confused about calorie goals on fitbit ionic

[jlhiglen]

I'm very confused about the goals set by this watch.   I'm 5'3" and 161lbs.  It calculates my BMR at 1386.  I entered all of my data and found that it set my calories burned goal to 2700.  Then it set my calories eaten to something like 950-1000 (it changed a few times).  None of this makes any sense to me.  If my BMR is 1386, that should be my minimum calories eaten goal.  you know...to survive?  and it should go up from there as I burn calories throughout the day above my BMR.  But why on earth should I need to burn 2700 calories in a day?  Shouldn't I just need to have a 500 calories defectit per day to lose a lb a week?  If I need 1384 calories per day to survive, then I should eat 1384 calories and aim to burn roughly 1900, correct?  What am I missing or not understanding about these goals? 

Also, I entered my goals in the "nutrition and body" section and nothing changed to the calories burned goal.  In fact, I'm not sure what that section really does or how it works to helo me reach my goal.  Any advice or explanation to these 2 issues would be greatly appreciated.

Moderator Edit: Word Choice

[SantiR]

@jlhiglen Welcome to the Fitbit Community! Thanks for your question about the calorie goal.

Have you double checked if your personal stats are correct? Check on your dashboard and confirm just to make sure that is not influencing what your dashboard is calculating.

Also, thanks for entering your goals in the Nutrition and Body sections of the app. This section of the app should be used to keep track of the body goals you have set from the app in a more simplified way. By any chance, did you synced your Ionic right after changing those goals? 

Now, the best thing to do here for the calories burned goal to change is creating a food plan. This is the best way to know how many calories you should it and burn to reach an specific weight goal. In fact, I found an awesome post which is giving all of the food plan basics for you to know. It also gives a lot of information about calories in, calories out, BMR, and other things you will find interesting. Please check this post for more details. You will find everything you are looking for there.

Hope you find this helpful. Let me know how it goes! 

[bjmantis]

I was frustrated that I rarely met my calorie goal despite reaching all my other goals. I maintain my weight by eating enough to maintain my weight and don't log my food. I hated seeing all the green "completed" goals with calories unmet, when this didn't mean anything to me. I was able to change the goal under "Activities" rather than food and nutrition. Under "Activity Goals" I could modify the calorie goal to one I could meet with my normal activity.