Calorie Allowance Confusion

[Cathy64]

My calorie allowance per day is 1303 and the food log says I still have 178 calories left that I can eat but the calories in/out tile says I'm over. I'm confused, have I set it wrong? I was hoping that the calories left to eat would tell me how much I could still eat calories in v out to keep at my deficit target but it's telling me I have calories left but I'm over my deficit? I have set it at a -750 cal deficit.

Thanks

[whome · Accepted solution]

The in/out tile is showing your status at the moment you are looking at it, so when I get up in the morning before breakfast I am below, then since I eat a big breakfast, after breakfast I am over, then before lunch under, after lunch over, etc. The food tile is probably calculating a calorie expenditure based on what you will burn by the end of the day - not just what you have already burned but also what you are going to burn the rest of the day.

Good luck

[Cathy64]

Thank you, that makes sense and I've checked again and it still shows that I have som ecalories left but now I'm under, only done a few more steps since then but it's much later in the day. So it's safe to follow the calorie allowance to keep to my weight losss goal and if I want to eat more then more steps needed. 

Thanks for your help.

[whome]

Looks like you have got it.

Good luck

[BurdsNest]

If you want to lose weight, based on the plan you chose is whether you will be over.  Example, if your calories allowed for the day is 1500, and it tells you that you have 200 calories to go, that's fine if you don't want to lose weight.  You have to stay a certain amount of calories away from your total to lose weight.  Right now I still have calories to eat....I'm  "in zone", but if I eat those calories, I will be over based on me losing 1pd a week.  Make sense?

[Heybales]

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@BurdsNest wrote:

If you want to lose weight, based on the plan you chose is whether you will be over.  Example, if your calories allowed for the day is 1500, and it tells you that you have 200 calories to go, that's fine if you don't want to lose weight.  You have to stay a certain amount of calories away from your total to lose weight.  Right now I still have calories to eat....I'm  "in zone", but if I eat those calories, I will be over based on me losing 1pd a week.  Make sense?

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Actually, you could be very incorrect.

If you selected a weight loss goal in your profile setup - and vast majority do because they are trying to lose weight, then eating what is given as eating goal will cause that deficit, and therefore that weight loss.

Missing that goal gives extra deficit which is NOT healthy either for fat loss. If you want muscle mass loss too, sure fine, go ahead and suffer the consequences of repeating this next year after weight regain, but easier to gain and harder to lose with less muscle mass.

So actually, for the vast majority and their settings, if you have eaten 1500, and it says you have 300 more to eat 1800, and you perhaps selected 1 lb weekly or 500 cal deficit daily - it means you have already burned 2300 calories in the day.

That hopefully makes more sense with the way Fitbit works out it's goals for you.

[BurdsNest]

So if I understand you correctly, your defecit is already caluclated into your caloric intake.  So the original question was.....why does one graph say that you have (example: 240 calories left) and the next graph, then indicates that you are "out of zone"  in the red.  My graph after I've logged something will show that I still have a few calories left, but the next graph indicates I am out of zone.  ????? 

[Heybales]

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@BurdsNest wrote:

So if I understand you correctly, your defecit is already caluclated into your caloric intake.  So the original question was.....why does one graph say that you have (example: 240 calories left) and the next graph, then indicates that you are "out of zone"  in the red.  My graph after I've logged something will show that I still have a few calories left, but the next graph indicates I am out of zone.  ????? 

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If you selected a weight loss plan, yes, your eating goal reflects a deficit already.

The gauge is a snapshot of that moment in time - and vast majority have found it about useless.

You get up and have burned say 600 calories, you have a huge breakfast of 600 calories - you are in the zone.

You do a huge workout prior to lunch, now burned 1500, but only eaten 1000 including lunch - you are way under in the zone. Never mind the fact you plan on eating a big dinner. And the under zone becomes bigger and bigger until dinner.

But your calories left to eat is regarding the day as a whole, estimated of course, either on what you've burned till now and likely will burn based on historical averages or being sedentary, depending on your option set.

[BurdsNest]

ok.....I'm starting to understand.  I woke up this morning and based on my plan have 1401 calories to eat.  This included my deficit of 500.  So.........as I burn calories (not eating), my caloric intake begins to go up....as I eat it goes down.  Got that!  I am in the zone as long as I stay 500 away from my adjusting caloric intake.  The first graph is if I DIDN'T have a plan.  I'm on my second week on the plan looking to lose 1pd a week .....2.4 pds total.  Thanks!

[Theitmann]

I am using the "hard" plan to help me lose weight. I am also starting to start training for a half marathon. Due to the increased exersice fitbit wants me to eat a lot more calories (sometimes over a thousand) before the night is over. However, I'm not hungry have trouble forcing myself to eat. Any suggestions or help on what to do?

[Heybales]

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@Theitmann wrote:

I am using the "hard" plan to help me lose weight. I am also starting to start training for a half marathon. Due to the increased exersice fitbit wants me to eat a lot more calories (sometimes over a thousand) before the night is over. However, I'm not hungry have trouble forcing myself to eat. Any suggestions or help on what to do?

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Great time to use your brain over your stomach, which can be fooled. Look how many gained weight listening to their stomach.

Anyway, whether you feel hungry or not, your body needs more energy if you expect your training to amount to anything worthwhile.

Needs carbs of course, suggest about 50% of daily calories as carbs.

Perhaps you need a snack after a workout, whether you feel hungry or not, it's beneficial. Within 30 min, a carb to protein ration of 4:1 was found in studies to be best for carb uptake in to the muscles, to power another good workout the next day.

Do you have over 80 lbs to lose for the hard 1000 cal deficit plan to be reasonable anyway?

That's bad if body has already adjusted slower from a massive deficit to what you are burning with the workouts. Start eating more and you'll get hungry again as body speeds up and repairs better from your workouts.

Fat is not bad, good fats are needed, so confirm you aren't doing a low fat diet. About 0.35 g per lb of bodyweight.

Protein should be about 0.82 g per lb of BW.

Carbs gets the rest of your calories.

So don't do low fat anything if you do currently. Spoonful of peanut butter (weighed) is 200-250 calories.

[Ceb02]

Hi there,

My calorie intake for the day is 1100 that does not seem like a lot, when I have added spinning for 45 minutes and walking for an hour it only goes up to 1300 calories! This is very little calories when exercising.  I do want to loose weight also.  How does fitbit work out calories required?

Thank you

[Heybales]

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@Ceb02 wrote:

Hi there,

My calorie intake for the day is 1100 that does not seem like a lot, when I have added spinning for 45 minutes and walking for an hour it only goes up to 1300 calories! This is very little calories when exercising.  I do want to loose weight also.  How does fitbit work out calories required?

Thank you

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Calories required is sadly left to your best judgement, which if you don't know, could be bad.

You decide the weight loss goal, which decides how much less you eat than you burn.

But you could easily have selected an unreasonable plan that you'll have problems adhering too or sustaining, and may encourage body to lose more than just fat weight, and you'll want that muscle sooner and later.

Fitbit subtracts your stated weight loss goal amount from what you burn.

Now spin bike on a non-HR device is badly underestimated - you must manually log that since it's not step based at all.

If using HR device you are fine, or at least better estimate.

Walking is of course great for estimate.

[SarahWeipert]

I have a question about the Charge HR.... If it can tell heartrate, and if you burn more calories when you're heartrate goes up, does the heart rate monitor work to better determine how many calories you can eat for your plan? I love knowing my heartrate, but I would love it even more if I knew that it was auto-calculating my food plan/ allowed caloric intake even more, if that makes sense. 

[Heybales]

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@SarahWeipert wrote:

I have a question about the Charge HR.... If it can tell heartrate, and if you burn more calories when you're heartrate goes up, does the heart rate monitor work to better determine how many calories you can eat for your plan? I love knowing my heartrate, but I would love it even more if I knew that it was auto-calculating my food plan/ allowed caloric intake even more, if that makes sense. 

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The HR-based calorie burn is used for exercise - that's when that formula is valid.

You sitting in chair getting scared and HR going up is invalid use. You walking slowly to long-lost relative and HR racing in excitement is invalid use. So it's not used then.

Since it can be more accurate for exercise (not weight lifting), then yes, it is better estimate for what you burn during the day when you exercised.

Since daily burn - deficit = eating goal, then yes, it's incorporated.

You burn more, you eat more.

With better estimate of exercise burn, more burned is not always the direction though.

[Joni63]

You can set the counter though to give you a 500 or 1000 calorie deficit.  This way it's built in, and the calories left to consume already give you the desired deficit (500 being 1 lb a week and 1000 being 2 lbs a week).