Should I try to be in the zone throughout the day?

[jhunt]

Or is that just something that is meant to be looked at at the end of the day? ie, does it constantly calculate how many calories I should be consuming at different points of the day so that my body is able to be efficient?

[SunsetRunner]

@jhunt it's up to you.  If you know roughly how many calories you are going to burn that day, less your caloric deficit you selected, then you can ignore the tile about being in the zone.  For instance if you ate a large breakfast (1,000 calories) but plan on eating light for lunch & dinner then the tile will say over in the morning but you know you will burn calories to be under or in the zone later in the day.  And yes, my understanding of that tile is it is calculating whether you are "under" "in the zone" or "over" at the specific time you are looking at the dashboard or app.

[trainer]

I think fitbit is giving us several ways to think of this. You pick which one makes most sense to you. I personally only pay attention to calories in/calories out. I intentionally plan to end up about 700 calories negative at the end of the day. Thoughout the day I check to make sure I am moving enough to stay ahead of my intake and I adjust my intake to stay 700 behind my activity.

[Heybales]

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@jhunt wrote:

Or is that just something that is meant to be looked at at the end of the day? ie, does it constantly calculate how many calories I should be consuming at different points of the day so that my body is able to be efficient?

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I think most find that Zone tile to be about totally useless.

It is merely this is how much you burned so far, and this is how much you ate, how close are they.

Well who in the world has their day match up that nicely all day, perhaps if viewed near end of day fine, but otherwise, good grief. And for end of day, there's your tile regarding food eating goals anyway to reach goal, so why would zone be useful at that point.

I think it was one of those silly ideas that was easily implemented since not much math, and just kept.

Because even if useful, it should be a % of your calorie level, not a set calorie amount it is. 50 calories for someone eating 1400 is very different than someone eating 2400.