Fitbit adds calories, then takes them away!
gailstockford
Posts: 4 Member
I’m confused! If I walk more than 10k steps according to my Fitbit, mfp adds calories ‘earned’ to my exercise. However, I notice that later in the evenings the number of additional calories reduces (not because I have eaten them!) and i don’t understand why. There have been a couple of days where this has resulted in me appearing to go over my calorie allowance. I’ve been using the app for 3 weeks and lost 7lbs so happy with my progress so far.
Can anybody explain?
Can anybody explain?
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Replies
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What's your activity level on MFP?0
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I have claimed ‘Active’ - I’m retired but swim daily and do a lot of walking. I don’t go to the gym though.0
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Looks like @NorthCascades is away, but if I understand correctly, if your Fitbit detects that you have not been as active as you've indicated by your activity setting, it will take away calories for the day. So right after you exercise, it may add calories, because you've done more than expected at that point, but then if the rest of your day is more sedentary, it will progressively subtract them.8
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On MFP, your activity setting doesn't include purposeful exercise. If you adjust your activity setting to reflect your normal daily activity, your Fitbit should just add calories for everything above & beyond that & not take them away.3
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Fitbit tracks actual burn while mfp assumes your burn based on activity level.
Mfp cannot factor that you burn more some hours than others. If it expects you to burn 1800 per day then it figures 75 per hour. But that includes basic daily movements and your burn rate goes down when you are done for the day. If your BMI is 60 then you only burn that once you go to bed.
Each time you sync mfp compares actual from Fitbit to its own expectations. Difference is your adjustment.
Your adjustment will always drop at night unless you maintain some level of activity til midnight.8 -
StaciMarie2020 wrote: »Fitbit tracks actual burn while mfp assumes your burn based on activity level.
Mfp cannot factor that you burn more some hours than others. If it expects you to burn 1800 per day then it figures 75 per hour. But that includes basic daily movements and your burn rate goes down when you are done for the day. If your BMI is 60 then you only burn that once you go to bed.
Each time you sync mfp compares actual from Fitbit to its own expectations. Difference is your adjustment.
Your adjustment will always drop at night unless you maintain some level of activity til midnight.
wow. Awesome explanation.
What happens if you take your watch off overnight to charge? Does it count that as inactivity or as 'no data'?0 -
@try2again thanks - would you suggest I change my activity level - it sounds as though I may have overestimated my activity. I appreciate this will result in a reduction in my calorie allowance?0
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Looks like @NorthCascades is away, but if I understand correctly, if your Fitbit detects that you have not been as active as you've indicated by your activity setting, it will take away calories for the day. So right after you exercise, it may add calories, because you've done more than expected at that point, but then if the rest of your day is more sedentary, it will progressively subtract them.
I think this is what's going on.0 -
gailstockford wrote: »@try2again thanks - would you suggest I change my activity level - it sounds as though I may have overestimated my activity. I appreciate this will result in a reduction in my calorie allowance?
I have myself listed as sedentary. I ride a bike 3 to 4 thousand miles a year, and last winter I skied 550 miles. I've done two 30 mile day hikes this summer. But I have a desk job. And more to the point, I find the adjustments you're seeing somewhat confusing and very unhelpful. Plus it makes more sense to me to just assume the bare minimum, but change it upward when I burn more energy. That just fits my view of how things should work.4 -
gailstockford wrote: »@try2again thanks - would you suggest I change my activity level - it sounds as though I may have overestimated my activity. I appreciate this will result in a reduction in my calorie allowance?
I have my activity level set at the lowest, despite the fact that I rarely do less than 15,000 steps a day. I do this because I prefer to have calories added, without losing so many in the last few hours of the day. Others prefer to have their activity level set closer to what they actually do. You just have to do what works best for you.4 -
I also use a Fitbit and I also set my activity level to sedentary. With this it makes it easier for me because I will only see the calories increase as I move throughout the day - at the same time, once you've done this for a while you get a good sense for what your average allowed calories will be for a typical day so that makes it easier to know where you stand as well.1
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If you get more of your steps in teh morning, your fitbit is projecting your calories burned throughout the day asssuming the current average will be your daily average. If your steps throughout the day are not even, you will see a range of adjustments. This is particularly prevalent for folks who exercise in the morning. I find picking the activity setting that is just below where you are works best. My activity falls just below lightly active most days, but I prefer positive adjustment so I set myself to sedentary and get extra calories during my day. If you are close to active right now, then stepping one level down to lightly active might be better for you psychologically.3
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Fitbit doesn't need long charging if you do it daily, I charge it while I'm in the shower, dressing etc. I prefer to keep in on at night as I'm not a great sleeper and I find the sleep analysis useful.
I also have negative adjustments disabled or it steals calories from me if I have a duvet day 😊0 -
FitBit syncs with MFP throughout the day and adjusts every time based on the ebbs and flow of your activity. If you are more active earlier in the day it may project a higher total daily burn than what ends up coming to fruition.
This used to frustrate me as well until I started tracking the data more closely and now I know that depending what time I go to bed, I may see a downward adjustment of 20-100 calories so I try to leave a buffer.
I also have negative calories enabled (and recommend you do as well) so that when I wake up I am in the red for the day but as it goes on the adjustment turns positive. This is especially helpful for days when you end up being less active than MFP would expect based on your activity level.
I’m also a proponent of choosing an activity level in line with your typical activity - if you average 10k steps I wouldn’t go with sedentary I also would choose lightly active or active but a lot of people do stick with sedentary for their baseline.2 -
Thanks everyone - I have changed my activity level to sedentary (which resulted in a 100 calorie reduction in my daily allowance) and will see how my activity affects additional calories.2
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If you get more of your steps in teh morning, your fitbit is projecting your calories burned throughout the day asssuming the current average will be your daily average. If your steps throughout the day are not even, you will see a range of adjustments. This is particularly prevalent for folks who exercise in the morning. I find picking the activity setting that is just below where you are works best. My activity falls just below lightly active most days, but I prefer positive adjustment so I set myself to sedentary and get extra calories during my day. If you are close to active right now, then stepping one level down to lightly active might be better for you psychologically.
This actually isn't how it works. If you put yourself as very active because you get 15,000 steps a day MFP will calculate that every single hour you will do 625 steps, including when you are asleep. If you get less than this your adjustment will decrease your calories, if you do more it will increase them. How active you were in the morning is irrelevant to these calculations.0 -
Most of the explanations are dead on. What's important to realize is that Fitbit is not doing anything other than reporting calories burned to a particular point of time and MFP is the one doing the reconciling with what it expects you to have burned to that point and to continue burning to end of day.
Negative calories should be enabled if you want to actually make use of the Fitbit estimate.
Regardless of activity level chosen complete inactivity will result in negative adjustments. Mfp base level is BMR * 1.25 for sedentary. Fitbit's base level is BMR * 1 for no detection.1 -
It is worth noting that unless you sync at 11:59 pm - the last adjustment you see 'today' will decrease slightly when you log in 'tomorrow' and check the prior day's history unless you are particularly active at night. It will be more if your last login 'today' is early (say 5pm) vs late (say 10pm).
Just be in the habit of leaving some of your adjustment calories 'on the table'.2 -
Most of the explanations are dead on. What's important to realize is that Fitbit is not doing anything other than reporting calories burned to a particular point of time and MFP is the one doing the reconciling with what it expects you to have burned to that point and to continue burning to end of day.
Negative calories should be enabled if you want to actually make use of the Fitbit estimate.
Regardless of activity level chosen complete inactivity will result in negative adjustments. Mfp base level is BMR * 1.25 for sedentary. Fitbit's base level is BMR * 1 for no detection.
So if I don't enable negative calorie adjustments the estimates will be inaccurate? I currently don't have them enabled because I regularly get 4,000+ steps a day and my activity is set to Sedentary. I suppose on sick days I will enable them. What is your advice?0 -
And to the above point, if you always end your active day about the same time hitting the couch, dinner, bed - then about the same number of hours of Fitbit reporting BMR level burn the next day will occur, and about the same level of correction the next day.
Just get that figure down and plan on that much left in the green uneaten.
Same way if most days are about as active, you'll learn what the adjustment above sedentary level will be and can plan your meals accordingly - or leave it all to a dinner/snack adjustment.
The other compounding effect is the accounts only sync over when the calories are 100 higher than last sync, and at BMR rate of burn that is over 1 hour of time - so you could have some just bad timing of checking final day's goals right before a sync correction is about to occur and update them.
But you'll get that average end of day correction down.3 -
If you don't have negative calories enabled and you're constantly seeing 0 as an adjustment: your Fitbit says you are burning less than what MFP expects based on your stated activity level. You should move more.
If you don't have negatives enabled and you DON'T see 0 adjustment - instead you get a higher number - then you're fine.
The negative ONLY matters if your true activity level (according to Fitbit's measurement of your burn all day) is lower/less active than what MFP expects.
As to why you may be less active some days, use your own judgement. If you're sick for example - your body may need the extra nutrition to combat whatever it is that has you ill.Most of the explanations are dead on. What's important to realize is that Fitbit is not doing anything other than reporting calories burned to a particular point of time and MFP is the one doing the reconciling with what it expects you to have burned to that point and to continue burning to end of day.
Negative calories should be enabled if you want to actually make use of the Fitbit estimate.
Regardless of activity level chosen complete inactivity will result in negative adjustments. Mfp base level is BMR * 1.25 for sedentary. Fitbit's base level is BMR * 1 for no detection.
So if I don't enable negative calorie adjustments the estimates will be inaccurate? I currently don't have them enabled because I regularly get 4,000+ steps a day and my activity is set to Sedentary. I suppose on sick days I will enable them. What is your advice?
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Ditto to above for why no Neg Cal enabled.
Part of what I've seen people use it for - they know they desire a minimum amount to eat in day - they'll have problems adhering if attempting less.
So they don't even try. They are willing to accept less deficit on those days.
And as mentioned above - they may know that low level of activity only occurs when not feeling well, so they know they may need the smaller deficit on those days anyway to not add extra stress to an already stressed body.
Or they kept their activity level above sedentary, so they could get a bigger deficit enabled fully (higher daily burn allows bigger deficit for some before hitting 1200/1500).
And they know that deficit is a tad unreasonable - too big. For day after day.
So on days of less activity and no negative - they get less deficit.
When you understand what's going on - you can tweak several things to assist making a plan work for you and be reasonable.2
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