FitBit adding an insane amount of calories...?
RealLifeDaria
Posts: 22 Member
I've been logging in MFP for a few weeks and just decided to sync up my FitBit. I just started using it a few days ago, but I generally log 12K-19K steps a day. I've had my goal in MFP set to 1350 cals/day, but now that I've linked my FitBit its adding and INSANE amount of calories to my adjustment--like over a thousand. That doesn't seem like it can be right?! Any insight? If it's going to say I'm 1,000+ calories under each day by having them linked, I'd rather keep them separate.
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Replies
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Do you have goals set to sedentary?
I got a fitbit recently and still trying to work it out
it only calculated I burnt my BMR that day.. 1 -
I think I have my goals set to "lightly active".0
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I love my fitbit adjustments. On a day that I am at my goal of at least 13,000 steps, it adds on a good amount of calories. I noticed today that when I got home from the gym (I did arc and elliptical today, so it tracked "steps"), the adjustment was almost exactly what it should have been according to my HRM's reading on my gym time. When I got home from taking my dog for a 15-20 minute walk this morning, it gave me 70 calories. I think that's probably about right too.2
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Mfp isn't double upping your calories burned?0
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I saw this on spark people, dunno how accurate it is though.
Pedometer Steps Classifications
Sedentary: less than 5,000 steps per day
Low Active: .5,000-7,499 steps per day
Somewhat Active: 7,500-9,999 steps per day
Active: 10,000-12,500 steps per day
Highly Active: 12,501+ steps per day
Maybe since you should be set to active it's recalculating your daily calorie goals.1 -
I just don't think I could possibly be burning 1,000+ more calories than I have been accounting for. I have my goals in MFP set to an aggressive but reasonable loss of 1 lb/week--I'm already at a healthy weight and am not looking to lose much. If there were a magical extra thousand calories burned per day that I hadn't been accounting for up until now, I would have noticed significantly more weight lost than the <1lb/week I've seen, right?0
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I'd be making sure of the the following:
- set your MFP to sedentary
- don't add exercise calories
Though if it is adding calories then that's probably fair enough and you've burned those. esp if you're walking like 16k plus steps. You can always ignore them or desync.1 -
I don't reach 5k steps a day unless I log an exercise so mines set to sedentary and I dont get given any calories extra since my exercise logged already does it. I'm hoping this is how it works otherwise I got no idea lol.0
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Have you looked at the Fitbit daily log? It will show exactly how many calories you burn every half hour. You can then figure out when the activity occurs that is adding so many calories and determine if it is caused by some movement beside exercise. I drive school bus. That adds thousands of fake steps every day that I have to adjust out.0
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Cheriesaurus wrote: »I saw this on spark people, dunno how accurate it is though.
Pedometer Steps Classifications
Sedentary: less than 5,000 steps per day
Low Active: .5,000-7,499 steps per day
Somewhat Active: 7,500-9,999 steps per day
Active: 10,000-12,500 steps per day
Highly Active: 12,501+ steps per day
Maybe since you should be set to active it's recalculating your daily calorie goals.
this is about right, I think. I am in the highly active group as I average about 15,000-20,000 steps a day (7-10 miles) Even if it isn't true exercise, I am moving a lot throughout the day.
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I have checked out the steps breakdown and when it says I'm doing most of my steps seems accurate. I haven't checked out the cals/30min breakdown yet though.Have you looked at the Fitbit daily log? It will show exactly how many calories you burn every half hour. You can then figure out when the activity occurs that is adding so many calories and determine if it is caused by some movement beside exercise. I drive school bus. That adds thousands of fake steps every day that I have to adjust out.
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After looking at it, it seems to be giving me WAY more calories/step than it should. For the ~20 minutes I walked my dog this evening at about a 3.0 mph pace, it gave me more than 150 cals. That's WAY too much for a 20 minute walk! I have my height and weight entered in correctly, so I'm not sure why its burn estimate seems so off.0
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RealLifeDaria wrote: »After looking at it, it seems to be giving me WAY more calories/step than it should. For the ~20 minutes I walked my dog this evening at about a 3.0 mph pace, it gave me more than 150 cals. That's WAY too much for a 20 minute walk! I have my height and weight entered in correctly, so I'm not sure why its burn estimate seems so off.
when it syncs to MFP, it adjusts for what it thinks you'll use by the end of the day; if you look tomorrow you'll notice that it will take back ones you really didn't burn. I try and just eat back a little bit of them for this reason
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higgins8283801 wrote: »RealLifeDaria wrote: »After looking at it, it seems to be giving me WAY more calories/step than it should. For the ~20 minutes I walked my dog this evening at about a 3.0 mph pace, it gave me more than 150 cals. That's WAY too much for a 20 minute walk! I have my height and weight entered in correctly, so I'm not sure why its burn estimate seems so off.
when it syncs to MFP, it adjusts for what it thinks you'll use by the end of the day; if you look tomorrow you'll notice that it will take back ones you really didn't burn. I try and just eat back a little bit of them for this reason
Even for "actual calories" burned so far today FitBit is giving me what seems to be a wildly inflated number--something like 2,500 cals.0 -
That number that your Fitbit returns is including your BMR (i.e. your body has burned 2,500 calories since midnight, including exercise).5
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That number that your Fitbit returns is including your BMR (i.e. your body has burned 2,500 calories since midnight, including exercise).
Yes, but I think even including BMR+steps, that number is WAY too high. The rate of my weight loss (<1lb/week) supports a number closer to what MFP has been giving me (BMR around 1850 for "lightly active", eat at 1350). I've been keeping close to that number, and the math is adding up. If I were really at a deficit of more than 1k cals a day, I would be losing at a MUCH faster rate.0 -
I've also been wondering about this. I set MFP to sedentary and linked my Fitbit. I have anywhere between 13,000 and 25,000 steps a day (average at about 17000). Today I was around 16000 and it said I have 2100 calories. That seems like a lot to me as well. On really busy days, I'll end up with something like 3500 calories. Am I really supposed to be able to eat all that?0
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I just got a Fitbit Flex as a gift and I'm trying an experiment: Without linking Fitbit to MFP, I'm tracking 30 days worth of Fitbit calorie estimates against my observed TDEE for the same time period. My theory is that Fitbit is overestimating my calorie burns by quite a bit, but I'm interested to see how much.
(I'm not eating back any Fitbit calories. The Fitbit is actually completely irrelevant to my plan. This is purely out of weird data geek interest.)0 -
I just got a Fitbit Flex as a gift and I'm trying an experiment: Without linking Fitbit to MFP, I'm tracking 30 days worth of Fitbit calorie estimates against my observed TDEE for the same time period. My theory is that Fitbit is overestimating my calorie burns by quite a bit, but I'm interested to see how much.
(I'm not eating back any Fitbit calories. The Fitbit is actually completely irrelevant to my plan. This is purely out of weird data geek interest.)
I would be interested to see how it works out for you! The FitBit was also not part of my plan, but my boyfriend had one lying around that he wasn't using so I figured why not? In the past year I switched from a very active job in a city where I didn't have a car and walked/biked everywhere, so a more sedentary job in a city with a lot of sprawl that requires a car. I was interested to see just how active I was given the change (turns out...still more active than I thought!).0 -
I'll post about it when I get there. So far I only have a little under a week's worth of numbers, so not enough to really go on just yet.0
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RealLifeDaria wrote: »higgins8283801 wrote: »RealLifeDaria wrote: »After looking at it, it seems to be giving me WAY more calories/step than it should. For the ~20 minutes I walked my dog this evening at about a 3.0 mph pace, it gave me more than 150 cals. That's WAY too much for a 20 minute walk! I have my height and weight entered in correctly, so I'm not sure why its burn estimate seems so off.
when it syncs to MFP, it adjusts for what it thinks you'll use by the end of the day; if you look tomorrow you'll notice that it will take back ones you really didn't burn. I try and just eat back a little bit of them for this reason
Even for "actual calories" burned so far today FitBit is giving me what seems to be a wildly inflated number--something like 2,500 cals.
That doesn't seem wildly inflated at all. If you took 1000 calories off as your deficit, you'd eat 1500. I'm pretty short and on an active day I burn over 2000. God, if I burned less, I couldn't eat anything.
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RealLifeDaria wrote: »I've been logging in MFP for a few weeks and just decided to sync up my FitBit. I just started using it a few days ago, but I generally log 12K-19K steps a day. I've had my goal in MFP set to 1350 cals/day, but now that I've linked my FitBit its adding and INSANE amount of calories to my adjustment--like over a thousand. That doesn't seem like it can be right?! Any insight? If it's going to say I'm 1,000+ calories under each day by having them linked, I'd rather keep them separate.
MFP is saying I earned 10,259 after walking 5 steps. I have to delete exercise all day long in order to see what I have left for calories. Fit bit is accurate, but it's ridiculous that MFP is adding all this exercise for 5 steps.0 -
RealLifeDaria wrote: »I've been logging in MFP for a few weeks and just decided to sync up my FitBit. I just started using it a few days ago, but I generally log 12K-19K steps a day. I've had my goal in MFP set to 1350 cals/day, but now that I've linked my FitBit its adding and INSANE amount of calories to my adjustment--like over a thousand. That doesn't seem like it can be right?! Any insight? If it's going to say I'm 1,000+ calories under each day by having them linked, I'd rather keep them separate.
What is wrong with being 1000 calories under?0 -
I've also been wondering about this. I set MFP to sedentary and linked my Fitbit. I have anywhere between 13,000 and 25,000 steps a day (average at about 17000). Today I was around 16000 and it said I have 2100 calories. That seems like a lot to me as well. On really busy days, I'll end up with something like 3500 calories. Am I really supposed to be able to eat all that?
Of course not.0 -
RealLifeDaria wrote: »I've been logging in MFP for a few weeks and just decided to sync up my FitBit. I just started using it a few days ago, but I generally log 12K-19K steps a day. I've had my goal in MFP set to 1350 cals/day, but now that I've linked my FitBit its adding and INSANE amount of calories to my adjustment--like over a thousand. That doesn't seem like it can be right?! Any insight? If it's going to say I'm 1,000+ calories under each day by having them linked, I'd rather keep them separate.
MFP is saying I earned 10,259 after walking 5 steps. I have to delete exercise all day long in order to see what I have left for calories. Fit bit is accurate, but it's ridiculous that MFP is adding all this exercise for 5 steps.
Holy thread resurrection and I am not sure I get what you say.
As the OP no doubt noticed with 19K steps she was neither sedentary nor lightly active. She was more than highly active. To reduce the exercise adjustment she was receiving she ought to have increased her MFP activity setting.
Since her actual activity would have remained higher than the highest MFP setting she would have continued to get positive adjustments. The numbers are just accounting. Whether they represent reality for the person is a matter of adjusting your logging to your results after a suitable period of time.
As to @harveygi, getting 10,000 calories after 5 steps seems wrong.
I would disconnect MFP and Fitbit on BOTH ends by telling the web sites to lose the integration/connection to each other. Log off from both using the web. Log off from the apps on your phone.
Then I would log on to MFP and log on to fitbit. From MFP web I would add Fitbit and follow the prompts to enable.
Some of these steps may or may not be necessary. If it still doesn't work, time to contact support.
They do respond.1 -
If you have an iPhone it is probably the internal pedometer function of the phone sending info to MFP which ends up doubling your calories burned.
I had the same issue and it seemed like the last MFP update someone left the default iPhone setting on instead of off.
Settings/myfitnesspal/motion and fitness button should be set to off.... If it's on, that's your issue. Turning that off will stop it and your next day will be back to normal.0 -
If you've got FitBit and MFP linked up you need to have MFP set to sedentary and have negative calories enabled.
I've never independently monitored it, but your calorie burn number matches mine, at least. I'm 230ish and 5'3 and on a day that was beyond nuts I did 17k steps and got 1,399 MFP exercise calories and on the next day when it wasn't quite as crazy I did 13.5k and got 822 MFP exercise calories.1 -
This is why I just log my food into myfitnesspal so that it'll sync to the food log in my FitBit app and I use the calories burned in my fitbit app to create a deficit. (For instance, according to my fitbit app, I'll burn 2100 calories by midnight so I should have eaten about 1600 calories to have a 500 calorie deficit for that 24 hour period). For some reason, I don't find that the calories that are auto-logged from FitBit to MFP are accurate, either. Not sure where the problem is in the calculations, but that's why I just rely on the FitBit calculations and kind of ignore the calculations given on MFP.1
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greatatboats wrote: »If you've got FitBit and MFP linked up you need to have MFP set to sedentary and have negative calories enabled.
I've never independently monitored it, but your calorie burn number matches mine, at least. I'm 230ish and 5'3 and on a day that was beyond nuts I did 17k steps and got 1,399 MFP exercise calories and on the next day when it wasn't quite as crazy I did 13.5k and got 822 MFP exercise calories.
If you are averaging more than 10k steps then you aren't sedentary. When I first got my Fitbit and realized that, thanks to good advice I got here, I changed my setting to lightly active. My baseline calories went up and my exercise adjustments were smaller and more in line with my actual exercise. Now that I average 15k steps/day, I'm set as active. My calories burned from my Fitbit are 2200 on average. I ate back the Fitbit adjustments to lose the last 15 lbs of my weight and now eat them all back in maintenance.1 -
If you have them linked then your MFP activity level does not matter UNLESS you routinely see 0 calories adjusted from Fitbit. That is a clear sign that you're not as active as you think you are, and need to either decrease your activity level w/ MFP or enable negative calories.
Lets say that MFP expects you to burn 2000 in a day if you're sedentary or 2250 if you're lightly active. If you link Fitbit and Fitbit says you burned 2350, MFP will have a +350 or +100 calorie adjustment depending on your activity level. If Fitbit says you burned 2150 and you do NOT have negatives enabled, you'll see a +150 or 0 adjustment. A 0 adjustment occasionally might not be a big deal, but seeing it often would mean you're not burning as much as you think and thus the calorie consumption goal that MFP is giving you may not be right for weight loss. (Or would result in slower weight loss.)greatatboats wrote: »If you've got FitBit and MFP linked up you need to have MFP set to sedentary and have negative calories enabled.
I've never independently monitored it, but your calorie burn number matches mine, at least. I'm 230ish and 5'3 and on a day that was beyond nuts I did 17k steps and got 1,399 MFP exercise calories and on the next day when it wasn't quite as crazy I did 13.5k and got 822 MFP exercise calories.
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