Calories consumed minus calories burned

[SunsetRunner]

Hi, can someone please tell me why the fitbit food logging app doesn't subtract the calories burned through exercise from the calories you've eaten for the day. I've set mine up to consume 2250 calories a day but there are days when I burn nearly 900 calories just in exercise alone, which will give me a calorific balance of 1350 calories for the day, why then doesn't the app add back those 900 calories? It's obvious that if I did this regularly I would become very underweight and it's an unhealthy way to lose weight. Other calorie counters add this back on , even MyFitnessPal does this,( but MyFitnessPal is wrong unless you buy the premium version ) am I missing a setting in the fitbit app? I've tried the settings recommended by fitbit ( the -250 , - 500 etc but they are certainly and absolutely incorrect even though I've complained for well over a year for them to fix it ) thank you for any constructive ideas 

[Daves_Not_Here]

---

@SunsetRunner wrote:

Hi, can someone please tell me why the fitbit food logging app doesn't subtract the calories burned through exercise from the calories you've eaten for the day. I've set mine up to consume 2250 calories a day but there are days when I burn nearly 900 calories just in exercise alone, which will give me a calorific balance of 1350 calories for the day, why then doesn't the app add back those 900 calories? It's obvious that if I did this regularly I would become very underweight and it's an unhealthy way to lose weight. Other calorie counters add this back on , even MyFitnessPal does this,( but MyFitnessPal is wrong unless you buy the premium version ) am I missing a setting in the fitbit app? I've tried the settings recommended by fitbit ( the -250 , - 500 etc but they are certainly and absolutely incorrect even though I've complained for well over a year for them to fix it ) thank you for any constructive ideas 

---

@SunsetRunner -- It sounds like you are frustrated and feel like you are hitting your head against the wall.  I am going to give you possibly the most frustrating answer you could possibly hear, and I apologize for it in advance.

Very gently: I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Fitbit accounts for calories eaten and burned.  You can complain about it for the next decade, and Fitbit is not going to "fix" something that is not broken.  My suggestion, made in the spirit of friendly constructiveness, is for you to gain a correct understanding of how Fitbit tracks calories eaten and burned (how it accounts for the 900 additional exercise calories in your example).

How to do that?  First, I would carefully read and understand the various screens in the food plan setup, including "about food plans".   If you setup a manual calorie consumption target, you will see a message that "This disables the Calories In vs Out gauge.  Your calorie goal will not update automatically based on your activity levels."  That seems to specify the behavior you are describing.  If you setup calorie deficit goals, Fitbit adds activity calories to your total calories burned for the day.  It does not subtract them from the calories you have eaten (because you've not eaten less - rather, you've increased your calorie deficit by burning more).

I hope this was helpful, and if I've misunderstood your understanding, please understand that I often misunderstand things 🙂

[SunsetRunner]

Hello ,

I sincerely thank you for your answer, I will go back and look at exactly everything you've told me, You have not misunderstood me at all . Honestly, thank you for your time because what you wrote would also have taken quite a bit of time .

Tony Barhoum

Sent from my iPhone

[SunsetRunner]

To save a lot of confusion then, I converted my app to imperial units and worked out my calorie deficit using the imperial calculations, then after I set it all up I reset the app to Metric. I think I missed a very important point which was frustrating me to no end and I'm still convinced it's wrong, that being when the app is set to metric the calorie deficits are definitely wrong and fitbit need to fix this issue. I'm being very gentle with you too 😊😊

[SunsetRunner]

This is wrong , it's the metric calculation

This is correct, it is the imperial calculation, can anyone at fitbit see what Ive been trying to say for the last few years??????

 LOOK AT THE FIGURES EG.  2 KILOS IS NOT THE SAME AS 2 POUNDS ... I'm not going crazy am I.   No one at fitbit wants to fix this, it's been 2 years now and still NO ONE ACKNOWLEDGES THE ERRORS 

[Daves_Not_Here]

@SunsetRunner -- Hmmm.  I think there is a valuable lesson in here for all of us, and that is ... never use the metric system!  I'm personally suspicious of an elegant system that involves increments of 10.  I much prefer the more convoluted English system that consists of random increments of 3, 12, 5280, 16, 4, and 8 such that even simple conversions require long division.  Builds character.

Seriously, this is an obvious error in the application; however, it was not clear to me from reading your original posting about how calories burned are accommodated.  Given that a picture is worth a 1,000 words, I'd suggest posting your image to a new thread under the Dashboard help forum.  The subject could be "Food plan misstates metric weight loss targets."  (note that backlogged software developers generally don't have the inclination to decipher ambiguous complaints and tend to gravitate towards clearly defined problems).

In the meantime, I'd suggest this is merely a superficial error that does not affect overall function or utility of the app -- you know that a 1,000 calorie daily deficit will yield a weekly loss of 0.91 kg.  I'd think the rest of functionality is unaffected.

[Daves_Not_Here]

Here is a good description of the food plan Fitbits Food Plan Demystified 

[SunsetRunner]

Thank you very much, I think you're very helpful, however I've been using this app for over two years but no one at fitbit see the error of their programme, which I have shown in the two comparison pictures I've posted. Fitbit needs to adjust this error. I think you'll agree with me that you and I shouldn't have to do a thesis on calories in versus calories out just to get them to rectify their error. The fact that you and u can see the error doesn't mean that fitbits other articles are going to solve the issue, maybe you could help me out and bring this to their attention as well. Just a general note about myself, I've been into fitness for over 30 years and I think, like you, we are quite adequate with this subject, however someone at fitbit needs to do a simple re jig of their app. 

[Dominique]

@SunsetRunner: the 1 lb vs. 0.5 kg thing is likely intentional. Would you show metric users things like: "Here is what your deficit needs to be in order to lose 0.454 kg / 0.682 kg / 0.909 kg per week" (because these are more accurate conversions of 1, 1.5 and 2.0 lb)? Rounded numbers are just easier to grasp. These are approximations anyway.

[SunsetRunner]

Hi Dominique, thanks for the info, however if one looks closely you'll notice the following and NO ONE SEEMS TO SEE IT BUT ME.....

0.5 pound is 250gm......approximately 

1 pound is 500 Gm ... approximately 

2 pounds Are equal to 1000 Gm... approximately 

the chart states, in metric 

 half a kilo ( which is 1 pound ) deduct 250 calories

1 kilo ( which is 2 pounds) deduct 500 calories

1.5 kilos ( which is 3 pounds) deduct 750 calories and 

2 kilos ( which is 4 pounds) deduct 1000 calories, 

now let's  compare this to the imperial equivalents in Fitbit, 

0.5 pound ( which is 250gm) deduct 250 calories

1 pound ( which is 500gm) deduct 500 calories

1.5 pounds ( which 750gm) deduct 750 calories and

2 pounds ( which is 1000gm ) deduct 1000 calories. 

If if you can just focus on the 2 pounds and the 2 kilos they both require the same number of calories to lose. I understand that this is all an approximation but 2 kg ( 4 pounds) and 2 pounds can't possibly require the same number of calories, in this case a 1000 calorie deficit, to reach the same goals... PLEASE WILL SOMEONE UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M TRYING TO GET FIT BIT TO FIX... is there someone out there, I've been saying this for 2 years now, hello Fitbit gurus? Tech genius' , programmers ... any one reading this or is it all hot air? 

Thats all im trying to say to fitbit 

[Dominique]

Yes, you’re right (based on the snapshots you included): kilograms have replaced pounds at a 1:1 ratio. There’s something wrong there. I’ll try to get the attention of someone from Fitbit on this. I don’t use the Food Plan myself, so I’ve never been exposed to this issue.

[Dominique]

@SunsetRunner: I just tried to create a food plan in the mobile app (Android) on my phone, and it appears to get metric units right (given the approximation when converting from pounds):

I’m not sure why you don’t have 0.2 kg, 0.5 kg, 0.7 kg, 0,9 kg (for 250/500/750/1000 calorie deficits) like I have. Maybe it’s because you’re on iOS? Or you’ve been switching back and forth between imperial and metric too many times?