Confused about number of calories in and out

[Nerino]

Hi. 

I just got my new Fitbit Charge today.  It recommends, to meet my weight loss goal, that I eat only 868 calories/day.  I also burned 1,602 calories so far today so.....as I see it, I will be very hungry and not healthy at all.  Help please!

Thanks

[Heybales]

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@Nerino wrote:

Hi. 

I just got my new Fitbit Charge today.  It recommends, to meet my weight loss goal, that I eat only 868 calories/day.  I also burned 1,602 calories so far today so.....as I see it, I will be very hungry and not healthy at all.  Help please!

Thanks

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Who picked the 2 lb weekly weight loss goal, or 1000 cal deficit?

Perhaps that wasn't a good idea, Fitbit is merely doing the math with the options you selected.

Can't fault it, better change your options.

Not sure what you could expect if you say take 1000 calories off what I burn, and you only burn 1600. Of course, the day isn't over yet either.

[dancefoxtrot]

Hi Nerino

It is weird but as you take more steps the calorie allotment goes up during the day. If you are trying to loose 1 lbs a week just burn 500 more calories than you eat each day for a week. So if you burn 1600 you have 1100 to eat. Most nutrition experts suggest that you eat at least 1200 calories off nutritious food. If you up your exercise/activity to burn 1800 calories then you have 1300 cals. to eat.

Much healthier. You can eat lots of veggies if they aren't corn or potatoes or other starchy veggie.

Happy keeping track and meeting your goals. 

Warning that the tracker counts steps while you are driving as we bump along so to be accurate we need to subtract the time driving under the log activity tag.

Best in health,

Barbara 

[Nerino]

Thanks for the helpful and knowledgable response. I am starting to learn how this works.
I have another question about active minutes. I wear my Fitbit at the gym so it logs the steps I take on the elliptical machine and the weight machines. Do I still add active minutes as the calories burned with these steps is much greater or is it one or the other? Just not sure how to track my workouts.

Thanks again. By the way I am finally paying attention to how much goes into my mouth rather than just the quality of my food!



Sent from my iPhone

[Heybales]

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@Nerino wrote:
Thanks for the helpful and knowledgable response. I am starting to learn how this works.
I have another question about active minutes. I wear my Fitbit at the gym so it logs the steps I take on the elliptical machine and the weight machines. Do I still add active minutes as the calories burned with these steps is much greater or is it one or the other? Just not sure how to track my workouts.

Thanks again. By the way I am finally paying attention to how much goes into my mouth rather than just the quality of my food!



Sent from my iPhone

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Well, you can't add active minutes per se, but you can add a workout manually that has enough calorie burn to register as active minutes, or 3 x your resting calorie burn. Or VAM time too, 6 x.

Since both of those workouts is non-step based, you should indeed manually log them.

Elliptical would likely hit over 3 x resting, if you did it vigor and pick that option.

Lifting likely would be too, I'd call that circuit training if you kept rests to 1 min or less, reps 10-20, and moved between machines 2-3 x as a circuit, and made it heavy for you. Last few reps should be very difficult to maintain good form.

Manually logging those workouts will replace only the calories. Steps and distance will be left in your daily stats.

Or if you created an activity record on the device by hitting a button (which will also give you start and duration time to use manually logging it), you'll be able to view the original Fitbit stats for that time, before you manually logging it replaced the calorie burn.

[Nerino]

Thank you again for your response. I've decided I wanted a little more control over caloric burn because I do work out in the gym most nights. I traded up for the fit bit HR and I'm hoping this will more automatically track my workouts. Do you know if I still need to manually enter workouts especially those that are not step based or if my increased heart rate will register a work out automatically? Thanks again sorry I'm new to all of this.

Sent from my iPhone

[divedragon]

Personally, I don't pay any attention to the calorie burn calculated by fitbit.  I just assume I'll burn 2200-2400 calories a day and I try to limit my intake between 1500-1800 a day.  I've lost 17 lbs since Christmas, but I do admit that last Friday's weigh in had me EXACTLY the same as the week before (209.6 lbs).  What that made me realize is my body may be adjusting so I'm trying to shake it up.  I ate and didn't exercise a lot on  the weekend, I ate a little more and this week I'm adding weight lifting to my regement.  I may try to throw in a few other activities just to shake up my body.  I also added another 0.5 to the incline on the treadmill. 

Without measuring not only your pulse, but your respiration (you've seen the test subjects on the treadmill with the mask and monitors all over them!), calories burned is just a guess at best, so don't put a lot of stock in them.  Use the average basil metabolic rate for your weight, height and gender and use that to measure agaist.

[Heybales]

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@Nerino wrote:
Thank you again for your response. I've decided I wanted a little more control over caloric burn because I do work out in the gym most nights. I traded up for the fit bit HR and I'm hoping this will more automatically track my workouts. Do you know if I still need to manually enter workouts especially those that are not step based or if my increased heart rate will register a work out automatically? Thanks again sorry I'm new to all of this.

Sent from my iPhone

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With the HR devices, only workouts to manually log are strength training, like weights or circuit training.

Because with those you'll get elevated HR, but not because of the need for oxygen, which is what the calorie burn formula is assuming the higher HR is for.

So going by HR formula, you'll get inflated calorie burn on those 2 activities.

With steps it would have been bady underestimated.

But it would still be useful to hit the button to start an activity record, then you can manually add a workout and have the time and duration right there. And compare what Fitbit came up with compared to manual logging.

If not doing strength training of some sort, do recommend it as a means to try to retain muscle mass that is normally lost in a diet.