maxematics Posts: 2,287 Member
    Clarewho wrote: »
    hiyomi wrote: »
    Does anyone know why sometimes it adds calories, and then they dissapear as if it took them back? lol I get that sometimes where at 1PM I have 50 extra calories, then by 7PM they are gone and it says zero again :/ lol

    Because it assumes your activity level will remain constant for the rest of the day - so if you do loads of steps in the morning it assumes you'll do about the same each hour until midnight, so it gives you the extra calories. Then when you don't it adjusts back to the actual activity level. Hope that makes sense!

    To avoid this, set your food plan to sedentary instead of personalized on Fitbit. When I first got my Fitbit, I found that so annoying to see my allowance bounce up and down. With the sedentary setting, I start with around -70 every morning and I'm at 500 or more by the evening.
  • choppie70
    choppie70 Posts: 544 Member
    I am 5'3" and about 185 lbs. I get about 1K extra calories a day for 20K steps, depending on if those were all walking steps or if I ran on the treadmill.
  • tentativelyhopeful
    tentativelyhopeful Posts: 3 Member
    hiyomi wrote: »
    Does anyone know why sometimes it adds calories, and then they dissapear as if it took them back? lol I get that sometimes where at 1PM I have 50 extra calories, then by 7PM they are gone and it says zero again :/ lol

    Fitbit bases it's calculations on predicted/expected activity. So if you spend the first half of the day consistently and unexpectedly active then suddenly go full couch potato and hardly move, you "lose" predicted calories burned. The formula does its best to be predictive based on how you tend to move.

    Hopefully this is what you're asking about!
  • Merkavar
    Merkavar Posts: 3,081 Member
    synacious wrote: »
    Clarewho wrote: »
    hiyomi wrote: »
    Does anyone know why sometimes it adds calories, and then they dissapear as if it took them back? lol I get that sometimes where at 1PM I have 50 extra calories, then by 7PM they are gone and it says zero again :/ lol

    Because it assumes your activity level will remain constant for the rest of the day - so if you do loads of steps in the morning it assumes you'll do about the same each hour until midnight, so it gives you the extra calories. Then when you don't it adjusts back to the actual activity level. Hope that makes sense!

    To avoid this, set your food plan to sedentary instead of personalized on Fitbit. When I first got my Fitbit, I found that so annoying to see my allowance bounce up and down. With the sedentary setting, I start with around -70 every morning and I'm at 500 or more by the evening.

    or just know that if you sit around for a few hours it will go down. I go with about 10 calories over for each hour of sitting down.

    So say I have +250 exercise and its 6pm, I will assume that by midnight it will have dropped to 190 so I wont eat all the exercise calories at 6pm.
  • Maxematics
    Maxematics Posts: 2,287 Member
    Merkavar wrote: »
    synacious wrote: »
    Clarewho wrote: »
    hiyomi wrote: »
    Does anyone know why sometimes it adds calories, and then they dissapear as if it took them back? lol I get that sometimes where at 1PM I have 50 extra calories, then by 7PM they are gone and it says zero again :/ lol

    Because it assumes your activity level will remain constant for the rest of the day - so if you do loads of steps in the morning it assumes you'll do about the same each hour until midnight, so it gives you the extra calories. Then when you don't it adjusts back to the actual activity level. Hope that makes sense!

    To avoid this, set your food plan to sedentary instead of personalized on Fitbit. When I first got my Fitbit, I found that so annoying to see my allowance bounce up and down. With the sedentary setting, I start with around -70 every morning and I'm at 500 or more by the evening.

    or just know that if you sit around for a few hours it will go down. I go with about 10 calories over for each hour of sitting down.

    So say I have +250 exercise and its 6pm, I will assume that by midnight it will have dropped to 190 so I wont eat all the exercise calories at 6pm.

    Yes, that is also true. If you want to use a buffer instead of changing Fitbit's settings, that works, but I personally prefer to just set the food plan to sedentary, start with a lower calorie allowance, and see nothing but increases throughout the day. It can really take out the confusion/guesswork for people.
  • Merkavar
    Merkavar Posts: 3,081 Member
    synacious wrote: »
    Merkavar wrote: »
    synacious wrote: »
    Clarewho wrote: »
    hiyomi wrote: »
    Does anyone know why sometimes it adds calories, and then they dissapear as if it took them back? lol I get that sometimes where at 1PM I have 50 extra calories, then by 7PM they are gone and it says zero again :/ lol

    Because it assumes your activity level will remain constant for the rest of the day - so if you do loads of steps in the morning it assumes you'll do about the same each hour until midnight, so it gives you the extra calories. Then when you don't it adjusts back to the actual activity level. Hope that makes sense!

    To avoid this, set your food plan to sedentary instead of personalized on Fitbit. When I first got my Fitbit, I found that so annoying to see my allowance bounce up and down. With the sedentary setting, I start with around -70 every morning and I'm at 500 or more by the evening.

    or just know that if you sit around for a few hours it will go down. I go with about 10 calories over for each hour of sitting down.

    So say I have +250 exercise and its 6pm, I will assume that by midnight it will have dropped to 190 so I wont eat all the exercise calories at 6pm.

    Yes, that is also true. If you want to use a buffer instead of changing Fitbit's settings, that works, but I personally prefer to just set the food plan to sedentary, start with a lower calorie allowance, and see nothing but increases throughout the day. It can really take out the confusion/guesswork for people.

    Does that work though, say your set it at sedentary and then at 6pm you have +500, it is still going to drop if you sit around to say +440 by midnight isnt it? Changing it to sedentary when you arent just means its less likely to go into negative, but it still goes up and down over the day just the same.
  • Maxematics
    Maxematics Posts: 2,287 Member
    Merkavar wrote: »
    synacious wrote: »
    Merkavar wrote: »
    synacious wrote: »
    Clarewho wrote: »
    hiyomi wrote: »
    Does anyone know why sometimes it adds calories, and then they dissapear as if it took them back? lol I get that sometimes where at 1PM I have 50 extra calories, then by 7PM they are gone and it says zero again :/ lol

    Because it assumes your activity level will remain constant for the rest of the day - so if you do loads of steps in the morning it assumes you'll do about the same each hour until midnight, so it gives you the extra calories. Then when you don't it adjusts back to the actual activity level. Hope that makes sense!

    To avoid this, set your food plan to sedentary instead of personalized on Fitbit. When I first got my Fitbit, I found that so annoying to see my allowance bounce up and down. With the sedentary setting, I start with around -70 every morning and I'm at 500 or more by the evening.

    or just know that if you sit around for a few hours it will go down. I go with about 10 calories over for each hour of sitting down.

    So say I have +250 exercise and its 6pm, I will assume that by midnight it will have dropped to 190 so I wont eat all the exercise calories at 6pm.

    Yes, that is also true. If you want to use a buffer instead of changing Fitbit's settings, that works, but I personally prefer to just set the food plan to sedentary, start with a lower calorie allowance, and see nothing but increases throughout the day. It can really take out the confusion/guesswork for people.

    Does that work though, say your set it at sedentary and then at 6pm you have +500, it is still going to drop if you sit around to say +440 by midnight isnt it? Changing it to sedentary when you arent just means its less likely to go into negative, but it still goes up and down over the day just the same.

    I have personally never had a decrease in calories once they've gone up using sedentary mode on Fitbit and setting myself to sedentary on MFP as well. Sedentary mode on Fitbit starts you off with a negative adjustment and only increases as you move; it doesn't predict like personalized mode does. For me, it makes everything simple and straightforward.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    Merkavar wrote: »
    synacious wrote: »
    Merkavar wrote: »
    synacious wrote: »
    Clarewho wrote: »
    hiyomi wrote: »
    Does anyone know why sometimes it adds calories, and then they dissapear as if it took them back? lol I get that sometimes where at 1PM I have 50 extra calories, then by 7PM they are gone and it says zero again :/ lol

    Because it assumes your activity level will remain constant for the rest of the day - so if you do loads of steps in the morning it assumes you'll do about the same each hour until midnight, so it gives you the extra calories. Then when you don't it adjusts back to the actual activity level. Hope that makes sense!

    To avoid this, set your food plan to sedentary instead of personalized on Fitbit. When I first got my Fitbit, I found that so annoying to see my allowance bounce up and down. With the sedentary setting, I start with around -70 every morning and I'm at 500 or more by the evening.

    or just know that if you sit around for a few hours it will go down. I go with about 10 calories over for each hour of sitting down.

    So say I have +250 exercise and its 6pm, I will assume that by midnight it will have dropped to 190 so I wont eat all the exercise calories at 6pm.

    Yes, that is also true. If you want to use a buffer instead of changing Fitbit's settings, that works, but I personally prefer to just set the food plan to sedentary, start with a lower calorie allowance, and see nothing but increases throughout the day. It can really take out the confusion/guesswork for people.

    Does that work though, say your set it at sedentary and then at 6pm you have +500, it is still going to drop if you sit around to say +440 by midnight isnt it? Changing it to sedentary when you arent just means its less likely to go into negative, but it still goes up and down over the day just the same.

    It doesn't usually decrease for me on sedentary, except for when MFP-Fitbit communication is being finicky like yesterday. On these days I just manually calculate the difference from the fitbit site the next day. Example: yesterday was such a day, and my calories managed to evaporate down to 237 which is not typical for the amount of steps I took, so this morning I calculated it manually and I should have been given 401 calories.
  • MaybeLed
    MaybeLed Posts: 250 Member
    edited May 2016
    CaitMang wrote: »
    For thoes of you that have your fitbit synced with mfp... this question is for you!

    Do you feel the "exercise" calories they are givng you are accurate? I feel like they are very excessive! For example today... it gave me and additional 1184 calories (Did not work out, just at work)! I think that's insane! If i consumed that plus my daily allowance I'd be eating like 2,600 calories a day.

    Do you have a fitbit with a HRM? Mine does, I walk the same way to work every day, and days when I'm stressed/distressed my KCal burn is MUCH higher for exactly the same distance/time.

    It's because it 'thinks' I'm working harder so will burn more calories.

  • lmew91
    lmew91 Posts: 88 Member
    I wear my Fitbit Alta pretty much every day, and I usually hit the 10,000 step goal, often ending up with about 12,000 steps. I don't really pay a lot of attention to how many calories it gives me because I don't eat back the calories it gives me. I do know that I've never been in the 1,000's for exercise calories. I don't really think I burn as many calories as it gives me credit for, but I don't really worry about it because I focus on being within a certain range of calories each day, not including what I've burned. I think that if you burn serious calories via strenuous activity, you would want to pay more attention to calories burned so that you are fueling your body appropriately, but that's not really the case for me, on most days. :smile:
  • mommytoaiden
    mommytoaiden Posts: 75 Member
    I never eat back a single exercise calorie so I don't pay much attention anyway. MFP gives me 1650 to eat for my goals and I eat that or stay under.
  • treegirl97
    treegirl97 Posts: 70 Member
    I usually hit my daily step goal of 11,000 and on average I earn between 450 to 550 extra exercise calories.
  • Colorscheme
    Colorscheme Posts: 1,179 Member
    lmew91 wrote: »
    I wear my Fitbit Alta pretty much every day, and I usually hit the 10,000 step goal, often ending up with about 12,000 steps. I don't really pay a lot of attention to how many calories it gives me because I don't eat back the calories it gives me. I do know that I've never been in the 1,000's for exercise calories. I don't really think I burn as many calories as it gives me credit for, but I don't really worry about it because I focus on being within a certain range of calories each day, not including what I've burned. I think that if you burn serious calories via strenuous activity, you would want to pay more attention to calories burned so that you are fueling your body appropriately, but that's not really the case for me, on most days. :smile:

    I hit 1027 or something when I did 25000 steps. My legs were like jello!
  • wizzybeth
    wizzybeth Posts: 3,573 Member
    wizzybeth wrote: »
    I did 10,000 steps today and it gave me about 381 calories. I have never seen that many calories....

    That sounds about right. I get 500 cals for 10k steps because I run/jog for most of them. I'm 5'7" and 158 lbs.

    I forgot to say on MFP I allowed it to adjust for negative calories - not sure if that changes anything or not, but in general I rarely if ever burn more than 500 calories in a day - only if I do a 5 mile hike or something or ride my bike for 22 miles.

    Someone asked about the calories changing - I think the app "projects" how many calories you're going to have based on your activity up till that point, then if you don't live up to the expectations, you lose them. Which, if that's how it goes, sucks, cause you could easily think "Hey I have 500 extra calories! Yay me! Let's eat LOTS OF ICE CREAM" only then to find out, oops, they were taken away. LOL. Not sure if that's the case and I could be totally talking out my behind there, but it's an idea. lol
  • cerise_noir
    cerise_noir Posts: 5,468 Member
    CaitMang wrote: »
    For thoes of you that have your fitbit synced with mfp... this question is for you!

    Do you feel the "exercise" calories they are givng you are accurate? I feel like they are very excessive! For example today... it gave me and additional 1184 calories (Did not work out, just at work)! I think that's insane! If i consumed that plus my daily allowance I'd be eating like 2,600 calories a day.
    Did you set your Fitbit to lose 2lbs per week? How low are your MFP calories? I only get highly inflated fitbit calories if the calories on FB and MFP aren't matched up.

    Also, do you log drives? I do, since it takes away fake steps. I also wear my fitbit on my non dominant hand and se it to dominant in the settings.
  • karahm78
    karahm78 Posts: 505 Member
    My Fitbit is very accurate, I am losing weight or maintaining as expected eating back most of the calories it gives me. I have been wearing the One for 2 years this month, and it has been great.

    I also NEVER get steps logged when driving, but maybe that is because it is clipped on and not on my wrist?
  • ACSL3
    ACSL3 Posts: 623 Member
    I have a fitbit One, not one of the wrist ones, but I find it to be very accurate. I go by the calorie goal on MFP (set to sedentary, negative calories enabled) and eat more when it syncs with fitbit. I'm losing weight at the rate I would expect for my calculated deficit.
  • healthykaitlin
    healthykaitlin Posts: 91 Member
    Mine does that too!!! I'm not sure if it has to do with heart rate, but it'll add 1-3k when I'm at 10-15k steps. I just disregard it... If I got in a killer workout I might eat back 50-150, but that's about it
  • StacyChrz
    StacyChrz Posts: 865 Member
    hiyomi wrote: »
    Does anyone know why sometimes it adds calories, and then they dissapear as if it took them back? lol I get that sometimes where at 1PM I have 50 extra calories, then by 7PM they are gone and it says zero again :/ lol

    If you have MFP and Fitbit set to make negative calorie adjustments it will do that. As of 1PM you may have been really active and have worked harder than it expects you to by that time of day but then by 7PM you may have been less active over the whole day than it thinks you should have been. I hope that makes sense.