FitBit and MFP

donjtomasco
donjtomasco Posts: 790 Member
edited December 23 in Getting Started
It seems less complicated and easier to set my goal settings at SEDENTARY with my weight loss goal per week, then I can simply subtract what FitBit tells me my calories burned throughout the day are.

I am worried about what I have read others say about sync'ing not being real time, or other variables that keep real time CICO from being dependable.

Is this the most accurate way to figure my CICO while keeping my FITBIT separate from MFP and simply not sync it? I am very worried about starting the sync then all hell breaks loose and my numbers are not real time, and that puts my stress level at an 11 on the 1-10 scale.

Thank you!

Replies

  • Danp
    Danp Posts: 1,561 Member
    For quite a long time that sounds similar to what I was doing.

    I had very uneven activity during the week ranging from being chair-locked all day to running from one end of the city to the other between meetings. This made picking an activity level quite difficult as the ratio of active:sedentary days would differ greatly each week. So I set my level to sedentary and let my step counter credit me with additional calories when it was warranted.

    This worked for a while but eventually the unreliability of step calories (both in recording steps as well as the calorie algorithm) became too much so I stopped using this method. Luckily by that stage I had been at this long enough that I had developed a good gauge of roughly how many extra calories my various daily activity levels would allow.

    From there I've made adjustments based on my own personal data. As I've lost weight and my progress would slow down this would clue me in that I probably needed to ratchet down my activity calories a little.
  • StaciMarie2020
    StaciMarie2020 Posts: 68 Member
    edited September 2019
    I say figure out what works for you. Personally I've done this enough to know about how many calories per day I need, and I check my Fitbit here & there for calories burned to make sure my food plan for the day is appropriate. (Pre-logging food can help with that also. So you have an idea of what calories you're having when.)

    I do not log food at Fitbit. But I do have my Fitbit profile set to lose .5 pounds per week. When I check the Fitbit app early in the day and it tells me something like I can eat 1111 calories for the day - I know I need to move more! I generally want that # in Fitbit to say I have 1500-1600 for the day allowed.
  • MsHarryWinston
    MsHarryWinston Posts: 1,027 Member
    I set my activity at sedentary, link my Fitbit, and then eat back my exercise calories (or bank some) day by day. This just seemed like the easiest way, because some weekends I just spend the entire day in bed watching Netflix, and others I can rack up over 2,000 in burned calories from my workouts. I like having my calories be “Base + bonus”. I can meal prep for my base as a constant, and then, woo hoo extra Doritos!
  • dietnowcuddles
    dietnowcuddles Posts: 4 Member
    Hi how do u bank excersise calories for the wkend for example
  • RetiredAndLovingIt
    RetiredAndLovingIt Posts: 1,395 Member
    I set mine to lightly active because I hate having a big adjustment when I am ready for bed. I would rather have them earlier in the day & usually I am close at the end of the day (unless I have totally went over on my calories!)
  • MsHarryWinston
    MsHarryWinston Posts: 1,027 Member
    dietnowcuddles wrote: »
    Hi how do u bank excersise calories for the wkend for example

    Say on Tuesday you work out and burn 200 calories. You decide you don’t want to eat back the 200 exercise calories on Tuesday and instead eat n extra 200 calories on Saturday. Yes, your Saturday will say -200, but your Tuesday also says +200. That equals 0, it’s all balanced out.

    You have the ability to look at your calories in Week View. And you can even change the week end date. So I go to my “nutrition” screen under extras , go week view. Change date to make my week end on the upcoming Saturday. My work week starts on Sunday so I track my calories weekly Sunday through Saturday.

    This will even show you your daily average across the week. So say you go way over one day, and your daily goal is 1600 calories. It shows you that spread over the week your still at 1650 per day so you didn’t do as much “damage” as you thought.
  • StaciMarie2020
    StaciMarie2020 Posts: 68 Member
    dietnowcuddles wrote: »
    Hi how do u bank excersise calories for the wkend for example

    Its kind of a manual thing. You could enter a snack item like 'banked calories 150' in today's log and know you plan to eat those on Saturday.
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