12 Weeks of Fitbit Tracking success and things learned

[HokieHoo]

I am sharing my past 12 weeks of progress using Fitbit to track activity and food. Since the end of 2013, I have been an on-again off-again (mostly off) Fitbit user. Recently I have been making effort to establish life-healthy habits and get to a healthier weight while arming myself with the knowledge and tools to stay healthy for good. I am female, 5'10", large build, almost 40yo.

My 'strategy' is:

• Use Charge 2 to track calories burned (no manual entry of any activity).
• Track calories consumed meticulously by weighing and measuring and entering into fitbit.
• No fad diet, no restricted foods, no complicated science, no super-intense exercise program. 
• No being hungry. (Only bad things happen when I am hungry.)

I started using Fitbit in earnest at the end of January. Since then I have lost 15 lbs. Here are some stats by week:

Date (Sunday)	Actual Weight	Calorie deficit for week
1/21/2018	214
1/28/2018	213	-5533
2/4/2018	210	-6608
2/11/2018	208	-3250
2/18/2018	207	-5032
2/25/2018	207	-5830
3/4/2018	207	-5152
3/11/2018	206	-5144
3/18/2018	204	-5891
3/25/2018	203	-6333
4/1/2018	203	-3547
4/8/2018	203	-5389
4/15/2018	199	-6083

First off- YAY! I am enjoying major benefits of losing weight and I am satisfied with my progress. 

In addition to sharing what I consider a success, I also am sharing to show a few things: 

1) If I look at the calculated deficit from Fitbit- I should have lost 18.2 lbs (total calorie deficit of 63792 divide by 3500 = 18.2). That means that between my food tracking and Fitbit's activity (calories burned) tracking, we have been off by an average of  about 132 calories per day. I think that amount of error is actually probably pretty good-but just an example that even with pretty meticulous effort, tracking is not perfect. I stated before that I do not manual enter activities and that is because I think the manual formulas are inaccurate for me (and my tracking validates that). For example, yesterday I played tennis. It auto-logged it as aerobic exercise and said that I burned 802 calories. If I manually enter that same activity as "tennis" - it calculates that I burned 978 calories - an increase of 176 calories. The part of my brain that wants to burn more calories says- Go with the manual entry! But given the math above- I am already overestimating my deficit by 132 calories per day- so manually entering activities to get more calories burned would exacerbate that error. 

2) I hit 2 separate 3-week stretches where the scale did not move. Yes, it was frustrating. I put a lot of effort into paying attention to the other benefits to keep me motivated and keep putting in the effort. In the second stretch I learned a really valuable lesson. The week of 4/1 I was hungry all the time for 2 days. As noted above, I cannot tolerate being hungry. I decided I needed to take a break and I ate more and I also stopped any HIIT or strength workouts. I only did walking and tennis. I had to learn to allow myself to push pause so that I could recover. I told myself just to maintain until I didn't feel hungry every day any more and that this was good practice for the future. After a week of recovery, I felt good again, my constant hunger had gone away, and I got back into my plan. 

3) I also learned that a strict calorie goal every day is not the right fit for me. I adjust my calorie intake daily to what I am doing, my energy level, and my hunger level. There are days where I have basically no deficit and other days where I get a 1000 calorie deficit. I tried to find a perfect number that I could plan around every day- but it just doesn't work for me. For me, this is counter to everything I thought before. I really thought that I would find a "XXXX calorie a day diet" or even a steady deficit goal each day and be good to go. And, TBH, I thought that the number of calories I could consume at my activity level, while still losing weight, would be higher than it is. I thought that anything near or under 2000 calories a day I would be hungry all the time. I have found that sometimes I am fine eating only 1700 calories and some days I have to eat 2300 calories to avoid being hungry and to have the energy to do the things I enjoy. 

4) I cannot expect to see results daily- or even weekly. This is a process of unlearning and ignoring all of the 'lose weight fast' hype. Sometimes it takes a whole month of effort to see results. Sometimes it takes three months of tracking to figure out a real pattern or to see if my tracking is off. Tracking is not perfect- but I can see the trends over time when I stick to it and I can learn where to make adjustments to be more accurate.

Using the Fitbit tracker and reading on these forums has been really helpful for me so far and I look forward to more success to come.

[emili]

Hey there @HokieHoo thanks for posting your story and your results. I think a lot of us agree that the calorie out calculations are not exact.. but they will be consistently wrong, which helps in figuring out what's right for you me and whomever. I don't know if you have had a chance to look around the boards, but there is a conversation thread that encourages folks to post and discuss their weekly weigh ins.. I am attaching the link just in case you want to take part...Weekly Weigh In

[Daves_Not_Here]

@HokieHoo -- agreeing with @emili -- the "inaccuracy" of Fitbit's calorie deficit estimates has been a frequent topic of discussion here.  That your actual results are within 132 calories of predicted is pretty impressive.  It speaks both to the utility of Fitbit and your diligence in tracking your food so accurately.

I went through a similar exercise -- initially, I found that Fitbit underestimated my calorie deficit, in that I lost weight slightly faster than predicted.  As my weight decreased, the Fitbit error got smaller and smaller.  Today, I believe it is almost dead on, but I haven't tracked my eating for a few months.

Thanks for posting this!

[Baltoscott]

Nice post @HokieHoo.  And how cool that you broke that 200 lbs barrier -- WooHoo HokieHoo 😉

My approach losing weight last year was similar in that rather than relying fitbit's calculated deficit -- which turned out to predict weight loss at about 2x the rate that it actually happened, I just kept readjusting how much I ate based on a running average of my weight loss.  My exercise is higher than most, but I didn't change it to lose weight.  I figured I wanted a weight loss process that I could sustain after I lost the weight.  I tried to schedule meals (3 or 4/day for me) to help me learn the difference between real hunger -- which I will put up with for 30-60 minutes -- and the hunger that is really just the involuntary response I get when delicious food is nearby and I know I won't have access to a "snack" for a while. I agree with you though that nothing good will come from being hungry all the time.  

No particular diet, but I did increase veggies to every meal, and reduced alcohol consumption on balance.

Stay true to your process and keep sharing your story.  Cheers. 

[HokieHoo]

Thanks @emili @Daves_Not_Here and @Baltoscott

I appreciate the replies. I was actually pretty surprised at how close Fitibit (and my food tracking) is too @Baltoscott. And yes, I imagine it will change over time as you have experienced. 

I mostly shared that inaccuracy to show that if I had logged each exercise activity manually to be sure I "got credit for it" (as many people seem to say), that my estimate would be even farther off. It was good for me to go through the process of sharing- so thanks again all.