Fitbit users - calorie count.

Fitnessgirl0913 wrote: »

I am 5'5" 26 and ~140, wanting to get down to 135 eventually. My maintenance is somewhere between 1800-1900, still trying to figure it out. But I find I am more consistent with loss when I eat around 1500 (give or take) plus half of my exercise calories, so I thinking to keep myself on sedentary and only eat about 200-250 of my fitbit adjustment calories. The adjustment is just a bit irritating haha.

If you don't like seeing the adjustment un-sync both apps - I know a lot of people who do just that.
So you're talking 1750 cals, that sounds good to me. You'll know in a few weeks if you can adjust your calories up again.

RunRutheeRun wrote: »

Fitnessgirl0913 wrote: »

I am 5'5" 26 and ~140, wanting to get down to 135 eventually. My maintenance is somewhere between 1800-1900, still trying to figure it out. But I find I am more consistent with loss when I eat around 1500 (give or take) plus half of my exercise calories, so I thinking to keep myself on sedentary and only eat about 200-250 of my fitbit adjustment calories. The adjustment is just a bit irritating haha.

If you don't like seeing the adjustment un-sync both apps - I know a lot of people who do just that.
So you're talking 1750 cals, that sounds good to me. You'll know in a few weeks if you can adjust your calories up again.

Yeah I think I will try a couple weeks with only eating half the adjustment while in a deficit and see where I end up and then decide if I want to unlink them. Thanks for all your help I appreciate it!

Fitnessgirl0913 wrote: »

RunRutheeRun wrote: »

Fitnessgirl0913 wrote: »

I am 5'5" 26 and ~140, wanting to get down to 135 eventually. My maintenance is somewhere between 1800-1900, still trying to figure it out. But I find I am more consistent with loss when I eat around 1500 (give or take) plus half of my exercise calories, so I thinking to keep myself on sedentary and only eat about 200-250 of my fitbit adjustment calories. The adjustment is just a bit irritating haha.

If you don't like seeing the adjustment un-sync both apps - I know a lot of people who do just that.
So you're talking 1750 cals, that sounds good to me. You'll know in a few weeks if you can adjust your calories up again.

Yeah I think I will try a couple weeks with only eating half the adjustment while in a deficit and see where I end up and then decide if I want to unlink them. Thanks for all your help I appreciate it!

You're welcome always glad to help.

I actually find my FitBit to be fairly accurate. I can understand the hesitation to trust it. I got mine almost a year ago and had been set to sedentary on MFP because I do work a desk job. Come to find out just my "sedentary desk job" got me enough steps to be moved to lightly active and add on top of that taking my dog for a walk after work at night (which I don't consider purposeful exercise, just another task to be done) and I easily can hit very active.

It took trial and error and meticulously tracking my intake and weight over a set period of time to realize that for me fitbit is quite active. In the winter I change MFP to sedentary since I'm unable to get out most days and walk around like I usually would and in the summer I change it to a higher setting. The number works for me and if anything even FitBit is a bit low at estimating. According to projections from my Fitbit I would maintain around 2200 however, like I said meticulous tracking of my weight and intake on a spreadsheet show closer to 2350 for completely sedentary and much higher when I'm more active.

maybe1pe wrote: »

I actually find my FitBit to be fairly accurate. I can understand the hesitation to trust it. I got mine almost a year ago and had been set to sedentary on MFP because I do work a desk job. Come to find out just my "sedentary desk job" got me enough steps to be moved to lightly active and add on top of that taking my dog for a walk after work at night (which I don't consider purposeful exercise, just another task to be done) and I easily can hit very active.

It took trial and error and meticulously tracking my intake and weight over a set period of time to realize that for me fitbit is quite active. In the winter I change MFP to sedentary since I'm unable to get out most days and walk around like I usually would and in the summer I change it to a higher setting. The number works for me and if anything even FitBit is a bit low at estimating. According to projections from my Fitbit I would maintain around 2200 however, like I said meticulous tracking of my weight and intake on a spreadsheet show closer to 2350 for completely sedentary and much higher when I'm more active.

This is almost exactly me. I was set at Sedentary on MFP because of my desk job, and when I got my FitBit and started seeing large exercise adjustments, I too questioned the accuracy of the tool. But I got the good advice on here that averaging 8-10k steps a day (at the time) wasn't Sedentary, it was lightly active. And when I changed my activity level accordingly, my base cals went up and my adjustments got smaller, bit it was more representative of my actual exercise, which I liked. In spring /summer I average 14-16k steps a day, but this winter I've been struggling to hit 12k steps. It's fine, my cal adjustments are smaller and with negative adjustments enabled I know that even if I'm ill, or on a long road trip, then the systems will keep my calories in check.

Mine is synched with my cronometer which has an option for "in a coma" vs sedentary so I eat back every last one; no issues lol

As multiple sources and studies can attest the activity level associated with 10K steps is generally called active.

Whether your steps were generated via deliberate exercise or not they still require a caloric expenditure.

Yes, deliberate exercise steps one to one spend more calories than incidental ones do. It still doesn't change the fact that for most people 10K steps is associated with an active activity level.

Your own food logging and whether your BMR is as predicted or an outlier has as much to do with whether you can eat those calories as anything else.

That is why the suggestion is to go with what Fitbit and mfp recommend and adjust after 4 to 6 weeks based on your trending weight results (you do use trendweight or a different trending weight app to gauge your weight level, don't you? ) especially if you're setup to lose at a good clip, or if you're trying to maintain, both cases where being slightly off will not impact too badly on final results.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14715035/

Based on currently available evidence, we propose the following preliminary indices be used to classify pedometer-determined physical activity in healthy adults: (i). <5000 steps/day may be used as a 'sedentary lifestyle index'; (ii). 5000-7499 steps/day is typical of daily activity excluding sports/exercise and might be considered 'low active'; (iii). 7500-9999 likely includes some volitional activities (and/or elevated occupational activity demands) and might be considered 'somewhat active'; and (iv). >or=10000 steps/day indicates the point that should be used to classify individuals as 'active'. Individuals who take >12500 steps/day are likely to be classified as 'highly active'.

MFP has one less setting available and so the area between lightly active and active is slightly blurred, but 10k is well beyond any blurring!

Generally I find that 14 to 16k steps exhausts mfp's very active level and more calories have to be added after that.

For those who are willing to look things up even more, MFP activity factors are 1.25, 1.4, 1.6, and 1.8 since deliberate exercise is supposed to be added on top.

Because of the way that integration Works between mfp and Fitbit, the calculation is finalized at midnight. If you're not very active in the late evening, you will "lose" Fitbit calories heading towards midnight. The higher your activity level on mfp the higher the loss.

Most people prefer to have higher positive adjustments and not to have to deal with large late night reductions if not active at night, others, such as myself, prefer to start with a higher activity level and allotment on mfp.

I used scooby's calculator and then updated the TDEE in my fitbit to match, and also measured my stride walking and running. The combination of those changes have made the fitbit data much more accurate.

Marilyn0924 wrote: »

I used scooby's calculator and then updated the TDEE in my fitbit to match, and also measured my stride walking and running. The combination of those changes have made the fitbit data much more accurate.

How do you update your TDEE in fitbit? Doesn't it just automatically calculate depending on your activity?