Maintaining with mfp and fitbit vs applewatch

Mslmesq
Mslmesq Posts: 1,001 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
Hi all. I’m in maintenance and I count my steps. I lost weight using mfp set to zero activity, and then let my fitbit ad on extra calories. It seemed to work very well and was pretty accurate to my body for how many calories I expended vs took in.

For xmas i got an apple watch se. I really like the features. EXCEPT the steps counting with mfp. It seems really off. For example, on an equal steps day fitbit woukd have added on about 300-350 calories extra for me to eat. Whereas my apple watch added on 26. That is a huge difference for me especially since I’m short and mfp in maintenance only gives me 1200ish calories a day. So I rely on knowing my sreps to bump it up to 1500-1800 depending on how active I have been. The apple watch looks like I will be guessing.

Any thoughts on this and how to correct it. Or others that have had this comparison and how they went about it. Or maybe returning the apple watch for something else.....albeit I have an iphone and really do like the watch. And really don’t want to wear both devices at the same time. Meh.

Anyways, woukd love any input. Thanks.

Replies

  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,779 Member
    You have to connect your watch to pacer ap. Watch doesn’t synchronize to MFP directly like Fitbit
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited January 2021
    Ditto's to above.

    Your Fitbit sent a figure for Total Daily Calories burned. TDEE, what all the trackers are supposed to send.
    Total meant total, includes workouts, extra activity, and base calories.
    MFP took that total, minus what it estimated you'd burn with no exercise at your selected activity level and any workouts logged - the difference was added (or subtracted if less active) to your eating goal.
    That kept your deficit for weight loss the same no matter what.
    Fitbit say 2500 that included a 250 workout in it - 2000 MFP sedentary = 500 cal adjustment. (so 250 is workout, 250 is extra activity)
    Base eating 1500 + 500 = 2000.
    500 cal deficit still. Brilliant!

    Apple sends for what is expected as your TDEE, your Sedentary base burn calories, pretty close to what MFP already has as sedentary.
    Totally hoses up the math, because they do send workouts over.
    And nothing about the extra Active calories above sedentary but not part of workouts.
    Apple 2000 - 2000 MFP - 250 workout sent over = neg 250
    Base eating 1500 + 250 workout - 250 adj = 1500.
    1000 cal deficit now, when you wanted only 500 to support a good workout and reasonable fat-only loss say.

    And the more exercise you do, and the more active you are daily - the worse the effect, the bigger the unintended deficit. Which is completely **s-backwards when doing more.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    To add - is your daily life changing now that you have an iWatch?

    You have known maintenance figure for days with no workouts perhaps, just your increased daily activity.
    Keep an eye on what Apple says you burn in total, and see if eating that much.
    Don't sync them.
  • Mslmesq
    Mslmesq Posts: 1,001 Member
    heybales wrote: »
    To add - is your daily life changing now that you have an iWatch?

    You have known maintenance figure for days with no workouts perhaps, just your increased daily activity.
    Keep an eye on what Apple says you burn in total, and see if eating that much.
    Don't sync them.

    Not, not really. But I have re-entered maintenance mode again fairly recently, and guess I’m still a little gun shy of not having accurate stats until I make sure maintaining is in place for a while.
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    I have used an Apple Watch for years with MFP (used to use a Fitbit). And yes it did change my life. I spent less time in the phone and love the Stand and Breathe reminders.
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,779 Member
    @Mslmesq with maintenance I choose to eat to a certain TDEE level vs following day in day out fluctuations. It keeps me a lot saner. On your Iphone if you go to Apple Health you can see you active energy and resting energy trends/data and use that to calculate what your total TDEE is. You also know what you were eating to lose weight so that should give you an idea of what your maintenance calories are. I disconnected the step function and don't track exercise cals here. Between Fitbit and Apple watch I will say that fitbit tended to inflate my cals more than the watch does but everyone is unique so you need to track your data individually and that will give you an idea of how to maintain and how to "maintain" maintaining because honestly it changes over time. I thought my TDEE would be around 1850 when I started in 2017 but it is closer to 2100 now and most of that is not intentional exercise but just being more active in general. AnnPt has a thread about that somewhere here which is really good as well. Best of luck and enjoy the watch. It's really been fun for me not to be chained to my phone all the time also!

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