Calorie allowance is insane!

[loggamatt]

Ok, I cannot make sense of this calorie allowance. I am a male, 36, 6'3" and just under 300lbs. Today I walked 10,000 steps, but no other exercise. Fitbit says I can eat 3,297 calories and still lose weight (I have it set to the max calorie deficit). How can that possibly be right??

Lets talk that through in McDonalds terms shall we? I start my day with a sausage and egg McMuffin, hash brown, and wash it down with a calorie laden caramel latte. For lunch, lets go for a Big Mac meal with a full fat coke... mmm... delicious! For dinner, I think I'll have a double quarter pounder meal with cheese and another full fat coke. An apple pie as my evening snack takes me up to just over 3,297 calories.

Apparently, I can eat that every day and not only will I not gain weight, I will actually lose weight! If this was even remotely true, I wouldn't be fat in the first place!! lol Insanity...

[moriahcat]

RE the screenshot on a weekly average -- there's no line showing for what your "goal" calorie burn should be?

Now, to clear up a few things:  1) this is my first week with the Fitbit, got it Tuesday.  Also, I've got a stomach flu so really haven't been active or able to hold down much food.  This was going to be my first test week, but it may have to be next week.  So next week hopefully I can eat what I'd really eat.

This has a 500 deficit goal (medium), which on sedentary weeks I really need to make only 250 and eat more.  Ideally at my height/weight I have to do a 500 deficit by combining diet and exercise.  

The last week's information, no food entered but just the background burn, shows it has me at a BMR similar to Katch-McArdle.  I set my daily goal burn right now to be 1300, which is that green line.  

[moriahcat]

Screenshots of how to set that goal in the mobile app:

First, from main screen, click on the flaming calories icon

Next, go to the Settings tab:

Which brings up this screen:

[loggamatt]

I'm now even more confused... how do I get that 'goal line' to appear? Shouldn't Fitbit work these things out itself for me? I told it my goal weight, how hard I wanted to work to get there (see screenshot), so isn't it supposed to work out for itself what the difference is between what I'm eating and burning (-1000 calories I believe), and whether that has me on track? What is 'goal burn'? Surely 'goal burn' each day is just calories consumed plus 1000 in my case?

[moriahcat]

That part looks fine.  I showed from the mobile app how I made the green line appear (sorry, we were probably typing at the same time).

And I'm new to this, too, so I don't know if setting the goal activity makes a difference in how that screen looks.  It's worth a try tho right?  

And yeah, I really do wish that things were more user-friendly.  While its defaults may work for people who are more in the profile I fed the app (vs being my actual weight, I said I was a few more pounds than what would be "overweight" via BMI, and as I said, it seems to be calculating fine when fed that information), and that may work for the majority of merely overweight Americans looking for a fitness watch....  there is an obvious limitation by not taking body fat percentage into account for people like me whose BMI throws me into "obese".

[loggamatt]

Ah yes, sorry, I didn't see your second post until I'd started writing mine.

Ok, so I did that and it turned the bar yellow which is what I was expecting. I'm not really sure what difference the bar colour really makes to me though, as I don't really care how many calories I burned or how many calories I consumed in the abstract. I just care about whether the latter is 1000 calories less than the former (actually 1300 to 1500 less because, as I said previously, I don't trust Fitbit's calories burned calculation so I'm building in a buffer). But as you say, maybe all this is designed more for fitness fanatics than dieters like me.

I can see that via other parts of that chart though, so I won't worry too much about the bar colours. Just wanted to check I hadn't misunderstood something important (seeing a red bar that says 'over' seems like bad news when dieting after all!)

[loggamatt]

Just an update to the thread to say I've given up on Fitbit now. Decided to get an Apple Watch which seems far more realistic for me. Yesterday, with the Fitbit I walked 5000 steps and it told me I burned an extra 900+ calories doing this. I then walked 5000 steps with the Apple Watch and it told me I burned just under 400 calories. Even that I think is probably a little high, but far closer to reality than the Fitbit clearly!

Maybe Fitbits work for people who are already fit, and looking to lose that last 10lbs, or maintain/build muscle... but for fat people looking to lose some weight like me, they do not in my experience. So if you're trying to lose significant amounts of weight, I'm afraid you have to bite the bullet and pay the money for the more expensive Apple product. Thanks to those who tried to help anyway, and hope you have better luck with Fitbit than I did!

[DCarnuchi]

I don't blame you @loggamatt . Fitbit really blew it with their goofy calorie bonus algorithm. There are lots of online calculators out there. One calculator says if you weigh 300 lbs and walk at a moderate pace for 45 minutes you will burn 354 calories. Same person at 200 lbs will burn 236 calories. Apple is clearly closer to reality than Fitbit. I use an older Charge HR for counting steps and that's about it. I'm using an app called Lose It! for calorie counting with a moderate activity. I need to walk 10,000 steps per day to be moderate. I like the Apple Watch and will probably get one when the band on the Fitbit breaks.