Fit bit calorie adjustments

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JackieMarie1989jgw
JackieMarie1989jgw Posts: 230 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all,
So I don't know if this question is better suited for the Fit bit community or not, but I'm more familiar with the MFP community and want to see if you might be able to help me out.
My husband and I both have fitbits (he has the blaze I have the Alta HR) and we both have them linked to our mfp accounts, so that it automatically gives us exercise calories for our steps. I mostly ignore it and choose not to eat back those calories, since it's only 8K steps and I already have "lightly active" built into my calorie goals. My husband, however, often eats his back.
This wouldn't be much of a problem except that I think his Fit bit is grossly overestimating his calorie burn OR myfitnesspal is somehow messing up the conversion. I've tried to look at both of his accounts and figure out why, but I can't. Some stats-
He is 5'11", 200 lb, current goal weight is 190, goal to lose 1lb/week. MFP gave him a calorie goal of 1700 cals and change. His activity level on MFP is set to sedentary (hence his reasoning to eat back his exercise cals). His Fit bit has been telling him that he burned 900+ calories a day in "exercise" on days that all he did was walk around at work (5k steps or so), and on days that he did exercise sometimes upwards of 2k calories burned. Then 900+extra calories shows up on his MFP diary and he often eats at least some of it. I told him I don't think that burn can be accurate but he says it must be, since his Fit bit has a HR monitor. I think something must be wrong in the settings or something.
For reference, my Fit bit (which also has a HR monitor) only gives me 150-200 cals in "exercise calories" from 8-10k steps. Which I ignore.

If you made it to end of this long post, thank you! Anybody else have these issues? Ideas?

Replies

  • veganbaum
    veganbaum Posts: 1,865 Member
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    First, I would say that if things are working correctly and you're getting an adjustment, your activity setting shouldn't really matter. If you're getting an adjustment at "lightly active," that means you burned more than MFP thought you would.

    I don't trust a wrist HR and hope that fitbit continues to have ones without. I'm sure others could come in with their comparative numbers regarding his steps and adjustments, but my question is - is he losing weight at the expected rate while eating them all back? That's all the information you really need. (Of course, if logging isn't accurate, then the fitbit adjustment can't be blamed.)

    I eat my adjustments and lose as expected. For reference, I'm set to sedentary due to my job. I'm 5'8", ~153 lbs, female, and I get about 600 calories for 10,000 steps.
  • JackieMarie1989jgw
    JackieMarie1989jgw Posts: 230 Member
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    He hasn't really been weighing himself regularly, he says that as far as he knows he has lost about 2 and a half pounds in a month, so slower progress than what he had planned for but still progress.
    So when MFP connects to fitbit, it adjusts for your activity level? That surprises me, because it starts giving me calories often before I've had enough steps to surpass the "lightly active" level
  • MommaGem2017
    MommaGem2017 Posts: 405 Member
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    My FitBit Charge HR and Charge 2 (I recently switched)calculates my average TDEE at around 2400. At 5'8", 176, and lightly active with no intentional exercise beyond 10k steps - i know that's just not accurate. So right now I've disconnected my Fitbit from MFP and just use it to make sure I always get in my 10000 steps.
  • PennStateChick
    PennStateChick Posts: 327 Member
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    You get different adjustments based on your activity level on myfitnesspal. If I have MFP set to sedentary and walk 10,000+ steps, I get more of an adjustment than if I have MFP set to lightly active.

    I am smaller than your husband, but I've had my account set for sedentary lately and I got 790 calories from exercise yesterday with 16,589 steps. If I was set to lightly active, I probably would have got about 300-400.
  • Polo265
    Polo265 Posts: 287 Member
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    I also have my fitbit set to sedentary and yesterday had 17,360 steps and got an adjustment of 595 exercise calories.
  • Dr_Fishbowl
    Dr_Fishbowl Posts: 42 Member
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    Just going to drop this off here and let everyone come to their own conclusion.
    Fit Bit Fraud Lawsuit
  • JackieMarie1989jgw
    JackieMarie1989jgw Posts: 230 Member
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    PennStateChick wrote: »
    You get different adjustments based on your activity level on myfitnesspal. If I have MFP set to sedentary and walk 10,000+ steps, I get more of an adjustment than if I have MFP set to lightly active.

    I am smaller than your husband, but I've had my account set for sedentary lately and I got 790 calories from exercise yesterday with 16,589 steps. If I was set to lightly active, I probably would have got about 300-400.

    That makes sense, although 900-1000 calories for only 5k steps still seems off, even at sedentary
  • PennStateChick
    PennStateChick Posts: 327 Member
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    JackieMarie1989jgw wrote: »
    PennStateChick wrote: »
    You get different adjustments based on your activity level on myfitnesspal. If I have MFP set to sedentary and walk 10,000+ steps, I get more of an adjustment than if I have MFP set to lightly active.

    I am smaller than your husband, but I've had my account set for sedentary lately and I got 790 calories from exercise yesterday with 16,589 steps. If I was set to lightly active, I probably would have got about 300-400.

    That makes sense, although 900-1000 calories for only 5k steps still seems off, even at sedentary

    Yea, I'm not totally convinced it's 100% accurate. I eat a little more than my 1600 calories a day, but not all. But you also have to realize,at sedentary, mpf is only accounting for like 1000 steps per day.. so by doing 5000, it's basically walking a mile more than you were telling them you would w your activity level. Again, not sure it should be 900-1000 more calories.. but when you think about it that way, you can see why there could be an adjustment.

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