Always Overestimates Calorie Allowance

[Atenhotep]

I've had my FitBit Sense for about 6 weeks now, and I've noticed that it continually overestimates how much calories I have left to eat.  I find myself doing the math inside my head instead, which really should not be necessary.

Consistently it seems to figure around 400 more calories are left in my allowance than reality.  

It will be around 8PM (about two hours before I go to bed), and it says I have 800 calories left to eat.  When I get up in the morning and look at the how that day really ended it will show that the day actually ended with only 400 calories left.

Another day, it predicts 600 calories, but ends with only 150-200 calories left.

It is common for me to see a 2600-3000 calorie burn day, with most of the activity being early in the day.  Even on a 3000 calorie burn day, it still overestimating by about 400 or MORE calorie allowance.

It "seems" that it looks at how many calories I "was" burning, and figures I will be more or less that active all day.

I find myself figuring my allowance in my head, by taking my current calorie balance (at any given time of day) and then figuring for the rest of the day with a passive calorie burn of 65 calories burned per hour without activity and multiplying it by the number of hours left until midnight (and the results are very accurate when I review it the next day).  Note: The 65 calorie passive burn is based on the 15 minute intervals of calories fitbit says I burn (16.3 calories per 15 minutes with minimal/no activity). More than a little annoying that I have to constantly run that math.

Anyone know how to get the estimator into more accurate algorithms?

[t.parker]

I find any sort of prediction of calorie allowance just a rough guide. If I need to track calories, I keep it simple - BMR + active calories. Active calories come only from planned/recorded workouts. I ignore anything added automatically over the course of a day (like automatically tracked walking). Only BMR + workouts. Since I know my BMR and I know approximately how efficient my workouts are I can very easily shape my calorie intake. Fitbit's way isn't bad though but I realize it may be confusing. One thing that didn't work for me though was calories out very inflated on rest days when I was taking a regular walk (never tracked them manually). Hence the decision to ignore it. You need to find out what works for you here. Like I said, this prediction is just a guide and not everyone will fit the generic algorithm.

[Heybales]

Under your Food Plan settings - Change your Daily Calorie Estimate Setting.

Personalized - historical avg for weekday or weekends rate of burn - if you want to start the day with a decent idea of how many calories you may have to eat, since eating goal is deficit from daily burn estimate. But adjustments as you see, and that rate of burn is kept from your evening hit the couch until bed time - when it isn't true anymore.

Sedentary - barely above sleeping BMR rate of burn - eating goal will always be going up as day goes on, until the end when you are indeed sitting around more and sleeping in which case it's right on. Still some adjustments will happen, but usually not after you hit the couch at end of day.

Either way you usually get a general idea of your daily burn and how much you'll be able to eat to keep your deficit - but that usually works better for Sedentary setting since you know you won't get any big surprises for dinner.