Confused about calorie allowance...

[HHP1173]

Hi Everyone...
Sorry for yet another post on this subject, but I've just set up my fitbit and am confused about the calories I am allowed to eat...

I have added in a goal on my food / weight plan to aim to lose 1lb/week.... but that gives me an allowance of only 600 calories to eat a day. Is that right? That seems way to low... or maybe I have done something wrong in the set up?

Burning up to 750 calories / day I can understand to achieve the weight loss, just not sure about how much I can eat!

Thank You!!

[Julia_G]

Hi, @HHP1173 , no something definitely went wrong there!  600 calories is crazy.  I'm not sure what you did, so here is just some general directions to get you started... Once you set up your profile with your age, height and weight your Fitbit will make a guess of how many calories you can eat each day.  You can set up a goal weight, and then on the dashboard click on the tile with the knife and fork and it will offer you options of how steep or gentle you would like your weight loss to be (depending on how much you want to lose 1 pound a week sounds reasonable, but if you only have 5-10 pounds to lose even that might be too fast).  Once you have told it how hard/easy you want to be, it should calculate how long it will take you to reach your goal.  Then each day it will tell you how many calories you can eat (you can set it to "sedentary" and it will take a very conservative approach or you can set it to "personalised" and it will vary depending on how active you are).  You will soon get a sense of how many calories you burn so that you can make sure you achieve your "deficit" each day.

[HHP1173]

Hi Julia

Thanks for your response.

So I tried to edit my profile and I dropped the intensity down to loss of .5lb per week (although I'd prefer 1lb!) and it has increased my allowance, but it still seems a bit odd that if I increase intensity, the allowance difference is so much. I'm 5"2, and weigh 13 stone... so my target was to lose 3 stone by Decemeber... hence I'd picked the 'kinda hard' option originally... but I don't think I can survive on only 600 calories!!!!

[Julia_G]

I think something is still wrong... Have you checked your units on your profile (make sure it is stones)? How many calories is it allowing you now?

[dgor0526]

As the day goes on you should see that you will have more calories that you can eat. When I log my breakfast I am almosted maxed out but be dinner I have earned more calories. I believe some where in the settings you can change it to display all of your calories at the start of the day instead of through out the day

[Bjorn · Accepted solution]

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@HHP1173 wrote:

Hi Everyone...
Sorry for yet another post on this subject, but I've just set up my fitbit and am confused about the calories I am allowed to eat...

I have added in a goal on my food / weight plan to aim to lose 1lb/week.... but that gives me an allowance of only 600 calories to eat a day. Is that right? That seems way to low... or maybe I have done something wrong in the set up?

Burning up to 750 calories / day I can understand to achieve the weight loss, just not sure about how much I can eat!

Thank You!!

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At the top of your fitbit dashboard, click "Log"

In the log window, locate your Food Plan Window, and click the gear to change how your remaining calories are displayed. Set this to "Personalized"

[Heybales]

You are looking at the wrong thing for what you think it means.

Look at the tile for your Calories Left to Eat.

I think you may be looking at the fuel gauge tile - which is about worthless - remove it.

Or you got your stats wrong and it thinks your BMR (sleeping calorie burn) is way low.

[HHP1173]

Hi..

Thanks for this...So I made the changes... and when I now log into the application on my laptop, I can see my allowance for the day...

BUT.... when I go to the app on my mobile phone, I still only see the changing calories burned and eaten... and the calories left to eat are not in line with the daily allowance... I've not yet updated my food diary for the day, so this should be the same at the moment?

...... Any more ideas pls?

[dancefoxtrot]

HHP 

In the AM before you have burned cals often your allotment for cals is low. As you burn cals through steps your allotment increases. You need to burn more cals. Usually you can eat 1200-1300 healthy cals. and burn cals through steps taken, walked, run, danced, etc..

best,

Barbara G

[Raviv]

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@Heybales wrote:

I think you may be looking at the fuel gauge tile - which is about worthless - remove it.

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Agree.  

I'll enter my dinner at the end of the day, and the Food Log will say "Yay!  You hit your goal!"

Perfect.  I'm right where I want to be - enough calories but not over.

I'll immediately go to the Dashboard where the fuel gauge tile says I'm way over.

[xenaFB]

I have my settings set to personalized (my settings are the same as what's posted in solution to the problem above but it does not solve my problem) and I'm only allowed to eat 764 calories!! It varies a little but so far, every day is less than 800 calories allowed so of course I'm over.

I'm 5'7 and have an active job, lots of stair climbing. Makes no sense to eat around 750calories per day

I have linked my fitbitaccount with myfitnesspal and log all my food at MFP.

[Heybales]

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@xenaFB wrote:

I have my settings set to personalized (my settings are the same as what's posted in solution to the problem above but it does not solve my problem) and I'm only allowed to eat 764 calories!! It varies a little but so far, every day is less than 800 calories allowed so of course I'm over.

I'm 5'7 and have an active job, lots of stair climbing. Makes no sense to eat around 750calories per day

I have linked my fitbitaccount with myfitnesspal and log all my food at MFP.

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Well, you created the eating goal of less than 800 calories because you
selected an extreme calorie deficit when you don't do much or are very small
already.

That's not wise, depending on amount to lose, it would appear 250-500 cal
deficit is much more reasonable.

Reasonable leads to fat loss only.
Unreasonable includes muscle mass loss - which you'll regret next year when
you attempt to lose the weight again you gained back, and maybe more gained.

The reason the tiles don't agree is because the gauge one is looking at ONLY
that point in time, comparing burned vs eaten, not what may happen for the
whole day or the next meal.

Most find it a useless tile, suggest you get rid of it.

Besides, if using MFP for food logging - use it for the diet goals too - but
set a reasonable deficit there too.

Don't try to follow 2 roads to the same destination, it'll just lead to
confusion and aggravation.

Fitbit for the fitness goals and logging of non-step based workouts. Ignore
food goals.
MFP for the food logging and eating goals. Manually make a wall post about
your workouts for friends to see, don't log them as exercise.

[Raviv]

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@xenaFB wrote:

I have my settings set to personalized (my settings are the same as what's posted in solution to the problem above but it does not solve my problem) and I'm only allowed to eat 764 calories!! It varies a little but so far, every day is less than 800 calories allowed so of course I'm over.

I'm 5'7 and have an active job, lots of stair climbing. Makes no sense to eat around 750calories per day

I have linked my fitbitaccount with myfitnesspal and log all my food at MFP.

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Then something is set up wrong.  Even on the rare day when my butt is firmly glued to the couch from morning to night, it still gives me about 900-1000 calories.

How many calories does it show you burned yesterday?

When you click on Log < Food , Food Plan, what is your caloric deficit set at?

How much do you feel you need to lose?

What is your walking/running stride set at?  And is most of your movement back and forth, like taking one or two steps left and then stopping for a bit, then repeating all day?

[xenaFB]

That doesn't make sense because I need to lose weight. I'm a size 14. I work 12hr shifts and I'm on my feet all day. There are 67 steps from the main floor to the top and I climb up and down those flights of stairs on a regular basis during a 12hr shift.I have a very active job. I have the zip so unfortunately all the floors I climb at work are not counted but it would still contribute towards my overall step count. My average steps is 15,000 when I work days.  It is lower on night shift because my 12hr shift is split between 2 days and I obviously sleep during the day when I work nights.

My settings are "kinda hard" on the fitbit settings.

I'm getting conflicting information on all the tiles it makes no sense at all so I've just been following MFP calorie guideline for my food log (goal and actual calories eaten)

[xenaFB]

I think I have figured it out. I enabled negative calorie adjustment on MFP and apparently they don't recommend that if you sync late in the day. I don't sync regularly due to my shift work schedule. It's all over the place. I may not sync until 24hrs later, sometimes more, especially on nights. I may not sync for a couple of days. Typically I sync late at night if I'm not working nights and I have even fallen asleep in front of my laptop while waiting for it to sync!

I wear my FB regularly and I'm new to food logging. I was not logging food in the past because I was on the Ideal Protein program. I lost weight on the program, it's effective but expensive so I'm trying to losing weight on my own.

[xenaFB]

Thanks for the recommendations, everyone. I will follow MFP and remove the fuel gage on the fitbit dashboard

[Heybales]

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@xenaFB wrote:

I think I have figured it out. I enabled negative calorie adjustment on MFP and apparently they don't recommend that if you sync late in the day. I don't sync regularly due to my shift work schedule. It's all over the place. I may not sync until 24hrs later, sometimes more, especially on nights. I may not sync for a couple of days. Typically I sync late at night if I'm not working nights and I have even fallen asleep in front of my laptop while waiting for it to sync!

I wear my FB regularly and I'm new to food logging. I was not logging food in the past because I was on the Ideal Protein program. I lost weight on the program, it's effective but expensive so I'm trying to losing weight on my own.

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So keep FB set to Personalized since you don't sync until late.

That means that FB is estimating your daily burn, and per min burn, based on historical averages (weekday and weekend different), from data when you actually do sync.

Outside actual device syncs with accurate data - that estimate is sent to MFP every time it goes up by 100 calories.

And that means MFP should always see you burning more than it estimated you would, by a little amount.

MFP should be set to Sedentary, unless you like having a better estimate up front with how much you can eat to plan better.

Just be aware that if you go to bed early, or sit around a long time at night and then bed, MFP will be estimating more calories to midnight then actually happen.

So if you reach goal then - upon first sync in the morning you'll discover you actually went over the prior day.

MFP thought you'd burn say 120/hr till midnight, but you only burned say 80/hr. That kind of difference.

Might read this info too then.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-exercise-calorie-a...

[xenaFB]

That's the other issue. I'm a rotating shift worker which means I will sleep most of the day and work all night when I am working nights.  I work 12hr shifts, weekends, weekdays, holidays, whenever. I do not have a typical work schedule. I am on my feet constantly climbing many flights of stairs. There are 67 steps from top to bottom (one way) and I will climb this multiple times over a shift. I have a very active physical job and that's why it's not set to sendentary, especially because I go to the gym and I will workout out before night shift. I do not go to the gym after dayshift because my legs/feet are too tired. I am always switching from days to nights and vice versa.

That's why I am not a regular syncer. I will wait until my days off when I am on nightshift. When I'm on nights I only have time for work, sleep, meal prep and gym. I've just been following my calorie allowance on MFP.

That's why initially I was in the Ideal Protein diet. I was working many overtime hours and tracking was useless because any time I sat down to log my food or sync I would fall asleep from exhaustion on my laptop. It was easier to just follow a prepared meal plan instead of tracking everything. I'm working less overtime now so I am tracking again and quit the Ideal Protein program due to high costs....although it is a very good program.

[Heybales]

Well, preperation is a key to success.

So I would not lay off preparing your meals ahead of time - which means you can log them ahead of time too - many do that, log everything they know they'll eat, see what's available, and see what extra comes up to fit in other things they'll enjoy.

Since the syncing is that extremely not done - let me suggest another method.

Unsync accounts since not useful for your life anyway.

Confirm Fitbit is corrected for exercise it has bad estimate for - like strength training/weights.

If cardio, depends on device model, for HR-models, use the estimate given if you trust the HR is being seen accurately. For non-HR models - manually log non-step based workouts like rowing, biking, stair machine (probably not done, huh), swimming.

Now, use your weekly Fitbit email report to see what your average daily burn was.

Once you have 3 weeks of averages - keep a rolling average going of most recent 3 weeks. That will help account for seasonal changes and other stuff.

Take that 3 week average daily burn, and figure out a deficit.

20% off is usually good way of doing it, until final 10 lbs, then 10% off.

That's your eating goal.

Now set MFP setup to NO weight loss, but rather maintenance, Daily Active level probably Active for your job.

Exercise to whatever, doesn't matter, does't effect math anyway. Besides, Fitbit has you exercise goals now.

Done out of that section, now go personalize your eating goal to what you came up with above.

Now - using this method MFP's math will be wrong, so you'll just have to keep in mind that on average, for a week, you have a deficit which is 20% off your TDEE (maintenance that Fitbit gives as average daily burn).

Each day will be a tad different than that 20%, and on really active work days, it may not be enough, so just be willing that if you go over on those days by say 200 calorie, on some other day you drop 200 calories.

As to setting MFP up for dealing with night shift work - that is a kicker that I've seen many have good ways of handling it. Changing the time is NOT one of them.

If you get up at 9 pm after sleeping because you'll be going in for night shift, and eat breakfast - log that as breakfast for the next day, because you are only 3 hrs away from that day.

If shift equally spans midnight, then I'd log each day's eating on the day it happens.

[Raviv]

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@Heybales wrote:

Well, preperation is a key to success.

So I would not lay off preparing your meals ahead of time - which means you can log them ahead of time too - many do that, log everything they know they'll eat, see what's available, and see what extra comes up to fit in other things they'll enjoy.

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That's what I do a lot, and it's a huge help.  If I already know what I'm eating for breakfast and lunch the next day, it makes it easier to figure what I can fit in as far as dinner.  Or I can see that I'm way over because of one thing I don't really need or care about, and I can just delete that before it's already in my body.

It also makes it more likely that I'll actually weigh things because I'm not in a rush or someplace where I can't, so it's more accurate.