Calories burned since losing weight...

[scarletrose]

Hi everyone

I'm not sure if this is the right section of the forum to put this in so I apologise in advance if it is.

Since getting my first fitbit back in March 2016 I have been mainly keeping track of my calories, I calculated my BMR which was in the 1800s at the time, and even though I wasn't really "exercising" I was easily getting between 2000-2500 burned by the time midnight rolled around.

A few months ago I hit a plateau and decided to recalculate my calories as I was putting it off, so I checked out my new BMR which is now in the 1700s and figured out I was eating the exact same amount as I naturally burned which explained the plateau.. but now I'm kind of confused because my fitbit is still saying I'm still burning between 2000-2500 calories a day even though I'm not doing anything extra than I was before.

Can someone please explain to me why this is?

[Esya]

What type of tracker do you have? If it is not HR enabled it will determine your calories burned based on the amount of steps you take, not taking into account you got more fit and are burning less while doing the same activities compared to a year ago.

[scarletrose]

In the beginning I had the Charge and recently swapped to the Alta, neither with HR.

I know fitbit has recalculated my BMR after logging in my weight loss because when I wake up I haven't burned as much as I used to through the night but I also thought that it would recalculate my normal day to day life as well, that's why I have been confused about it

[Dominique]

Yes, if you updated your weight in your Fitbit account, Fitbit will update your BMR accordingly. Even if your weight remained the same, your BMR will also change a little bit as time goes by (though the impact on BMR of being one year older is minimal). And when BMR changes, so does the rate at which you expend energy through activity (whether it’s formal exercise or informal activity, NEAT). 

[scarletrose]

Thanks for that Dominique.

I did a bit of research about it and could it be that fitbit is also taking in my activity level - sedentary, lightly active etc depending on what I do throughout the day? I found a BMR equation that also included factoring in that and mine was just over 2000 for a sedentary day and 2300 for a lightly active day.

[Dominique]

Yes, if you wear your Fitbit 24/7, it takes into account everything: BMR, formal activity, NEAT, so unlike with calculators, you don’t have to decide whether you’re sedentary, lightly active, moderately active etc. If you have a low activity day, it will be reflected through calories reported as burned. Same if you have a high activity day: more calories will be reported as burned. You can of course compare the numbers reported by Fitbit to what you would get with the standard activity levels of online calculators, for instance this one. It’s possible your Fitbit over- or underestimate your energy expenditure, but even if it does so, it should be by a constant factor. One way to find out is if you log your food and weigh yourself regularly: comparing your weight change over time (you would need a long enough period, at least several weeks) to the calculated deficit would tell you whether the energy expenditure estimated by Fitbit is on point or not.