I haven't been using mine but I've just resynced it etc and ready to go!

Set myself some goals on the dashboard, looked back at the past and when I was hitting 7000 steps a day my TDEE was 2150!

So thats my new goal, everyday :-)

What I would like to know is how will you use your Fitbit on EMTWL.

If I do 7,500 steps - my calorie burn in 24 hours is around 2150.

If I multiply that by 7, and add on the calorie burn from my workouts (I wear a HRM), then deduct the amount I'm eating (1950) it leaves me with a deficit of 400 a day. This is higher than Scooby thinks I'm doing. It could also mean that on exercise days I'm below my BMR, as normally I just watch my exercise calories - but if I'm doing that much movement, that in itself is clearly burning calories if its taking me 150 calories higher than Scooby thinks I would do.

Hope that makes sense!

Since my HRM exercises are logged on MFP and then synced to Fitbit I didn't add those workouts to my TDEE. I think the problem is if you add it it may lead to double counting (say you exercised from 07h00 to 08h00 one day, then Fitbit would have also calculated your BMR and movement for that period, maybe not as much as the HRM if the activity was lifting, but still). That's one of the reasons I prefer syncing as Fitbit then replaces its own count for the time period with what you logged on MFP.

But the rest of your method is the same as what I did. Only I used a longer time period (about two months' worth of data) to calculate my average TDEE for the period.

Regarding netting below BMR, I only deduct real exercise from my calorie consumption to check what I am nettng. But that is just how it made sense to me, not based on anything factual.

So did you decide on your TDEE cut from 2 months worth of data, rather than by using Scooby? x

100%. Scooby is a generic estimate but my Fitbit data is specific to me

Sounds like you have worked out a method that will work well for you!

Really helpful email I got from MFP support re: fit bit sync etc..


Hi,

You burn a fair number of calories over the course of the day just by sustaining your normal bodily functions. Our estimate for how many calories you will burn is based on your weight, age, gender, and the activity level you report in your profile. From this, we subtract an amount of calories so that you will be at a deficit every day if you eat your calorie goal. Thus, you will lose weight because your body will need to burn some of its stored fat to make up the difference. We show this goal as your NetCalorie goal, and you are essentially counting down to zero from this goal, every time you log food that you've eaten.

If you log exercise, this represents EXTRA burned calories that our estimate of your normal activity has not accounted for. Because our goal is to keep you at a steady, healthy, sustainable amount of weight loss, you "earn back" these exercise calories as additional calories to eat. Exercising is like making a deposit in your calorie account. You make the withdrawal by eating. Because our initial calculation ALREADY puts you in a weight loss deficit, eating "back" the calories you exercised will not slow your weight loss, but it will nourish your body which is depleted after burning the extra calories. So, your calorie goal on our site starts at a number that counts down to zero as you eat, but exercise that you record pushes that number back up a bit, so that you don't undernourish your body.

The Fitbit site counts UP from zero, as it calculates how many calories you have burned over the course of a day. If, when our two sites compare their information, it seems that you are being more active on a given day than our general estimate takes into account, you "earn" those extra calories as well. Again, the goal here is to keep you at a healthy, steady calorie deficit. The relationship between our site and the Fitbit site takes into account any exercise you record. If, beyond our initial estimate of your calorie goal, and the exercise you log, the Fitbit shows that you are being more active than we expected, then you earn those extra calories back. The way our site accounts for this is to add JUST the difference in calories to your exercise diary as a "Fitbit Calorie Adjustment"

Because our site is counting down from a goal number to zero, and the fitbit.com site is counting UP from zero, you will never actually see, on our site, the number of calories that you see on the Fitbit site. What you will see is the anticipated DIFFERENCE between what you're burning in Fitbit's tracking of your movement, and what we expected you to burn based on our estimate, recorded as an exercise. The adjustment represents our projection of your calorie adjustment for the entire remainder of the day. As you are more or less active, the adjustment will become more precise. We base the projection on your activity level early in the day, and "assume" you will be "as active" the rest of the day. If this proves not to be the case based on later updates from the Fitbit device, we'll raise or lower your adjustment to fine tune it.

If you look back through your exercise diary pages, you will likely see some days in which a Fitbit calorie adjustment has been added, and others when it has not. The days where the adjustment appears will be the days that you were more active than usual, apart from any exercise that you logged as such using the MFP site.

Please note that the Fitbit integration can only ADD calories to your daily need, so it may be necessary to lower your MFP profile's activity level one notch or more, to give the Fitbit "elbow room" to do its work.

It is important to be sure that your profile information on our site and the fitbit.com site matches, in terms of your height, weight, age, gender, etc. so that the Fitbit is calculating your caloric burn as accurately as possible.

Let us know if that helps. Feel free to contact us if you have any other problems or questions. We wish you all the success in reaching and maintaining all of your diet and fitness goals

yep I'm loving it... I've had a week of rest (no gym) and currently my average cut (I'm using -250kcal) is bigger than the tdee of strenuous exercise scooby gave me... and previously I was using moderate activity and trying to cut... no wonder I cut caving in to spike days... I am loving this... finally I can see that I'm not greedy or lacking self control... I have just been eating too too little even at 2000 kcal a day... now I'm on 2250 approx perday on rest so looking forward to a big dinner tomorrow as its my first day back at the gym so reakon ill be hitting 2500 or so!! :-) yummmmmmmy