Base calorie goal when using Fitbit?

HanMW96 wrote: »

WinoGelato wrote: »

HanMW96 wrote: »

WinoGelato wrote: »

OP what are your goals (lose weight or maintain)?
What rate of loss did you select in MFP.
What calorie goal did MFP provide?
How many steps do you average/day?
What does FitBit say your total calories burned is?

Maintain weight, I put my BMR as calculated by Fitbit (1340) as my base on MyFitnessPal, I average anywhere between 15,000-25,000 steps a day (Fitbit says more but I think it overestimates), and today my Fitbit says I've burned 4100 calories which, although I'm very active, I know is inaccurate- I've probably burned closer to 3000

I'm not understanding why you set BMR as your base calories? That's the amount of calories your body would need if you were essentially comatose, which you clearly are not. You are averaging 15k-25k steps/day. The way you've got it set up is going to result in huge adjustments (1500 or more) and that is telling you that something is out of whack with your set up.

A more appropriate approach would be to set MFP to maintain, with either a lightly active or active activity level. The number they provide then is an estimate of your NEAT (so your BMR plus an estimate of day to day activity burn), and then when you have it synced with FitBit you would see an adjustment when your FitBit says you've burned more than that, a true up if you will between the TDEE that FitBit estimates and what MFP thinks you would burn without exercise. Enabling negative adjustments ensures that you would get a lower calorie target if you don't meet the normal activity level that MFP is suggesting.

For what it's worth, I'm also in maintenance at 5'2 and 118. I selected active for my activity level because I average 15k steps/day even though I have a desk job. MFP says my baseline cals are 1850. I have it set up to sync with FitBit which estimates that my TDEE is around 2200-2300. So my adjustments are usually 300-500 cals which I feel is more representative of my purposeful exercise.

Thank you! I set my BMR as my base cals on here, because Fitbit adds every bit of my activity- over 1100 so far today for example- onto my base goal. If I set my base goal on here as "lightly active", it adds all my steps and gym classes onto that, even though without any of my steps or gym I'd be sedentary and therefore only needing you eat my BMR's worth right? I'm confused so I'm going to keep doing it like I am for two weeks, then I'll weigh myself and change my tact if needs be! Thank you for your help!

No. You shouldn't be eating your BMR. BMR is the amount of cals you would need to sustain your body if you were comatose. MFP estimates your NEAT which is your BMR plus an estimate of cals burned from daily activity, excluding exercise. This is why when people use the MFP method they are supposed to log and eat back some exercise cals. Now though, many people like you and I use an activity tracker like FitBit to estimate what those burns are. If you are trying to maintain then you want to eat at or around your TDEE. FitBit calls this total calories burned and is a fairly good approximation of TDEE, in my experience.

So if you put your stats in and select lightly active, and "maintain my weight" as your goal in MFP, what does it give you for a calorie target? This is what MFP thinks your NEAT is. This is your baseline target. Then when you use the two systems together and you go above that, from more activity or exercise, you get an exercise adjustment from FitBit, a "true up" if you will of the difference between MFp's estimate and what FitBit says you actually burned.

Using BMR for your baseline is far too low and is going to result in very large exercise cal adjustments that may be difficult to work in, if you wait till the end of the day for example and have to eat an extra 1500 calories. I will try and take a screen shot of my day to show what I mean.

Using a manually imputed goal will the overall calorie adjustment potentially incorrect and too low. Assuming Fitbit is accurate and you won't know that for a few weeks.

Putting in 1100 yourself means MFP is assuming that's your NEAT, it doesn't know to add more because you are choosing to use your BMR.

As Wino says, just using the automatically generated MFP goal is what should be happening and again, assuming Fitbit is correct, or close to correct, then the adjustment will also be correct.