Calorie Deficit Help Needed

[Norbigs]

I'm new-ish to fitbit. I won my flex through a walk challenge at work and the darned thing didn't come with instructions. I programmed my flex for a 500 calorie deficit. It tells me how many calories I've burned vs eaten and what I have left. I'm confused by the numbers. For example if it tells me I've burned 2000 calories and eaten 1500 then I have 500 left in my budget. But if I eat another 500 then my intake equals what I've burned. To lose weight I need to burn more than I've eaten. I don't understand. Help!

[Ravenrod23]

Yes in order to lose weight you need to burn more calories than what you ate. 🙂

[Jimmy1969]

Yea the way fitbit shows your data is very annoying on this point. Basically when you are in the green you are on par with your 500 calorie deficit. Even when you get your weekly report your 500 calorie deficit is hidden. The idea seems to be that you can eat all of your exercised calories and still be within your diet. When I exercise heavily I definitely eat some of those calories back but try to maintain a deficit grater than my fitbit diet plan. For example yesterday I did some exercise and at the end of the day I still had about 250 calories left in my budget.  I like to do this to keep the margin for error on my side. That is, in case my calories used is over estimated I will still maintain my calorie deficit. I hope this explanation helps 🙂

[Norbigs]

Thank you, Jimmy. I had a feeling it was something along those lines, but finding info has been tough. The fitbit should come with a manual 🙂 I've been eating 100-300 calories less than it says I'm allowed just because I don't always have foods with a calorie label, so I have to guess what I'm taking in. I try to have leftover calories at the end of the day in case my estimates are wrong.

[Jimmy1969]

The calories represented within the fitbit are pretty good overall. If I ever have a doubt I google the food for a double check. Many of the foods have been input by users so there are mistakes. I also eat a lot of the same foods so that helps as well. Good luck 🙂

Sent from my iPhone

[Norbigs]

Thank you 🙂

[Heybales]

Only instructions were to go to www.fitbit.com/setup

Since using the tool requires online access, might as well put the manual online too. Which it is.

Also, you may not have put a deficit for weight loss in your options. The guage tile is confusing as it only looks at that spot in your day, not entirely useful.

But from what you described, your eating goal and burn amount match, indicating no deficit plan in place.

Log page - Food tab, middle section for plans and goals.

The one you were looking at is better - burned this much so far, eaten this much so far.

After a few days you'll know about where the day will end up with and without exercise, so you'll know roughly how much more you can eat.

[Colinm39]

When I was tracking "calories in" I always used the my Profile link because that gave me the 30 day trend with the average deficit.

[Norbigs]

I put in a 500 calorie deficit. I'm not eating everything I burn, but my app is telling me I can. It's programmed for a 500 deficit. I've already checked. Was one of the first things I looked for.

[Heybales]

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@Norbigs wrote:
I put in a 500 calorie deficit. I'm not eating everything I burn, but my app is telling me I can. It's programmed for a 500 deficit. I've already checked. Was one of the first things I looked for.

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Ya, that's screwy then. The tile for eating goal should show that deficit in there. Now, at certain points in day the math is based on your daily sedentary calorie burn, or your projected burn based on past days.

So that option makes a difference - most disable it in Settings - Calorie Estimation.

So if estimated sedentary day was 2000, you'd see eating goal in morning of 1500, even though you only burned say 700 at that point.

But once you go above 2000 in measured burn, then the eating goal should start going up.

So perhaps that's what you saw, it was using calorie estimation, at that point in the day it figured you'd burn in total 2500 by end of day, you'd eaten 1500, so it figured you could eat another 500. You'd still have that desired 500 deficit. If rest of your day was realy like past days and you really did burn 2500. You may or may not obviously.

I'm thinking more and more that the latter happened - and that's why many seem to disable that option.

[Norbigs]

My calorie estimation is off. Has been since I started. Nothing makes sense to me at this point. 😕