Calorie Allowance Confusion

[Jellymot3474]

I've got my plan set at -1000 (which is a struggle for me to eat that much most of the time because I'm active and more of a grazer). I'm putting on weight!

It's been a month and first it went down but now it's going back up (regardless of salt or water) and I'm wondering if I might actually be over-eating because I'm confused with what the numbers are saying. Because today wasn't an ordinary day I paid closer attention to the numbers. My usual burn is around 2300-3300 and my usual intake is 12xx-19xx accordingly which to me makes approximately 1k deficit. (correct).

Today was a pretty sedentary day ~5k steps so far (5 hours to go). My calories burned is 18xx but it after eating 900 it says I still have 760 to go. If I've only burned 18xx then how can I have 760 left and still have a 1000 calorie deficit? 

My math says that my calorie counter isn't actually calculating my deficit but aiming me for my burn number instead? Maybe I'm wrong or reading the wrong numbers. Potentially it's estimating what I'll burn the rest of the day and adding it in there?

Someone please explain this. 

[kaelarenee7]

Your fitbit will tell you different calorie amounts that you can eat over the course of the day based on what you have already eaten and your activity level.

It assumes an average activity level for the day based on how active you have been up to each time you sync your fitbit. So say that you woke up at 8 in the morning and went for an hour long walk and then synced your fitbit. It's going to assume that you are going to burn so many calories based on the data it has from midnight to 9am. Then let's say that you did no other activity the rest of the day, besides normal walking from point A to point B in your house but you were sitting down the rest of the day. When you sync your fitbit at 4pm, its going to adjust how many calories you have left to eat based on how many calories you've burned over the course of the day. At that point, its going to give you less calories to eat for the rest of the day because you haven't been active since your walk from 8-9am.

So in your instance, of having burned 1800 calories and having eaten 900, its basically assuming that if you continue burning calories at the same pace, you'll burn about 2600 calories before midnight which would allow for the additional 700 calories you could eat and still be at a 1000 calorie deficit.

Fitbit doesn't work like other apps in giving you a static caloric intake for the day, it adjusts for your activity as you sync throughout the day. If you would prefer seeing a static number, I believe MyFitnessPal is like most other apps that will just have a static number for what you can eat and only adjust when you enter in a specific exercise. I don't use MyFitnessPal, so I'm not 100% sure on that, but a lot of Fitbitters do use it and would be more help than me if you wanted to use that to track calories. All I know is that it can sync with your Fitbit data.

[Deksam]

As kaelarenee7 describes that is definitely how it works -- adjusting throughout the day based on algorithms that are -- at least for me -- widely incorrect.

It generally guesses what your base caloric amount is based on BMR (which I think its part of the massive confusion most people experience when starting with fitbit) and then, depending on your amount of weight loss goals, determines the amount of caloric intake that takes a lot of information into account.

Heres a couple tips:

1) Calculate your BMR outside of Fitbit. Keep this in mind separately from whatever your calorie burn is for the day, then subtract your amount of calories from that and keep that number in your mind.  https://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/basal-metabolic-rate

2) Fitbit calculates calories burned, but again, it can be quite inaccurate as it misses a lot of information on what you end up doing and makes a bunch of assumptions.  The new exercise tab will give you a -- roughly better snapshot of your calories burned when you're actually exercising.  For example it will log if you take a 30 minute walk -- and give you specific calories burned during that time.  If you generally expect that your calories burned will be during a cardio exercise, utilize that to subtract from your BMR and record that deficit against your calorie intake.

3) Take very good input data -- meaning what you're eating,  just make sure that whatever you're eating, your intake is less than number 1, and is only further decreased by number 2. 

4) Lastly -- fitbit is a nice tool, but don't put your entire weight loss fate in the hands of this device.  Keep the real weight loss data in your head or on a notepad (be it physical or digital).  

I hope that helps you! 🙂 

[emili]

yep, exactly what they said together. It is how fitbit works- but it is a guard rail to keep you on the road- its not the map to your destination. so find your BMR- figure out your caloric deficit and eat to the number you come up with. adjust as you need to based on loss, gain, neither. Make sure your number is filled with good food and you will see good results in no time. I never eat to the calories fit bit says. I cant- its too much. but I use the info to track my progress through the day which helps me make better decisions about what to eat. Good luck and hopefully all this was helpful.