Calorie intake and Fitbit reliability

On exercise calories and diet Yoni Freedhoff seems to have a pretty good story to tell in the video, albeit not one most people like to hear.

His blog is insightful as well.
http://www.weightymatters.ca/

video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7FK8noIc5I

The one thing that I'd like to see is what the supposed science is, the biochemistry. From the video, it seems like the most sensible explanation is that exercise induces your body to subsequently slow down energy expenditure; example you may without exercise burn your natural 2500 calories in energy in a day. Add exercise and although you burn 500 calories at that activity the body, following exercise, slows down its energy expenditure such that at the end of the day you are still right around the 2500. If there is any, and there is a question in the data if there is with both opponents and proponents, one thing seems to be clear, the effective calorie deficit from exercise is probably in the single digits %'s.

Debate of Forks vs Feet, which is more critical to weight loss. Interesting discussion.

http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2011/06/14/forks-vs-feet-video-and-podcast/

An important element of how to read this also has to do with where you are starting from and others in the thread have noted this. If you are truly sedentary, like you hardly move, and you begin to march off 10-15k steps a day you will probably find, especially if you have also introduced a consumptive caloric restriction of -500 to -1000 calories a day, that you will need to eat back some of those calories to avoid severe hunger. Most wise folks seem (there is some subjectivity here) to suggest though that this should only be done while your metabolism adjusts and it WILL adjust. I'm on a 1600 calorie plan (53 years, 6' tall ~200 lb although threatening 195 regularly), don't walk much during a normal day, even though I walk to work (I live close). I go to the gym 7 days a week to lift and for HIIT and generally 1-2 days a week do a long (30-50 miles with an attention to elevation gain) mtn or road bike ride. Most weekend days and some weekdays when I ride my overall MFP calorie count is negative thanks to Strava's counting methods. I don't generally eat back any exercise calories UNLESS, after eating my normal meals, I'm still hungry, generally though I'm not and when I am I find that maybe an extra 100 calories added to a meal is all that's needed.

Mr_Knight wrote: »

MommaGem2017 wrote: »

Yes it is, and I provided the links if you had read any of my other posts.

In MFP setting, both sedentary and "low active" translate to the sedentary setting.

Just because someone is not spending daily time in the gym does not mean they are not getting a calorie burn other ways.

No, it doesn't. But that doesn't mean there is a blank check for fitness band abuse, either. Over-estimation of burn calories by people who are essentially sedentary is probably the single most often seen reason for failed weight loss.

I'm so confused are you saying that calories earned from daily activities somehow count less than intentional exercise?

I'd also argue that underestimation of intake leads to failed weight loss FAR more often than overestimation of calorie burns as a lot of people don't ever log exercise calories and even more are wary of eating some or any back at all.

yirara wrote: »

Francl27 wrote: »

My fitbit, if anything, underestimates my calorie burns.

A lot of people who say that Fitbit overestimates actually underestimate their food intake. But there are indeed some faulty fitbits out there.

gebeziseva wrote: »

MommaGem2017 wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

Seems like the calorie estimate of fitbit is even worse than the MFP database. My 40 minute slow 5k came back as being 455kcal. Now I suspect these to be gross calories. So if I'm very generous I substract 55kcal and get 400. Personally, from experience I'd not give myself more than 270 net calories for this run. I'm confident to eat all of them back though (and just did, Dutch licorice ).

As suggested before, if your FitBit is that inaccurate, then you should call FitBit tech support. It does your data nerdery no good if you have a flawed device.

Many people have already called them. It is a popular issue in their forums. They don't care. I'm tired of reading the same issue over and over again there. I called them too but they said the only thing they can do is replace my device. My device is fine. It counts my steps correctly. But their algorithms calculate 700cals for my 10k steps instead of 350cals (I'm 138lbs female). So for 10k steps a day and no other exercise it gives me 2100cals while I actually burn only 1850.

The best place for my fitbit is in the trash.

Unless you're short and over 50, there's no way you only burn 350 calories from 10k steps.

And whoever said they got a 2800 calories burn from 18km... that definitely sounds pretty right to me.

I'm sorry but that's bull. Calculators give a calorie burn of 100kcal per miles for running for an average person. A light woman will burn much less than that. A half marathon, 21km or 13 miles would thus come down to about 1300 for this average person, or 18km/11 miles to 1100kcal for running. There is no way that walking burns a similar or higher amount of calories.

Again, it seems like you are talking specifically about the calories burned from the purposeful exercise - while the rest of us (and what FitBit is designed to measure) are referring to the total calorie burn of an individual including BMR, non exercise activity, and purposeful exercise.

I have no need to figure out how many calories I burn during my walk and whether I burn more if I do a brisk pace or a slow pace, or if I get my 15k steps in a single endeavor or through the course of the day. My FitBit calculates my total calories burned at ~2200 for the day, and since MFP thinks my NEAT for my Active setting is 1860, my adjustments are anywhere from 300-500 depending on just how active I am that day. I eat back all of these calories, did so while losing, and now while maintaining successfully for multiple years.

And again, looking at TOTAL calories burned, 2800 total calories for a day that included 18 kilometers of steps (regardless of how fast you were moving) seems reasonable, depending on the person's height, weight and age - it could even be more.

Meelisv wrote: »

emmas434 wrote: »

sanfly wrote: »

How many calories are you eating per day?

At the moment I'm to eat 1500 calories before any alteration by the Fitbit, on an average day the Fitbit will give me around 500 calorie adjustment because it says I typically burn around 2400/2500 a day if I get to 10,000 steps.

Not sure how exactly Fitbit calculates daily activity, but 10,000 walking steps is likely around 200 calories, and nowhere near 500.

And how it "translates" to MFP depends on your MFP activity setting. I'm set to "active," so while MFP gives me extra calories for under 10,000 steps that come in from Garmin, I don't count them until I'm over that because the first 10,000 are part of my setting.

And I do give myself less than MFP for steps, usually about 30 calories per 1000 steps. I read that somewhere online and used it as a base number and it's worked well for me, not including purposeful exercise.