Daily steps and calories

I eat them back and have lost pretty consistently. Some days that's my only form of exercise but I'm set to sedentary so I like all of the extra calories I can get.

Be sure to have negative calorie adjustments enabled as well.

By choosing an activity level, your calorie goal is taking into account the expected burn for that level each day. If you don’t reach it, the app will adjust your intake down for the day to compensate if you have negative adjustments enabled.

My preference is to set to sedentary and eat back a portion of my exercise calories I get from my Fitbit activity. There are many here who do it the other way and have success. It likely depends on how much variance you have in your activity level from day to day. If you’re very consistent, your current approach is likely great, as it can help you plan your intake. For me, it varies quite a bit based on work, kids’ activities, etc., so I like to plan conservatively and “earn” the free exercise calories as I go. It’s what has worked for me, but different strokes, etc., etc..

If you change your approach, give a few weeks before re-adjustment to see if you’re on the pace that you can accept and is reasonable for the amount you have to lose.

clobern80 wrote: »

It is generally best practice to put your MFP activity to sedentary and let your watch add up how active you are. I am not positive, but I think the same thing happens even if you are set to lightly active or active, you just get fewer calories from your watch (due to having extra calories due to your active setting).

Nothing is 100% accurate with calories so you just have to work with what you have and find out what works for you. Many will swear that you have to eat your calories back completely while others swear to eat NONE of them. I tend to find that it is best to start with eating back 50% of the excess calories you gain for a week or 2 and see what happens. If you are losing too fast, eat back a little more until you find that sweet spot. If you are losing too slow or actually gaining, then eat less until you find that spot. Everyone is different so you want to find what works for you.

I don't agree that this is best practice at all. I can't tell you how many new FitBit users I've seen on these boards who automatically distrust the adjustments they are seeing because they've chosen sedentary for their activity level when they are averaging 8K-12K or even more steps/day which is NOT Sedentary. Because the adjustments are large, they think they shouldn't be eating back those calories, and then end up underfueling their activity level which makes it difficult to sustain - a self fulfilling prophecy.

For me, getting the activity level more representative of my true activity, and enabling negative calorie adjustments, meant that I had a higher baseline calorie target, which enabled me to plan my calories appropriately, and then the adjustments from MFP became more representative of my true exercise above and beyond the day to day activity I get from running around after small children, running errands, etc.

Also trusting and eating back the full adjustments worked for me while losing and still works for me in maintenance. I do agree with the advice to monitor and adjust based on actual results.

Okay I'm trying to lose weight and it's been hard, so can y'all help me out I'm new to this and my doctor told me about this app.

i also set it to sedentary and let garmin sort it out. somedays i get less than 5k steps, another day 36k

clobern80 wrote: »

Okay, I apologize for the "best practice" statement. I know that it works best for me and I know many who do the same. It is easier for me to start from 0 and move up rather than get those extra calories from setting it to active and maybe/maybe not making it to that level. Personal preference, then

It is best if someone can't figure out how to handle the adjustment that comes the day after, and you go to bed or hit the couch/chair for TV/computer time early in evening.

Really - either you figure out pretty quick what the daily burn is going to be and plan appropriately, or
You figure out pretty quick what that next day removal of calories is going to be and plan appropriately.

Because if you have your MFP level set to Active, and hit the couch at 7pm and try to have your goal eaten by then - the next day there is going to be 5 hrs that MFP figured your burn rate as BMR x 1.6.
But Fitbit is going to sync the next morning and inform MFP it was only BMR level.
You'll lose calories, and you ate well over your goal.

But if that is normal night time hours - you can plan on leaving about the same number of calories in the green, so when removed you'll be close to actually having eaten to goal.

Then if your daily activity calories fluctuate all over - you can have those amounts not so much in mind.

@alid8333 - of course those 1200 calories was ONLY if you did no exercise and were truly sedentary for that day.
In other words - it would likely rarely if ever be only eating 1200. Just as you'll discover it'll infrequently be only 1470 calories.

Those adjustments based on just the increased daily activity - is merely MFP correcting itself to almost infinite levels - rather than just the 4 you could choose from.

Think of it this way if concerned about eating those back - what if MFP had extra levels and you selected the correct one, and got no adjustments, those extra calories were just built into the base calories.
Would you still trust MFP then?
Trust what it's trying to do now.

As long as your average daily pace distance has been confirmed against a known distance walk (not grocery store shuffle, not exercise level pace), then likely nothing to fear.
Well, unless you drive a truck and get 15K extra steps from vibrations.