Fitbit Added Calories?

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Taimeinhappy
Taimeinhappy Posts: 38 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I have my Fitbit ChargeHR connected to my account and I have adjustments on. I'm weary to eat back the calories it gives me. Has anyone found these to be accurate? Should I just eat a portion?

Any help or opinion is appreciated! Have a happy day!

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  • sllm1
    sllm1 Posts: 2,114 Member
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    I have found them to be accurate for me.
  • Taimeinhappy
    Taimeinhappy Posts: 38 Member
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    CyberTone wrote: »
    If you are a new Fitbit Charge 2 user, give it at least a week, if not two, to build up a history of your activity and food logging. The Fitbit algorithms initially use general default variables in its equations for someone similar to your gender, height, weight, and age. As it collects more data day by day, it revises the algorithms by using running averages for the variables in the equations. In effect, it "learns" more about you as it gathers more data about you.

    When I first synced a Fitbit Charge HR 1.5 years ago, I thought I was getting too many extra Calories, but I trusted it, and it has been working for me. Granted, I was already at maintenance, but it provided me about 10% more Cals than I was eating at the time, so I increased my intake, and the extra food gave me energy to try to reach the 10,000 steps per day goal. I've since changed my step goal to 7500, which is more realistic for me. I have stayed within a 10 pound range for three years now.

    I recently upgraded to a Fitbit Charge 2, and it provides estimates that closely match the old Charge HR I was using.

    When my weekly Net Cals are Over, I gain, when my weekly Net Cals are Under, I lose. I still track my Calorie intake by weighing all my food and verifying all of the new food entries I use in MFP with outside sources.

    You may want to check out the MFP Fitbit Users group here...

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users

    I've been using it for almost a year.

    Thank you so much for your answer. I'll certainly check out the group! I appriciate the point in the right direction!
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,221 Member
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    I have ChargeHR (had it for about 6 months now) and it overestimates by alot. If I was eating according to it, I would gain 0.5lbs per week. And all I do is walk.
  • Taimeinhappy
    Taimeinhappy Posts: 38 Member
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    gebeziseva wrote: »
    I have ChargeHR (had it for about 6 months now) and it overestimates by alot. If I was eating according to it, I would gain 0.5lbs per week. And all I do is walk.

    That would be bad..
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
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    I had a Fitbit Charge HR and with it, I ate back 50-75% of the exercise calories (loads of walking (18,000 steps a day), quite a bit of running), and I lost 80 lbs and reached goal in 12 months.

    I could have eaten back more, because I ate back 100% of them while in maintenance for 10 months, and didn't gain weight.

    After that I got a Garmin Forerunner 225 for my running obsession, which is very stingy on exercise calories.
  • adamyovanovich
    adamyovanovich Posts: 163 Member
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    i NEVER trust my fitbit calories. Im set at 1850 on MFP for 2 lbs a week loss. I get 5k steps on fitbit, just from walking, normal walking. Well fitbit said i earned 800 calories today!!!! So MFP said i could eat 2650 once it was sync'd. That would put me at 400 calories deficit for the day....

    I think if you are closer to being at your goal weight it may be accurate, my wifes only ever gave her 1-300 calories for exercise, where as mine will give me 600-1000 extra.

    I use fitbit to motivate me to move more and use the stairs and keep track of my sleep and heart rate. I leave calories %100 up to mfp.
  • tinkerbellang83
    tinkerbellang83 Posts: 9,130 Member
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    I have just got a Garmin Vivoactive and the initial calorie burns do seem quite high but I try and eat back around 50%, maybe it seems higher to me because I never used to track my incidental steps around home/work only my walk to work and back or if I am out walking/hiking. I am just going to keep an eye on it for the next 4 weeks and see how it goes, that way I can adjust after if necessary.
  • FoxyMars25
    FoxyMars25 Posts: 112 Member
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    I don't know what to believe when it comes to my fitbit. I have had my Charge HR for over a year but have been back on MFP since the beginning of February and have it linked to my account. I have my settings at not active because I sit behind a desk all day at work but I do exercise about 6-7 hours per week. I am currently eating about 1900-2000 calories per day but with my exercise I am netting 1316 calories per day which is under my weekly goal by 2055 (have it set to lose .5 lbs per week) because I do not eat all of my exercise calories back, however, I am not losing weight. I weigh everything I eat on a food scale and log everything but obviously something is wrong. I have gone out to eat 3 times this month and had to estimate those calories plus my boyfriend cooked dinner on V-Day so I had to estimate those calories as well....I am wondering if that is the problem. Just seems weird because when I do that, I try to overestimate. I am thinking MFP gives me too many calories burned for exercise because nothing else really makes sense as to why I am not losing weight. When I first got back on MFP at the beginning of the month, I was netting below 1200 and I did lose 2 pounds the first two weeks (which I assumed was water weight) and I bumped my calories up because I know it is not ideal to net below 1200 but now I am not losing...
  • MaybeLed
    MaybeLed Posts: 250 Member
    edited February 2017
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    It's a bit trial and error, you just have to work out what works for you. Eat as MFP suggests for 4 weeks or so eating your fitbit adjustment and see how much you lose in that time, is it more or less than predicted? Use a trendweight app/website to see your losses. MFP is designed so you eat back your exercise calories. When I first started I made it too complicated for myself, I was only eating back 75%, setting myself as sedentary, giving myself too few calories at the start of the day. Got sad and hungry ate too much. Even though I have a desk job I walk a lot to and from work, so I'm not sedentary.

    I’ve set myself as lightly active (regularly do between 8-12k steps 5-7 days a week) eat those calories including 100% of activity, I’ve enabled negative adjustments for the days I don’t get off the sofa and I’ve been regularly losing 20% more than anticipated, which is a reasonable error combining both human and technical.

    For example to lose 1lb a week I should eat 2000kcal a day (net). Calculating the last 28 days I’ve eaten 2053 kcal a day (net) and in that time I was anticipated to lose 4lb but I’ve lost 4.9lb (according to www.trendweight.com).

    TL:DR The thing is to trust the numbers, give it a go for a reasonable period. If it’s not working for you, you may need to play with the numbers.

    P.S. I’m very into numbers .
  • aaoch1
    aaoch1 Posts: 6 Member
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    I have a Flex 2 (so no HR monitor), and I find that the Fitbit's total calorie burns for the day are very accurate, but when MFP adds the adjustment the total MFP calorie goal is too high. For example, yesterday my Fitbit says I burned 2,711 calories, which means my goal intake should be about 1,700 (to lose 2lbs a week). MFP, which is also set to 2 lbs/week, gave me a total goal of 2,055 (thus implying that I burned 3,055 calories). In my experience Fitibit is correct, and MFP is too generous with its Fitbit adjustment calories. I lose at the rate Fitbit predicts, so if I ate all of my adjustment calories on MFP I would lose more slowly than my goal.

    But unfortunately the only way to know whether fitbit is accurate for you is to track the data and see if you lose at the predicted rate, like others said. Good luck!
  • CyberTone
    CyberTone Posts: 7,337 Member
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    aaoch1 wrote: »
    I have a Flex 2 (so no HR monitor), and I find that the Fitbit's total calorie burns for the day are very accurate, but when MFP adds the adjustment the total MFP calorie goal is too high. For example, yesterday my Fitbit says I burned 2,711 calories, which means my goal intake should be about 1,700 (to lose 2lbs a week). MFP, which is also set to 2 lbs/week, gave me a total goal of 2,055 (thus implying that I burned 3,055 calories). In my experience Fitibit is correct, and MFP is too generous with its Fitbit adjustment calories. I lose at the rate Fitbit predicts, so if I ate all of my adjustment calories on MFP I would lose more slowly than my goal.

    But unfortunately the only way to know whether fitbit is accurate for you is to track the data and see if you lose at the predicted rate, like others said. Good luck!

    That big of a Calorie difference between MFP and Fitbit sounds like they are out of sync. Check to see if the time zones are set to the same time zone.
  • KWlosingit
    KWlosingit Posts: 122 Member
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    My fitbit and MFP the calories are always very very close. I agree some setting must be off and if not I would be contracting MFP support.
  • SusanMFindlay
    SusanMFindlay Posts: 1,804 Member
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    KWlosingit wrote: »
    My fitbit and MFP the calories are always very very close. I agree some setting must be off and if not I would be contracting MFP support.

    This.
  • aaoch1
    aaoch1 Posts: 6 Member
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    CyberTone wrote: »

    That big of a Calorie difference between MFP and Fitbit sounds like they are out of sync. Check to see if the time zones are set to the same time zone.

    Really? I figured it was normal. I will look into this further, thank you! OP, ignore my comment, it seems I have issues of my own.

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