New Fit bit user questions

learningtolove
learningtolove Posts: 288 Member
edited November 19 in Fitness and Exercise
Do you eat back the exercise calories the fitbit automatically inputs? Are they fairly accurate? Should I set my activity to inactive to offset this?

Replies

  • NurseKristi81
    NurseKristi81 Posts: 90 Member
    I personally do not, I only eat back calories that I obtain through exercise and not always all of them. Fitbit gives you quite a bit and I am afraid you would see a gain! lol
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited June 2017
    Yes I do.
    With Fitbit:
    Higher MFP activity level = smallest adjustment by midnight
    Lowest MFP activity level = largest adjustment at midnight

    High activity level in MFP will have you seeing a large adjustment after being active, but it will decrease with any low activity periods.

    Lowest MFP activity level will have you seeing an adjustment that mainly just goes up with very little being taken away for low activity periods.

    The adjustment is figured like this:
    Fitbit burn - MFP activity level burn = +/- adjustment

    As you increase MFP'S activity level, you increase the amount MFP thinks you burn for the day. This also means that if you sync Fitbit at 2pm, the amount MFP estimates that Fitbit will report at midnight will be on the high side. Why? Because it will take it's own estimate and break it down to calories burned per hour/min. It would then add it's own hour/min calculation for the hours/mins remaining in your day to the Fitbit burn. If you don't burn that by the next sync, your adjustment would go down.

    I find my Fitbit calorie burn to be accurate for me and do eat my adjustments from it.
  • learningtolove
    learningtolove Posts: 288 Member
    shadow2soul wrote: »
    Yes I do.
    With Fitbit:
    Higher MFP activity level = smallest adjustment by midnight
    Lowest MFP activity level = largest adjustment at midnight

    High activity level in MFP will have you seeing a large adjustment after being active, but it will decrease with any low activity periods.

    Lowest MFP activity level will have you seeing an adjustment that mainly just goes up with very little being taken away for low activity periods.

    The adjustment is figured like this:
    Fitbit burn - MFP activity level burn = +/- adjustment

    As you increase MFP'S activity level, you increase the amount MFP thinks you burn for the day. This also means that if you sync Fitbit at 2pm, the amount MFP estimates that Fitbit will report at midnight will be on the high side. Why? Because it will take it's own estimate and break it down to calories burned per hour/min. It would then add it's own hour/min calculation for the hours/mins remaining in your day to the Fitbit burn. If you don't burn that by the next sync, your adjustment would go down.

    I find my Fitbit calorie burn to be accurate for me and do eat my adjustments from it.

    Thank you,that makes sense!
  • MsHarryWinston
    MsHarryWinston Posts: 1,027 Member
    Right now I'm just taking the time to track my loss against my estimated calorie burn, so I'm not eating back my exercise calories. After a couple of months I can compare the data and see how accurate it is. So far it looks like I can eat back about 2/3 of what it says I can but I'm going to give it a bit more time.
  • YOLO145
    YOLO145 Posts: 98 Member
    I've lost 2lbs a week consistently for two months eating back most of my exercise calories. I mostly do strength training, but my FitBit Charge 2 gives me half of the calories that the elliptical says I burn.
  • MrsDan1667
    MrsDan1667 Posts: 76 Member
    I don't anymore. The first month I had it I was eating back most calories and didn't loose anything for that entire month. Then I started ignoring those calories and starting loosing again. I've lost 3.5 in the last month since sticking to my MFP recommendation pre-Fitbit credit.
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