Calories in vs calories out

[dnourie]

My weekly report for this week says I burned 14,904, and that I ate 9004. Yet, for Calories in vs Calories out it says -2400 deficit. Not by my math. I get -5900. My plan is to have a deficit of -3500. I don't get how they are coming up with -2400. Do you know? Am I misunderstanding? All days I eat 1200-1300, and I burn 1800-2100. Seems like I met the -3500 and then some.

Thank you!

Dana

[Colinm39 · Accepted solution]

You did a good job, the -2400 is your success, over and above your planned deficit,  add the -3500 to the -2400 and you get -5900.

[dnourie]

Thank you, Colin! If I'd gone a little farther with the math I might have figured that out, lol. Much appreciated! Dana

[cdale600]

Be careful how much stock you put in these equation generated numbers.  Analyzing mine for the last 6 months showed they are not very well correlated with my actual weight loss.  Also there is about a 500 calorie per day difference between my overall cumulative weight loss and "calculated" fit bit weight loss (at 3,500 calories per pound) during that time.   Some combination of underreported calories consumed and overreported calories burned.  

Just be conservative and don't think you can eat back all those calories you've "burned".  

[dnourie]

Thank you, and that makes sense. I'm being really careful on counting calories, and I'm putting in 5-6 miles daily on the treadmill. We burn 100 calories per mile, so that should give me the -500 per day that I want. Fitbit says I put in more miles, as I walk around the house, take the dog out, etc.

I'm finding I'm losing a pound about every week and a half to two weeks. But I'm also strength training daily with dumbbells, pilates, and yoga, so I'm hoping that slower weight loss is due to lean muscle development. I am stronger, more coordinated, and feel much better.

The fitbit does encourage me to move and exercise more. I find myself trying to bet the steps and miles numbers, as well as active minutes.

I don't ever eat back those calories:-) I make sure I never go over 1350. I've been burning, according to fitbit, between 1900 and 2000 calories a day.

Thank you! I will be cautious with the calorie intake vs out.

[Ukase]

I've thought about this - and am wondering if FitBit can get "smart" with its software.

For example - suppose I enter in a weight of 200 lbs and a goal to lose 20 pounds.

I log my food as accurately as I can. I weigh myself once a week. Suppose, FitBit with it's generally agreed "over" calculation of calories burned looks at the beginning weight, the ending weight and the calories burned vs calories consumed equation. It would be good for the program to notice this discrepancy and re-adjust the calorie burn figures.

How would it do this? I have some ideas - but I'm sure a programming analyst could come up with something plausible.

Back to the example: I burn 30,500 calories in one week. I consume 20,000 calories, for a difference of 10,500 calories - or roughly 3 pounds.

I step on the scale and have lost only half a pound.  Did I retain 2.5 pounds more water? Did I gain 3 pounds of muscle and lose 2.5 pounds of fat? (From what I understand, that would be impossible - but I'm no expert) Did I have surgery and a saline solution is making me retain a lot more fluids than normal? Intellectually, I realize there are fluctuations in hydration that can account for this. But, the body tries to reach homeostasis - so in the morning, your body will release excess fluids. How much will depend on the size of your bladder (and prostate for the older men) and your level of hydration I would think. Assuming a constant homeostasis each morning, FitBit could get "smart" and reduce your bmr/rmr accordingly, and the next week, if in fact it was water weight - FitBit would again make the adjustment accordingly to your bmr/rmr.

I suppose if it were that easy, they'd be doing it already. <sigh> Back to the drawing board -- I mean, back to the gym.

[cdale600]

This is possible and I'm honestly mystified why it hasn't been done yet. Combine some trend analysis with fitbit's calculations and you would have something quite powerful.

[MoodyFoody]

I agree.  I always eat under but still don't lose any wieght.

[WaltTN]

There are so many factors involved... (speaking as a developer -- not for Fitbit)

One of the key points to make though is, the BMR that Fitbit estimates is an estimate.  It really can't know how low/high it should be.  They are using statistics to determine what it should be...  so if mine says 2200 calories as BMR, I could really be 2000 or 2400.  Only much more complicated tests could truly determine that.

The key thing is to use the numbers as trends and adjust accordingly.  My calorie intake is always off a bit one way or the other... I'm losing weight about 1.5 lbs a week right now... so I'm trending the right way... just keep on keeping on for now 🙂

[Mary]

"Suppose, FitBit with it's generally agreed "over" calculation of calories burned looks at the beginning weight, the ending weight and the calories burned vs calories consumed equation. It would be good for the program to notice this discrepancy and re-adjust the calorie burn figures."

I wouldn't like that.  The assumptions would be that (1) people log their food accurately, which is proven to virtually never be the case and (2) that all weight lost or gained was fat, no water, no lean body mass.  That is also rarely if ever true.  

Though I think it's a great idea for the USER to do this math themselves now and then.  

[Heybales]

"But I'm also strength training daily with dumbbells, pilates, and yoga, so I'm hoping that slower weight loss is due to lean muscle development. I am stronger, more coordinated, and feel much better."

You are eating in a deficit.

Unless those weights are very heavy for you, and you have probably 40 lbs to lose - you aren't gaining any muscle.

You are likely storing more glycogen in the muscle though for your cardio.

Strength can go up for a long time with no extra muscle, just using everything you got.

And actually, all muscle is a part of Lean Body Mass, but muscle isn't a cut of beef with options of lean or fat. If you do lots of endurance cardio, you'll actually have more fat stored in the muscle for easier access than otherwise.

You'd have to do a very specific progressive overload lifting program, with eating in surplus, to see a 1 lb gain perhaps every 6 weeks, of muscle mass by itself.

But many more reasons why you can gain weight from exercise, mostly related to more water stored.

So you should be losing more than a lb a week if your food logging is accurate, and/or your burn figure is over-estimated. Considering it badly underestimated strength training since there are no steps ....

[Heybales]

"I wouldn't like that.  The assumptions would be that (1) people log their food accurately, which is proven to virtually never be the case and (2) that all weight lost or gained was fat, no water, no lean body mass.  That is also rarely if ever true.  "

Ditto.

The other reason you could through off the calcs, you can effect your own TDEE by undereating too much. So while a healthy estimate could have been 2000 TDEE say, eating down at 800 could cause that upwards of 20% impact and becoming more metabolically efficient, making your adapted real TDEE 1600 - which Fitbit would never know was happening.

So what was thought to be a 1200 cal deficit and almost 2.5 lb weekly, turns in to slightly over 1.5 lb weekly.

If that trend stuff happened, some might think they now need to eat 400 to cause the effect they want. Bright or not.

[Ukase]

Haybales and Mary both make good points. When I first got my Fitbit, I was a little ...OCD, I suppose. Logging every single crumb as best I could, relying on math to make the weightloss effort as painless as possible.

It never occurred to me that people would get busy and not log in every morsel they consumed. I suppose it was just annoying me that the BMR is an estimate and even with all my logging, the only thing I can determine is that mine is much lower than FitBit thinks it is, or the caloric burn is much less than it thinks it is. Still, I'm on a downward trend, albeit a slow one. <shrug>

[Jillo]

I'm disappointed in the lack of information that came with my fit bit. I see there is numerious on line help but who has  the time to try to search for what your looking for. I could not find how to post so firgive me for replying on your comment. How do I start a discussion? My question is my fitbit flex shows calories burned not steps so there must be different ways to set it up??  This morning I did some work on the computer and it showed 300 calories burned. I went for a 2 mile walk and it recorded 25 calories burned. Not feeling very confident this is working right. Can battery life effect readings? How do you know if the battery is low? I'm on day 3 trying to learn...

[LiveNLove]

Jillo,
This is my 3rd day too and I agree, that there should be detailed instructions that come with the fitbit.  Not all of us are computer literate. 

I do know how to change the settings of calories burned or steps taken.  Just click the little circled wheel looking symbol in the upper right (next to your picture).  These are your settings.  Just look through everything in there to set up.  There is an option if whether you want your main goal to be calories or steps. 

As for starting a discussion, there should be a button on the top of each group/discussion that says "add post" or something similar to that. 

Last but not least, make sure you move your arms as you walk.  Perhaps you were moving your arms/hands a lot while you were at the computer.  You can always add your own exercise too, if you find that the fitbit was inaccurate. 

Once again, I totally agree with you... fitbit needs to include some kind of instructions.  Good luck!

[Jillo]

thanks for the response...sorry it took me this long to find your comment...LOL...and the sad thing is I am computer savvy. I just find something overwhelm me to the point I can't shift thru things to find what I need. Just like how to use this thing was very frustrating for me. I open a page of information and see that there is days worth of stuff to read and I just close it because it overwhelms me. I guess its a little ADD in me. LOL...I have to do things in small steps.

Last week was my first full week of really working hard at consumption and exercise. I did pretty good all week except yesterday I was beyond terrible with my eatting. I went from 170 to 166 and now back up to 168.8 this morning. I plan to eat very low calories if I can and move more. When I set up my tracker I set it to lose 2 pounds a week which was consider the hardest. What I don't understand is it's telling me I can only eat like 350 calories...I guess what its doing is putting me on 1000 calories and making me burn 2100 calories. and the difference is what I can have?? Like today it says I woke with 420 calories burned...and I have 666 calories to eat. So I started off earring 246 calories to eat for the day but since I burned 420 I earned more to eat? It would make more sens to me if they would say here is what you need to burn...and let the number reduce through out the day...one day it will click with me.

How have you been doing on yours?

[Jillo]

are you manually entering your treadmill miles? My fit bit is showing calories burned rather than steps but after doing 2-3 miles walk it showes I burned 15-20 calories? I just wonder do I have to enter them in? I thought the whole idea was this thing can tell your activity to a certain level. It seems really off...yesterday I laid around almost the whole day and it showed more calories burned than the day before when I was very active all day.

[Heybales]

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@Jillo wrote:

thanks for the response...sorry it took me this long to find your comment...LOL...and the sad thing is I am computer savvy. I just find something overwhelm me to the point I can't shift thru things to find what I need. Just like how to use this thing was very frustrating for me. I open a page of information and see that there is days worth of stuff to read and I just close it because it overwhelms me. I guess its a little ADD in me. LOL...I have to do things in small steps.

Last week was my first full week of really working hard at consumption and exercise. I did pretty good all week except yesterday I was beyond terrible with my eatting. I went from 170 to 166 and now back up to 168.8 this morning. I plan to eat very low calories if I can and move more. When I set up my tracker I set it to lose 2 pounds a week which was consider the hardest. What I don't understand is it's telling me I can only eat like 350 calories...I guess what its doing is putting me on 1000 calories and making me burn 2100 calories. and the difference is what I can have?? Like today it says I woke with 420 calories burned...and I have 666 calories to eat. So I started off earring 246 calories to eat for the day but since I burned 420 I earned more to eat? It would make more sens to me if they would say here is what you need to burn...and let the number reduce through out the day...one day it will click with me.

How have you been doing on yours?

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So always do the math with any fast gain or loss, to know what it may or could not have been.

So one day, went up 2.8 lbs. If you think that was anything but water, the following math would apply.

Pound change 2.8 x 3500 = 9800 calorie difference from maintenance / 1 day = 9800.

So did you eat 9800 calories above total daily burn (not your eating goal)?

Unlikely, so you gained water weight, probably from increased sodium.

Going to other extreme to try to take care of water weight will just do the same, and then once you get reasonable again, it'll come right back.

Just keep eating reasonable and it'll drop off anyway.

So you are going to eat VLCD AND exercise more, or you are going to keep your 1000 cal deficit from what you burn daily - which is what Fitbit does.

And if that 1000 results in 350 eating goal - 2 lb weekly isn't reasonable for you, better switch to 1 lb weekly before your body forces that on you because it's not healthy anymore, or even slower.

Which I'm sure would frustrate and stress you even more.

And actually if you think out your suggestion, no, it would not make sense to start out saying what you need to burn. It would make more sense to save people from their own bad choices by setting a reasonable goal, and start eating level from either sedentary or historic daily burn, and those last 2 things is exactly what Fitbit does to decide eating goal at start of day.

That's where the math comes from at start of day, sedentary burn or historical burn, minus your selected weight loss goal deficit calories. Which just tells me either way - it's not reasonable for your level of activity.

[Heybales]

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@Jillo wrote:

are you manually entering your treadmill miles? My fit bit is showing calories burned rather than steps but after doing 2-3 miles walk it showes I burned 15-20 calories? I just wonder do I have to enter them in? I thought the whole idea was this thing can tell your activity to a certain level. It seems really off...yesterday I laid around almost the whole day and it showed more calories burned than the day before when I was very active all day.

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You burned more than 15-20 calories doing 2-3 miles walk, where are you viewing these stats?

No, you don't enter in step-based activity, which is exactly what it's great at getting. Unless you carry a 10-20 lb packback, it's estimate is right.

Sounds like you have calorie estimation in your Settings enabled, which means if it looks like you left the device off, and no activity is seen for big chunks, it fills in that burn with historical data from prior days.

If you rarely forget device, then turn calorie estimate to disabled.

[Hi_Dare]

@Ukase What is this "generally agreed 'over' calculation of calories burned" you speak of. I have just the opposite problem with Fitbit routinely telling me I overate by nearly a thousand calories, when any less and my body simply won't function well. I presume it is because I haven't brought myself to list "Lived life outside of bed" as an activity, or even moreso the fact that God told me that 'when' I ate was more important than how many calories I ate in response to my protests when He directed me to eat food that equated with 1,200-1,800 calorie breakfasts.

Nonetheless, it sounds like your solution would help us both if implemented correctly since I still want to make sure I am burning it off somewhere during my day. I hope they listen.