Vivofit HR and extra calories (way extra calories, that I couldn't eat if I wanted to)

lumenosis wrote: »

I am set to sedentary on MFP. I work in a greenhouse, I am on my feet all shift moving soil, transplanting, watering ect. My shifts are typically 5-6 hours of activity. As of right now my Vivosmart HR says I burned 3219 cals today.

How long have you been wearing the Vivosmart? Anything with a heartrate monitor will take a couple of weeks to get used to your routine and start giving decently accurate numbers for anyone who deviates from the "desk job with occasional workout" model.

On the surface, your numbers sound high. It really depends on how much weight you're hauling around; water is not light! 7,500 steps of walking would *not* burn as many calories as that. Would 7,500 steps of walking carrying soil and water? Hard to say.

I weigh about the same as you though I am shorter. To have a 3,200 calorie day, it has to have been a workout day for me. 20,000-25,000 steps will take me to about 2,800 calories. Make an hour of that high intensity and I'd hit 3,200 calories. My FitBit numbers are really accurate for me (based on my weightloss) and one thing that I can say is that while my daily calorie burn is generally higher on more-steps days, there's not a linear relationship. Intensity matters (as does extra non-step time on my feet) - so it does sometimes happen that I burn more on an 18,000 step day than a 22,000 step day, for example.

So, *maybe* if your hour of cardio was non-step based, your numbers *might* be reasonable. At the end of the day, you'll find out how much deficit you created by seeing how much weight you lose, but I can understand not wanting to wait a month to figure it out. And I remember being very cynical about my numbers.

itsthehumidity wrote: »

I got a Fitbit Surge, which has a HR monitor. Every single day it overestimated my calories burned by 1000-1500, usually closer to 1500. For reference, I'm a 29 year old male at 5'7", and I have the data to show that my BMR is 1600 calories, and my TDEE is usually around 2100 given the exercise I do.

If I eat 1600 calories per day, I'll lose about a pound a week, which supports that TDEE. My Surge would say I burned 3100-3600 calories per day. It was absolute garbage data, but I got nowhere when attempting to talk to customer support. So, I had to abandon any tracker with HR and went with one that didn't. Now my numbers are what they should be.

I suggest you do what I do. Track your calories and your resulting weight over a period of 4-6 weeks (1-2 weeks is not enough data). Then, you can see if your tracker is giving you useful data or not. My guess is you're in the same boat as me and you shouldn't trust it.

At the 10,000 steps a day you list on your profile you would qualify for the MFP "active" setting absent any additional exercise. This is a physical activity multiplier of 1.6x BMR. Before any exercise that comes on top of your walking around.

2100 Cal a day comes in at about 1.3x BMR which is BARELY above MFPs 1.25x BMR sedentary setting. MFP sedentary reflects an activity level of approximately 3500 steps.

Either you have a lower than expected BMR and lower than expected expenditure during your activities, or your food intake logging in off, or a combination of both.

sorry, edited a couple of things to clarify the hastily written posts

I had the same problem with my Vivosmart. I found that it is two parts 1) if you don't wear it exactly at the end of the wrist, the HR it calculates is way to high and it gives you the active minutes 2) I've disconnected the watch from Garmin Connect. Completely reset it and then connected again. That did the trick, I used to get like 1000 calories for simple walking, now it is in 100-200 range.

lumenosis wrote: »

Lol thank you PAV. I was eating really bad, any and everything that I wanted went into my face. It was a fast, binge situation daily. My weight problem is/was totally a food problem.
Thank you for putting the Vivosmart into perspective, I'm so new to all this it just seemed crazy that MFP was telling me it was OK to eat 2,500 cals.

The combination of your size and activity level is such that 1000 Cal deficit (2lbs a week) if it is something that you can comply with, would not be excessive based on your "specs"

if you set MFP to very active it will minimise the adjustment during the day.

If you do that and you go to bed early, you will "lose" an appreciable amount of calories from your adjustment between the time you go to bed and midnight. So leave ~200 Cal for that eventuality if you're concerned about that.

This assumes you have negative adjustments enabled... which you should to account for days you are less active.

Log what you eat and eat what you log taking care to chose entries that you double check. Start with green check-mark ones and don't be shy to compare to packages and the USDA nutrient database.

Measure your weight using a trending weight application such as Libra (android), Happy Scale (iphone), trendweight.com in conjunction with a supported scale or free fitbit.com account even without a device, or weightgrapher.com for manual entry (suggest you set them all as if your goal is to maintain so they don't annoy you with useless interpretations and suggestions)

Compare your actual and expected results over a period of 4-6 weeks that includes at least one monthly cycle for those so affected.

Have fun and choose items that help you meet your caloric goals while feeling relatively satisfied and satiated and able to keep making your choices long term...

Don't be shocked if your kitchen scale and your measuring cups don't quite agree!

lumenosis wrote: »

Thank you PAV, I weigh everything and read labels and then weigh everything again. I'm really honest with my diary and so far my results have been as expected however this was before Vivosmart was telling me I could eat more so we shall see.

I changed the MFP setting from sedentary and today without a workout it gave me 734 instead of 1,200.

So far I have had no trouble staying under my calories what I do go over is protein and fiber by a couple grams fairly regularly. I'm going to start using less than a full scoop of powder in my morning smoothie.

Depending on how long you've been on a deficit, depending on whether your BMR is at the expected mean value or is an outlier, the estimates are just that... estimates. Reality is decided by your actual results. Trending weight apps are useful because they help you see the results with a bit more clarity through normal water weight variations, but the reality is that nothing is perfect: there is a degree of uncertainty with all these figures! They're still good enough for us to be able to achieve results

Many people on MFP, myself included, view protein and fiber as minimum, not maximum goals.

You may want to evaluate for yourself whether something like the following might be appropriate for you as "good" targets... without forgetting that just controlling your calories is all that you need to do in order to achieve weight loss and improved health.

~25% deficit off TDEE while still obese, tapering as you enter the overweight category.
~30g or more of fiber a day (usual recommendations for females are at least 25g and for males 38g of fiber)
~0.8g to 1g of protein per lb of lean mass. This gets interesting as it is about double the RDA for protein (in order to provide protection to lean mass in a caloric deficit) and it is based on grams per lb of lean mass which is, obviously, hard to determine! As such, at least when I was doing this for myself, I looked at my "target" weight at the top of a healthy BMI (bmi 25) and calculated 0.6g to 0.8g of protein per lb of "target" mass (as a proxy for lean mass). This became my target which I often exceed and on rare occasions do not quite get to!
at least ~0.4g of healthy mono and polyunsaturated fats (which according to the AHA does not include tropical oils) per lb of target weight as a female, while limiting saturated fats to no more than 5% to 6% of total calories...
The rest... whatever you want that makes you happy and full

lumenosis wrote: »

So after I said I was awarded 734 calories I went for a short walk. When I synced up tonight it gave me 1,700 extra calories total for the day. No work out today and a shorter work day. Kind of suspicious.

Today I ate 1,750 calories total not planning to delve into the other 1,700. According Vivo I burned 4448 calories.

Thank you, good to know about the protein and fiber I will ignore the red numbers for those 2 when they are out by a couple of grams. The first half of my day eating wise is always the same Smoothie with meal replacement protein powder (Progressive Whey essential all in one) with 1 cup of unsweetened coconut milk and unsweetened frozen fruit. Yogurt with kashi go lean as a snack and then a B up protein bar for lunch. Maybe an apple on the way home and then either a chicken, turkey or salmon dish for dinner with salad.

I need to look into the amounts and types of fats I am eating. My main goal in the beginning of this was to be healthier, weight loss is the byproduct.

You are going to burn out fast if you keep leaving that many calories on the table.

Yes, the Vivo may be overestimating a little. But let's say that it overestimated by 1,000 calories (which I don't think it did; probably closer to 500). Even if your real burn was only 3,448 calories today, you just had a deficit of 1,700 calories! Now, a single day at that level isn't the end of the world, but it won't be sustainable.

So, updating your weight changes the numbers I expect for you. Instead of matching my weight, I now know that you match my husband's start weight. And you have a physical job. A daily burn in the 3,500 calorie range is absolutely reasonable for you - and, yes, on really active days, you may hit 4,000 calories.

So, eating under 2,000 calories/day on a regular basis is not a good idea given your weight and activity level. I weigh 100 pounds less than you and am losing weight eating more than 2,000. My husband has lost 30 pounds averaging somewhere in the ballpark of 3,000. I'm not suggesting you go as high as 3,000 - but please try to stay over 2,000 for as long as you have the active job.

Your workout will account for a very negligible fraction of your earned calories with an active job.

There's something really wrong though if changing your MFP activity setting changes your overall calories. It's not supposed to. Your tracker is supposed to only add calories once you're over the setting you have picked on MFP.

Anyway, 3200 calories doesn't seem outrageous at all with your job and your stats.

You have an active job so your MFP should be set to Active not sedentary. Enable negative adjustments and you'll see the both should sync with more realistic burns - at least that's how I find it.
Trackers also take time to get used to our activity, they can take a few weeks to accurately record data. I'm on Fitbit no 3 and each time I did get a new device, it took those first weeks before it started giving me more accurate readings for calorie burns.

I have a Vivoactive (no wrist read HRM) and it way under rewards me for steps and doesn't know when I have been physically active outside of exercise but for me that's works because I'm generally sedentary.

So I don't think your numbers are that wacky in all honesty. Have you taken a diet break at all?