Calories please help

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skinnymom258
skinnymom258 Posts: 13 Member
in Introduce Yourself
I'm using a charge 2 fitbit and it tells me to go up in my calories...do I go up or stay at 1600???!

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  • suruda
    suruda Posts: 1,233 Member
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    How is the 1600 working for you? Are you losing at a reasonable pace? Are you feeling good, not lightheaded, etc...

    I would be hesitant to up my calories based on what my fitbit says...I tend to stick with MFP recommendations.
  • aflane
    aflane Posts: 625 Member
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    There are so many devices and websites that offer caloric intake advice/guidelines. My recommendation is to pick one and follow it. If MFP recommended 1600, I'd go with it and just ignore what the Fitbit recommends. Just log faithfully on MFP and use the step tracking and caloric expenditure info from Fitbit. Remember to update your Fitbit as your weight goes down, otherwise your exercise burns won't be accurate.
  • skinnymom258
    skinnymom258 Posts: 13 Member
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    So if it says I can have more based on exercise do I use those calories or not?
  • aflane
    aflane Posts: 625 Member
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    MFP says that you can go ahead and eat the exercise earned calories. I don't fully trust the amount that my device (Apple Watch) says that I've burned, so I allow 50% of the "earned" calories. So, if my watch says that I burned 400 calories on the stationary bike, I'll only use 200 extra calories.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    If you have MFP and FitBit synced, and it is giving you positive calorie adjustments, it is telling you that you are burning more calories than MFP thought you would when you set up your profile and entered your stats and activity level. MFP gives you a calorie deficit with no exercise built in, such that you would lose weight even with no extra activity. When you do exercise, you are supposed to eat back at least some of those calories to avoid too large of a deficit and to keep your Net calorie goal consistent.

    What are your stats, and your goals, and what rate of loss did you select? What is your activity like, how many steps and other exercise are you doing? How big was the adjustment?

    For what it's worth I lost all the weight I set out to lose, and am currently maintaining, trusting and eating back those exercise calories from FitBit. That's how the systems are designed to work together and it was accurate for me.
  • Woodspoon
    Woodspoon Posts: 223 Member
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    skinnymom258 wrote: »
    So if it says I can have more based on exercise do I use those calories or not?

    That's totally up to you, some people eat back their exercise calories some don't.
    Generally I don't, but I might allow an extra treat, like a hot chocolate or a couple of chunks of chocolate depending on how much exercise I've done.
    To eat it back or not varies from person to person and day to day.

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