Trying to understand daily calories

[EarthLuxe]

I'm new to Fitbit and have a question about total daily calories.  I'm a 57 yr. old moderately active woman.  My goal weight is 120.  Other sites tell me that I should multiply my goal weight by 12-15 calories to figure out my ideal total daily calories, which would put me between 1,440 to 1,800 calories a day.  Why is my Fitbit daily calorie only 985?  (Yesterday it was even lower, somewhere in the high 800s!)   Is this based on calories in/calories out?  Logging in my meals today, I see that I'm already over my daily total, and it isn't even dinner yet (yikes!)  Btw, I logged over 15,800 steps on Tuesday, over 10k steps yesterday and I'm over 6k so far today and also went to the gym and did weights and elliptical today.  I've also lost about 2 lbs. which puts me just 8 lbs. away from my goal.  What exactly is this figure of 985 for total daily calories?

[MarciM]

Hi @EarthLuxe, Welcome to the forums. Calories in and out can be confusing. You can set your calories goal for in and out, and then track your food to see how you are doing. The key to this is to remember you burn calories all day long and thus your calories out increased as the day goes by, thus there may be times during the day when you have taken in more calories than you have put out, but if you keep moving throughout the day, it will balance out. For example if you have a high calorie breakfast first thing in the morning, you will likely have more calories in than out, but that might be your plan, eat higher calories in the morning, lower calorie meals later in the day. 

Does that help?

[EarthLuxe]

Thanks Marci.  Is there a way to instead just set a daily calorie goal?  I find it rather discouraging which makes me less likely to log in everything I eat.  I guess it's because I used to use a different tracker that showed me a total daily calorie goal vs. calories in/calories out.

[MarciM]

How does it look at the end of the day? Are you balancing so your intake is less than your output? 

[EarthLuxe]

I've only been entering for 3 days.  The first day it balanced, but then yesterday I didn't finish logging in my meals.  We'll see what happens today.  I was very active on the first day, moderately active yesterday and today.  I also have a higher than average metabolism, so I feel as long as I am losing weight slow  and steady I'm good. 

[MarciM · Accepted solution]

Congrats on the weight loss. Given tracking a few more days and keep me posted. Happy to help anyway I can. 

[EarthLuxe]

Thanks again for your help and encouragement.  I figured out what's wrong.  Fitbit dashboard did not synch my steps yesterday and today.  It's shows zero steps yesterday even though I walked over 10k steps, and today it's showing around 1,900 steps, when I've actually done over 7k so far.  That will explain the calories in/calories out deficit.