MFP/fitbit awarding me too many calories?

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eandrews726
eandrews726 Posts: 4 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I work a job in which I am on my feet all day most days. Weekdays I get anywhere between 10,000 - 18,000 steps. Sundays are my slacker days when I usually get less than 10,000 steps.

I try to exercise most days whether it be walking, running, lifting, or playing sports with my kid. I haven't been as strict with it lately though and will exercise 3-6 days per week, depending on how hectic it is.

Anyway - getting to my point. I have my Fitbit charge 2 synced to mfp. I have mfp set to sedentary. Mfp tells me to eat back what I feel is an extreme amount of calories, even when I didn't exercise that day.

For example, I will take about 12,000 steps one day and mfp will award me around 750 calories. It's awarded me over 1000 calories one day when I went on a short hike and got about 13,000 steps. Even on days when I am not as active, it will give me 200-350 calories to eat back.

I feel that this is inaccurate. I can't imagine eating ~2,000 Calories each day and continuing to lose.

I have been logging for about 1 month now and have lost about 5 lbs. Before that, with just exercise and trying not to eat as much crap I lost 10 lbs in a few months. Should I eat back half, most, or all of these huge amount of calories? Should I trust my gut and continue with what I am doing - eating an average of 1400 per week? Does anyone else feel that their fitbits give them too many earned calories?

Any input is appreciated.

In case anyone asks -
I am a 5'4" 26 year old female
SW: 163lb
CW: 148lb

Replies

  • karahm78
    karahm78 Posts: 505 Member
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    If you get that many steps you are not sedentary... I prefer my setting that way, and I only eat half to account for any logging errors, I lose as expected. However if you set to Lightly Active or Active you will not have those big Fitbit adjustments.
  • eandrews726
    eandrews726 Posts: 4 Member
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    Thank you so much for your helpful answers!
    I will try to put more trust in mfp and my fitbit, but I may still only eat about 1/2 back to account for logging errors and see how it works for a few weeks. Maybe that is why I have been more tired lately, I guess I really could not be eating enough calories. I certainly don't want to be in too much of a deficit.

    Btw, I have a Fitbit Charge 2 which does track HR.
  • SusanMFindlay
    SusanMFindlay Posts: 1,804 Member
    edited June 2017
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    eandrews726 wrote: »
    I work a job in which I am on my feet all day most days. Weekdays I get anywhere between 10,000 - 18,000 steps. Sundays are my slacker days when I usually get less than 10,000 steps.

    I try to exercise most days whether it be walking, running, lifting, or playing sports with my kid. I haven't been as strict with it lately though and will exercise 3-6 days per week, depending on how hectic it is.

    Anyway - getting to my point. I have my Fitbit charge 2 synced to mfp. I have mfp set to sedentary. Mfp tells me to eat back what I feel is an extreme amount of calories, even when I didn't exercise that day.

    For example, I will take about 12,000 steps one day and mfp will award me around 750 calories. It's awarded me over 1000 calories one day when I went on a short hike and got about 13,000 steps. Even on days when I am not as active, it will give me 200-350 calories to eat back.

    I feel that this is inaccurate. I can't imagine eating ~2,000 Calories each day and continuing to lose.

    I have been logging for about 1 month now and have lost about 5 lbs. Before that, with just exercise and trying not to eat as much crap I lost 10 lbs in a few months. Should I eat back half, most, or all of these huge amount of calories? Should I trust my gut and continue with what I am doing - eating an average of 1400 per week? Does anyone else feel that their fitbits give them too many earned calories?

    Any input is appreciated.

    In case anyone asks -
    I am a 5'4" 26 year old female
    SW: 163lb
    CW: 148lb

    I am a 5'4" 41 year old female. Start weight (for calorie counting) 190 lb. Current weight 150 lb. So, my current stats are pretty similar to yours, but you're younger than me so your burns should be higher.

    I've been averaging about 17,000 steps/day. I currently eat an average of 2300 calories/day and have been losing just over 0.5 pound/week (on average; it's not linear). That should speed up a little over the summer since my activity level is increasing slightly (I'm up to 20,000 steps/day on average, and FitBit says my average burns are up from 2600 to 2750 calories/day) but I don't plan to raise my calories to compensate since I still have enough fat for a 500 calorie/day deficit to be fine.

    When I ate 1750 calories/day, I lost 2 pounds/week. That was too fast for my comfort level so I increased my intake. It took several bumps to get to my current level because I found it very hard to believe that I could really lose weight eating so much. Turns out that I can. Back then, I weighed more so my burns were slightly higher. As I lost weight, the burns dropped a bit, but I didn't particularly want to lower my calories and I'm still losing, so I didn't.

    So, yes, at your activity level and stats, you can indeed lose weight eating 2,000 calories per day. You are not sedentary. You are not anywhere close to sedentary. I'm set to "active" and I get adjustments in the ballpark of 400-600 calories/day over and above that. If I was set to "sedentary", I would get adjustments well over 1,000 calories/day.

    Word of warning: I am a lab scientist by training. My food is logged *really* accurately. I am including a few high calorie meals/days that some people would call "cheat meals/days" in that 2300 calorie/day average. If you don't log with that degree of accuracy and include *everything*, you may want to leave a little more room for error. Based on your report that you've lost 5 pounds in month, it sounds like you're running about a 500 calorie/day deficit. So, you should probably continue eating at the level you're eating *but* you should be aware that you're likely underreporting your intake and are probably actually consuming closer to 1800-2000 calories/day (which, given your activity level, would be about the right amount to eat). If your loss stalls, *that* should be the first place you look (rather than blaming the device - which, unfortunately, many people tend to do).
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    All of what @heybales and @SusanMFindlay said.

    You are making the classic mistake of underestimating your activity level and being dubious of the exercise adjustments because you chose the wrong setting, not because the tools are wrong.

    I'm 42, 5'2 and 118 lbs in maintenance. I work a desk job but average 15k steps/day. My TDEE according to my FitBit is 2200-2300. So yeah, I lose eating 2000 cals/day, and it's likely that you do as well. The adjustments from FitBit are a true up of what MFP thinks you would burn without exercise, based on the stats you entered, and the actual calorie burn. If you burn a lot more than MFP estimates, then your adjustments will be significant. They are telling you that you're more active than you think and you need to fuel that activity by eating back some of those exercise calories. Also, with only about 20 lbs to lose (I presume), you should be aiming to lose only 0.5 lb/week at this point.
  • InkAndApples
    InkAndApples Posts: 201 Member
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    I agree with the other posters. I'm 5'3", 31 and female. When I'm at work I easily get around 15000 steps in and on those weeks I eat an average of 1900 calories, basically everything given back by my Fitbit. On weeks where I'm off my step count plummets and I eat my allotted 1220. I'm losing exactly on schedule.

    If you've given it some time to get to know you then I'd start eating back my exercise calories. In a month look at your rate of loss and reassess. It does sound like you're far more active than you think and 1400 calories is far too low for somebody that active.

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