Calories in, out, left over?

[Rosellie]

I know I'm not the only one super confused, dispite looking at the forums and reading others answers, I'm still super confused! 

Myfitnesspal is the app I usually use, however, they've ended support for my device, so I'm giving the fitbit one a go. 

So this is the problem im having. On the dash it says I am "on target" (being green, vs blue (under) and red (over) and says 1,477kjs left. 

Does that mean I EAT 1,477 more calories to be "on target" still, without going under? 

But then it shows green? 

 

To make matters MORE confusing, when I click the calorie section, I see this:

Which says I'm "over budget". With 3,134 kjs consumed (in) and 5,690 kjs out.  It's saying I'm 227kjs "over budget".

 

Like I say, with myfitnesspal, which I previously used, I had a "kjs" number, e.g. 4000kjs per day & I'd simply add food & they would add up & that would be my amount total for the day. 

This seems way more complex. I get the idea of weight-loss is calories in vs calories out etc, I'm just not understanding the different numbers, e.g dash saying I can eat 1000kjs more & am in budget, get in the calorie section, it's saying at 3300kjs, I'm already over by 200kjs?

Anyone please clarify?

[wtksk8r]

@Rosellie Here is the way I understand this. Fitbit's algorithm takes your deficit goal and amortizes it linearly over the 24 hour period starting at midnight. If you selected 4000kjs per day as your goal then the amortization would look for 2000kjs deficit at noon. It looks at your expenditure against your intake AT THE TIME YOU CHECK. The number shifts depending on if you check before or after exercise or logging on your food. You would be over your goal if you check after logging in your calories for lunch and may be way under if you check after a heavy exercise session.

For the calories remaining for the day, the algorithm looks at your history to estimate your average calorie expenditure for the day and then calculates how much you will still expend to estimate how much more you can eat. 

[Heybales]

Ditto to explanation given for that guage.

I'd skip using that - really isn't that useful mid-day.

Yes to eating the 1477 to meet the goal based on an estimated daily burn based from historical avg.

Obviously that changes as the day goes on.

Really shouldn't take too many days for you to start knowing about how much you burn in a day, what the eating goal seems to be around, and what you can plan out.

Obviously in the evening then as the figures firm up you can eat a bit more, or leave out that final snack, something like that.

MFP would actually do the same thing if used correctly - they took into account NO exercise being done, just your daily activity based on your guess of 4 levels, right or wrong.

On days you did more with exercise, you'd correctly eat more, to hopefully keep the reasonable deficit you had in place.

Fitbit is now merely doing that as the day goes on and it sees your daily activity level.

If you were still using MFP but synced with Fitbit, you'd be getting the same adjustments to the daily goal.