Help! I don't trust my Fitbit.
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bearclanfit
Posts: 15 Member
Please help me figure out an appropriate calorie intake!
I started working out and started dieting at the same time. My daily calorie intake goal is 1290 and my mfp setting is lightly active. I'm doing a 45 minute HIIT workout and a 30 minute yoga workout each day. It's a lot. Much more than I'm used to.
My Fitbit is enabled to make negative adjustments on mfp. The problem is I get sweaty and it rarely continues monitoring my heart rate throughout my HIIT workout. When I do both workouts but have very little "steps" each day, I'm STARVING as Fitbit makes adjustments that counter any manual entries I make in mfp for the HIIT and yoga. If I do the same workouts but get more steps in--lightly active stuff in my opinion--I end up with huge deficits. Like 800 calories under my goal.
Now I get that walking more should end up having an impact on my overall calorie deficit, but my point here is that I don't feel the calories I burn in my workouts are being adequately accounted for. Should I turn off negative adjustments for my Fitbit and just enter my workouts manually? I have no idea how to reconcile this!
I started working out and started dieting at the same time. My daily calorie intake goal is 1290 and my mfp setting is lightly active. I'm doing a 45 minute HIIT workout and a 30 minute yoga workout each day. It's a lot. Much more than I'm used to.
My Fitbit is enabled to make negative adjustments on mfp. The problem is I get sweaty and it rarely continues monitoring my heart rate throughout my HIIT workout. When I do both workouts but have very little "steps" each day, I'm STARVING as Fitbit makes adjustments that counter any manual entries I make in mfp for the HIIT and yoga. If I do the same workouts but get more steps in--lightly active stuff in my opinion--I end up with huge deficits. Like 800 calories under my goal.
Now I get that walking more should end up having an impact on my overall calorie deficit, but my point here is that I don't feel the calories I burn in my workouts are being adequately accounted for. Should I turn off negative adjustments for my Fitbit and just enter my workouts manually? I have no idea how to reconcile this!
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Replies
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Negative adjustments *reduce* your calorie goal when the movement tracked by your tracker is less than your activity level (selected on MFP) would indicate. So what you're saying, I think, is that since your workout isn't being tracked on some days, you're getting your calorie goal reduced?
If you have a specific workout that you don't think is being tracked accurately, I would manually enter that. As long as the time is entered accurately, it's my understand that it won't double-count it -- instead it will replace the Fitbit data for that specific time period (Note: I haven't tested this myself, someone who has would probably be able to weigh in on it).4 -
Change your MFP setting to sedentary. Then you'll get more fitbit calories. And turning off the negative adjustments will also help.3
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1) Change your weight loss rate to 1 lb a week.
2) The Fitbit does well with steps, but poorly with non-step based exercise. Log that separately. It can't see yoga.
3) 45 min of HIIT is probably too much, especially for a beginner.
Honestly, I don't know the finer points of the MFP/Fitbit integration, but if it's not working, don't do it.3 -
Is your fitbit the HRM model? If not then it may be ill equipped to "measure" exercise.0
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I've seen a lot of posts about issues caused by negative calorie adjustments. If it were me, I'd just want to log it myself.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you only have a calorie allowance of 1290 on lightly active. I think you should take @annacole94 's suggestions to heart.
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janejellyroll wrote: »If you have a specific workout that you don't think is being tracked accurately, I would manually enter that. As long as the time is entered accurately, it's my understand that it won't double-count it -- instead it will replace the Fitbit data for that specific time period (Note: I haven't tested this myself, someone who has would probably be able to weigh in on it).
I had no idea about the time of day thing with manual entries vs the Fitbit data. This is very helpful! Thank you.
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Also, you should not be manually entering if you have it so that your fitbit syncs with myfitnesspal. That's like double entering, isn't it?1
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dietstokes wrote: »Also, you should not be manually entering if you have it so that your fitbit syncs with myfitnesspal. That's like double entering, isn't it?
Not if you enter the time accurately. If you enter the time of your workout when manually logging it, it will override the data the Fitbit captured during that time. This is actually a good option for some non-step exercises (like the OP's).
From the FAQ page of MFP's Fitbit group:
Am I doubling up on calories by manually logging a workout, what about the activity record from the device?
No you are not - hence the reason for the start and duration time - so Fitbit can replace whatever it came up with for calories.
The activity record from the device button press is merely to allow viewing those stats for that block of time, you can manually make an activity record too for same purpose. Not logging those calories, merely viewing what Fitbit came up with already.
If you know you'll manually log a workout to input more accurate calorie burn, the activity record does make it easier to see when the start time was, and figure out duration, and allow seeing the Fitbit stats for that time, rather than buried in the daily stats.
If you log workout with an existing activity record, it does NOT replace the calorie burn in the record, just the daily stats. If you create activity record manually after logging workout, calorie burn is whatever you entered, though the other stats will be shown for steps & distance.2 -
Ready2Rock206 wrote: »Change your MFP setting to sedentary. Then you'll get more fitbit calories. And turning off the negative adjustments will also help.
Changing my mfp setting to sedentary just boosted my remaining calories from ~450 to 917 which is more than enough to survive the rest of my at-the-desk day! I'm not going to eat all of those, but that's definitely the difference between making it to dinner with a snack and passing out.
It seems like dropping my weight loss goal to 1 lb per week would probably have a similar effect on remaining calories available, but I haven't tested this. But either way it seems that calorie allotment with this workout plan just isn't cutting it.1 -
bearclanfit wrote: »Ready2Rock206 wrote: »Change your MFP setting to sedentary. Then you'll get more fitbit calories. And turning off the negative adjustments will also help.
Changing my mfp setting to sedentary just boosted my remaining calories from ~450 to 917 which is more than enough to survive the rest of my at-the-desk day! I'm not going to eat all of those, but that's definitely the difference between making it to dinner with a snack and passing out.
It seems like dropping my weight loss goal to 1 lb per week would probably have a similar effect on remaining calories available, but I haven't tested this. But either way it seems that calorie allotment with this workout plan just isn't cutting it.
Then something was wrong with your settings (which likely got fixed by some reset that happened when you changed your activity level). Changing from "lightly active" to "sedentary" should never *increase* how many calories you get to eat.2 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »bearclanfit wrote: »Ready2Rock206 wrote: »Change your MFP setting to sedentary. Then you'll get more fitbit calories. And turning off the negative adjustments will also help.
Changing my mfp setting to sedentary just boosted my remaining calories from ~450 to 917 which is more than enough to survive the rest of my at-the-desk day! I'm not going to eat all of those, but that's definitely the difference between making it to dinner with a snack and passing out.
It seems like dropping my weight loss goal to 1 lb per week would probably have a similar effect on remaining calories available, but I haven't tested this. But either way it seems that calorie allotment with this workout plan just isn't cutting it.
Then something was wrong with your settings (which likely got fixed by some reset that happened when you changed your activity level). Changing from "lightly active" to "sedentary" should never *increase* how many calories you get to eat.
That's true in mfp alone. But my understanding from the suggestion (and the result I got) is it changes how Fitbit makes adjustments to your mfp diary.1 -
bearclanfit wrote: »SusanMFindlay wrote: »bearclanfit wrote: »Ready2Rock206 wrote: »Change your MFP setting to sedentary. Then you'll get more fitbit calories. And turning off the negative adjustments will also help.
Changing my mfp setting to sedentary just boosted my remaining calories from ~450 to 917 which is more than enough to survive the rest of my at-the-desk day! I'm not going to eat all of those, but that's definitely the difference between making it to dinner with a snack and passing out.
It seems like dropping my weight loss goal to 1 lb per week would probably have a similar effect on remaining calories available, but I haven't tested this. But either way it seems that calorie allotment with this workout plan just isn't cutting it.
Then something was wrong with your settings (which likely got fixed by some reset that happened when you changed your activity level). Changing from "lightly active" to "sedentary" should never *increase* how many calories you get to eat.
That's true in mfp alone. But my understanding from the suggestion (and the result I got) is it changes how Fitbit makes adjustments to your mfp diary.
Only in the sense that MFP recalculates your projected calorie burn for the rest of the day to be less. Basically, how the FitBit-MFP link is supposed to work is like this:- At midnight, MFP calculates your daily calorie burn as BMR*correction factor (correction factor ranges from 1.25 to 1.8 and depends on activity level chosen).
- As the day progresses, FitBit sends updates about how many calories you've actually burned so far. MFP replaces its predicted burn for those hours with the FitBit value. It uses the same formula as in Step 1 for the hours that haven't happened yet.
- If you manually log activity on MFP, that overwrites the FitBit data for the duration of that specific workout only (which is why you have to be accurate about both start time and duration).
- At the end of the day, all of the MFP calculations/estimates will have been overwritten by FitBit data (except the exercises manually logged on MFP).
Changing your activity level changes the correction factor used in step 1 - but that's all it does. If anything, decreasing your activity level should lower your calories left to eat because MFP is now assuming you'll be less active for the rest of the day.
FitBit itself doesn't do anything to your MFP diary. It just gives MFP one number (calories burned so far today) that MFP does math with.0 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »bearclanfit wrote: »Ready2Rock206 wrote: »Change your MFP setting to sedentary. Then you'll get more fitbit calories. And turning off the negative adjustments will also help.
Changing my mfp setting to sedentary just boosted my remaining calories from ~450 to 917 which is more than enough to survive the rest of my at-the-desk day! I'm not going to eat all of those, but that's definitely the difference between making it to dinner with a snack and passing out.
It seems like dropping my weight loss goal to 1 lb per week would probably have a similar effect on remaining calories available, but I haven't tested this. But either way it seems that calorie allotment with this workout plan just isn't cutting it.
Then something was wrong with your settings (which likely got fixed by some reset that happened when you changed your activity level). Changing from "lightly active" to "sedentary" should never *increase* how many calories you get to eat.
That's what I was thinking at first too, but actually it would. At lightly active you wouldn't get more calories until you reached a certain amount of steps/activity. At sedentary you get more calories sooner, as your calories are originally set lower, as you would be moving less. I typically get extra calories once I reach about 2,500 steps.1 -
Also, I always manually log my lifting sessions in the Fitbit app and @janejellyroll is correct, it overrides whatever data was already entered for that time period.1
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kaylajane11 wrote: »SusanMFindlay wrote: »bearclanfit wrote: »Ready2Rock206 wrote: »Change your MFP setting to sedentary. Then you'll get more fitbit calories. And turning off the negative adjustments will also help.
Changing my mfp setting to sedentary just boosted my remaining calories from ~450 to 917 which is more than enough to survive the rest of my at-the-desk day! I'm not going to eat all of those, but that's definitely the difference between making it to dinner with a snack and passing out.
It seems like dropping my weight loss goal to 1 lb per week would probably have a similar effect on remaining calories available, but I haven't tested this. But either way it seems that calorie allotment with this workout plan just isn't cutting it.
Then something was wrong with your settings (which likely got fixed by some reset that happened when you changed your activity level). Changing from "lightly active" to "sedentary" should never *increase* how many calories you get to eat.
That's what I was thinking at first too, but actually it would. At lightly active you wouldn't get more calories until you reached a certain amount of steps/activity. At sedentary you get more calories sooner, as your calories are originally set lower, as you would be moving less. I typically get extra calories once I reach about 2,500 steps.
Maybe if negative adjustments were off? But not if they're on. And I still think that the decrease in "projected burn for the rest of the day" would be a bigger factor.0 -
kaylajane11 wrote: »Also, I always manually log my lifting sessions in the Fitbit app and @janejellyroll is correct, it overrides whatever data was already entered for that time period.
Thank you for confirming. I've never personally used this feature, only read about it, but I'm glad it works the way that I thought it did!1 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »kaylajane11 wrote: »SusanMFindlay wrote: »bearclanfit wrote: »Ready2Rock206 wrote: »Change your MFP setting to sedentary. Then you'll get more fitbit calories. And turning off the negative adjustments will also help.
Changing my mfp setting to sedentary just boosted my remaining calories from ~450 to 917 which is more than enough to survive the rest of my at-the-desk day! I'm not going to eat all of those, but that's definitely the difference between making it to dinner with a snack and passing out.
It seems like dropping my weight loss goal to 1 lb per week would probably have a similar effect on remaining calories available, but I haven't tested this. But either way it seems that calorie allotment with this workout plan just isn't cutting it.
Then something was wrong with your settings (which likely got fixed by some reset that happened when you changed your activity level). Changing from "lightly active" to "sedentary" should never *increase* how many calories you get to eat.
That's what I was thinking at first too, but actually it would. At lightly active you wouldn't get more calories until you reached a certain amount of steps/activity. At sedentary you get more calories sooner, as your calories are originally set lower, as you would be moving less. I typically get extra calories once I reach about 2,500 steps.
Maybe if negative adjustments were off? But not if they're on. And I still think that the decrease in "projected burn for the rest of the day" would be a bigger factor.
I'm not sure how the "projected burn" works, because I've always had mine set to sedentary. I prefer it this way, because it doesn't take away calories later in the day - it only adds calories once I've hit the ~2,500 step mark. I do have negative adjustments enabled, but it only comes into play if I don't hit that mark. So if I sync early in the day before I've moved around much, I do get a negative adjustment, but it always goes up once I get more steps in.
I've had my Fitbit for over a year and it has worked accurately for me using this method.
If she has manually entered her calorie goal I think it would have given her extra calories by switching to sedentary. If she has Fitbit calculate her calorie goal every day, I think you are right about the extra calories.1 -
I found my fitbit calories added works way better if I set my activity levels as sedentary and let fitbit do the rest. I don't know why but ever since it is working way better for me than when it was set to lightly active.
Edited because of stupid phone autocorrect.1 -
I agree with a previous poster that this only makes sense if you at one point manually adjusted your calories down. Otherwise, moving to sedentary would have made the calories go down. I do fitbit adjustment with a lightly active setting and negative adjustments enabled. I am usually in negative adjustments until I have finished my morning coffee, but once I get up and moving, it starts ramping up. I also have problems with it counting my exercise. It hardly ever recognizes my Insanity workouts, but in the grand scheme of things, those calories are fairly minor so I don't sweat it.0
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My fitbit and MFP work really well together and I am losing weight as expected. I only walk though, no other exercise.2
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