Fit Bit Calories

ashers2126
ashers2126 Posts: 2 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Ok so, super confused! I log my food with MFP and track exercise with my fitbit and sync them both. MFP gives me a 1200 calorie a day target.

I have a desk job so I sit alllllll day. I walk at night and go to the gym three days a week and hike one day a week.

If I go to the food section for my fitbit, it gives me a total of only 500-1000 calories a day depending on my activity level for that day. That seems soooooooooooo low!

Is my only option to lose weight then to just increase my exercise since I clearly cant live off of 500 calories a day.

Stupid desk job.

Replies

  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    MFP gives you 1200 base calories based on your selection of deficit amount, and you doing exactly the level of activity you selected.

    Don't attempt to follow 2 roads to the same destination - can be confusing and aggravating, and if a man driving -well ......

    MFP for food goals and logging - Fitbit for exercise goals and logging.

    Fitbit for food depends on your selection over there - and you selected Sedentary - which isn't the same as MFP Sedentary. Their's is barely above sleeping calorie burn.
    And that's the start of the day when it says 500 - it'll increase all day anyway whenever your device syncs calorie burn to Fitbit account.
    If you selected Personal on Fitbit - it would be based on historical averages, and you'd start higher and adjustments would be less dramatic.

    But it doesn't matter - don't use Fitbit for eating goals anyway.

    But that MFP 1200 will be increased if you do more than the Sedentary it sounds like you selected for the non-exercise part of your day.
    Shoot - you may actually burn more than sedentary even without exercise.
    You'll likely never see MFP actually say your eating goal is 1200. Net will be, but what you actually eat will be more. You do more, you eat more - simple. Same deficit.

    You fail to mention which Fitbit you are using, and that determines what workouts you'd manually log on Fitbit's site.

    Read the FAQ on how to use the 2 together best.

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy/p1
  • ashers2126
    ashers2126 Posts: 2 Member
    I have the Charge HR. I also just realized that MFP has a 500 deficit where as fitbit has a 1000 deficit which is causing me to be over everyday. I think I figured it out!
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    They still won't match up as the day progresses - hence the advice about 2 roads being bad idea.

    Only at midnight, and only if no syncing issues (food to Fitbit sometimes doubled up, daily calories to MFP sometimes delayed or math done wrong for adjustment) - will the 2 match up exactly. But then too late to do much about it.

    And yeah, that deficit difference would look scary on Fitbit.
  • ksgetsfit180
    ksgetsfit180 Posts: 6 Member
    I have a desk job too. I find it VERY hard to get 10K steps in.
  • extra_medium
    extra_medium Posts: 1,525 Member
    edited June 2016
    Right, I follow MFP's calorie goal and just let fitbit sync my daily calorie burns to MFP for my exercise calories.

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