Have you lost weight since you got your Fitbit?

[Rnda]

I am the exact same weight as I was when I got my Flex 3 1/2 months ago!

How about you?

I'm hoping with Spring here and Summer around the corner, that my walking will increase. 

Moderator edit: title

[ArenS]

Drive on brother !!

[MVibe]

I had my Fitbit Blaze as a gift from my partner at Christmas. Initially, I didn't even know anything about it. Once the new year started, I got into it.

I was 13 stone 4lbs in January with a 27% bodyfat and by March I was 11 stone 10 with 20% bodyfat. That pretty much happened by a combination of diet change, calorie watching and getting steps. I met the 10,000 I had set myself but tried not to count things like wandering about my home etc. Instead I tried to make a routine of putting the Blaze on and going for a brisk walk, I'd add a bit of jogging here or there and deliberately choose a route where there would be hills / stairs / inclines etc.

I've hit a plateu now though. I'm stuck at 11 stone 10lbs and have been since March. I'm also stuck at 20& bodyfat. I'm not gaining but definitely not losing either and I can't quite understand why.

[FrannieMa]

Eat something meaty like a bacon and egg sandwich.  I found that proving to my body that I am not trying to kill it, it got back on track and I started losing again.
dfranniema

[MVibe]

Not quite sure how to go about it yet. I think my diet it fine, I'm wondering if I'm just eating a level of maintenance even though I'm set to a deficit on Fitbit?

I'm 46, 5'9 and currently weigh 164lbs, bodyfat is 20%. I want to get down to 15% bodyfat, that's of more interest to me than a specific weight on the scales. I'm currently consuming between 1800 and 2000 cals depending on activity level. A calculators gave me a BMR of 1596 and another 1664 so I'm not 100% sure what it is but I have assumed the lowest.

See yesterday, I ended up doing nearly 17k steps, some of that was a bit of low intensity jogging. I ate 2117 cals but fitbit said there were 3091 cals out and had me under by 224 cals for the day. I'm confused as to whether I'm under eating and slowing my metabolism, or fitbit is awarding me too many calories for my activity and whilst I'm not eating all of the 'remaining for the day' amounts, I'm eating enough to fall into a plateu and halt weight loss?.

I wondered this because I noticed if I run on the spot at high intensity for 1000 steps ( which takes about 5 - 7 mins for me ) I'm told I burnt about 80 cals. I am sweating and out of breath with this but if I take a slow walk to the shop and back, it's around 1000 steps too but it says I burnt like 300 cals. These cals are obviously added to my daily allowance and I'm unsure as to whether it causing my plateu. Confused about a lot of things surrounding where Im at

[jaclin]

I've lost weight and then re-gained it.  I am losing again very slowly.  So long as I am active in challenges, I tend to lose.  As soon as I stop caring how many steps I'm getting, the fitbit becomes just a watch.  You have to interact with fitbit and the challenges if you want to see results.

[Heybales]

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@MVibe wrote:

Not quite sure how to go about it yet. I think my diet it fine, I'm wondering if I'm just eating a level of maintenance even though I'm set to a deficit on Fitbit?

I'm 46, 5'9 and currently weigh 164lbs, bodyfat is 20%. I want to get down to 15% bodyfat, that's of more interest to me than a specific weight on the scales. I'm currently consuming between 1800 and 2000 cals depending on activity level. A calculators gave me a BMR of 1596 and another 1664 so I'm not 100% sure what it is but I have assumed the lowest.

See yesterday, I ended up doing nearly 17k steps, some of that was a bit of low intensity jogging. I ate 2117 cals but fitbit said there were 3091 cals out and had me under by 224 cals for the day. I'm confused as to whether I'm under eating and slowing my metabolism, or fitbit is awarding me too many calories for my activity and whilst I'm not eating all of the 'remaining for the day' amounts, I'm eating enough to fall into a plateu and halt weight loss?.

I wondered this because I noticed if I run on the spot at high intensity for 1000 steps ( which takes about 5 - 7 mins for me ) I'm told I burnt about 80 cals. I am sweating and out of breath with this but if I take a slow walk to the shop and back, it's around 1000 steps too but it says I burnt like 300 cals. These cals are obviously added to my daily allowance and I'm unsure as to whether it causing my plateu. Confused about a lot of things surrounding where Im at

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You could be eating more than you think, though I doubt that would wipe out the deficit it appears you have. But since you are eating a healthy amount, inaccuracies have bigger effect.

Since calories is per gram, are you weighing everything that goes in your mouth?

Spoons, cups - volume are only for liquids.

Fitbit uses as bases of calculations a BMR similar to Mifflin - though they don't report what they use exactly now. But that does have bearing on final calorie estimates - because BMR is used in all calc's, from steps that produces distance for daily activity calories, to exercise using HR-based calorie calc.

But it does show importance of stride length if you do many steps.

Have you ever done a known distance walk, at average daily pace (not exercise pace, not grocery store shuffle) and confirmed Fitbit had the distance right?

So an almost 1000 cal deficit with maybe 10 lbs left to lose is not good if that is always done.

At this point - reasonable would be 1/2 lb weekly.

Make it unreasonable - and your body can adapt and force you slower, along with stress induced cortisol retained water weight (up to a slow gain of 20 lbs there) - and you could see the scale not moving, even if inches are dropping. Talk about stressful probably!

The problem is - if body is that stressed out - you don't get as much from workouts, and unlikely to be only losing fat weight while water weight increases.

Oh - your slow walk 1000 steps should be using step-based calorie burn as that is more accurate. (if distance is accurate).

Your intense 1000 steps run is using HR-based calorie burn, and many reasons for HR to not be a good calculation of calorie burn, because HR can be inflated for many reasons - tired, dehydrated, stressed, no warmup, heat. Sometimes step-based distance calories would be more accurate here too, depends on workout. Sometimes manual entry would be.

But it could also be the HR-based calc is underestimating your calorie burn if say it's not seeing the HR go as high as it really is - meaning if exercise is frequent and of enough duration - you could be burning even more than estimated, meaning deficit is even bigger than shown - meaning your body is even more stressed than you are aware.

Also - the chunk of time and calories burned included BMR level burn - so shorter is less of that anyway, longer is more of it. Now, only 67 an hr, so not talking a huge amount here, but if 3 min compared to 30 - sure a difference.

So TLDNR version:

1 - confirm weighing food for logging.

2 - confirm distance Fitbit reports is correct for an average daily pace walk.

3 - if 10-15 lbs to healthy weight, change loss rate to 1/2 lb weekly.

4 - confirm with a touch pulse count that Fitbit is reading a high HR correctly.

Oh - if ever curious on walking/jogging calorie count - this is more accurate than HR-based if you use accurate figures. Use Gross to compare. This is not for all day step distance, but when you do a known distance at once.

https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs

[Dominique]

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@MVibe wrote:

I was 13 stone 4lbs in January with a 27% bodyfat and by March I was 11 stone 10 with 20% bodyfat. 

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@MVibe: there is this approach (for people who need/want to lose a lot of weight) that recommends losing no more than 10% of your bodyweight in a single stretch of weight loss no longer than 3 months. The rationale behind this is described in the Losing All Your Weight At Once video. You went from 186 to 164 pounds, i.e. you lost 12% of your starting weight in 3 months (or perhaps even less, since you didn’t specify the exact dates in January and March). I believe this is why you’re now having a much harder time to further lose weight and lower body fat. The suggested approach is to maintain your new, lower weight for another 2-3 months (or maybe even more) before shooting for the next fat loss phase. 

[MVibe]

@Dominique

 January 1st, was when I officially started using my Fitbit Blaze. My partner bought it me at Christmas but I didn't get into it until after the festive period.

I'd gone to a Boots chemist a day or 2 before the new year and got my height/weight/BMI etc done on one of those machines. I said 13 stone 4 initially but I was fully clothed in trainers etc so I entered 13 stone when I started so lets say 182 lbs. By 20th March, I'd hit 164 lbs. I'd been slowly gaining weight ( over years not months ) prior to this. It took me 20 years to go from a bit lighter than I am now to the 164-168 lb I was when I got my fitbit. When I was in my mid 20's, I often thought I just wanted to shed some lower belly fat and I seem to be right back at that same point. It's like my body really wants to hold on to that bit and I'm just wanting to figure out my best way to shift it.

The intial weight loss happened very quick, I was more concerened with my diet though. I'd wake up, skip breakfast because I was still bloated from the night before, I'd go until the afternoon without eating because it took that long to 'un-bloat'. Then I'd eat dinner and I'd realise I was actually hungry and eat too much in one sitting and get sluggish / bloated again, plus in the evening I'd snack a lot. Maybe eat some cake, crisps, and I'd have pastries and whatever else right up until bedtime and the cycle carried on the next day. It wasn't THAT bad, I'd generally try to eat some decent food but it would be supplemented with a heap of rubbish too. 

So literally, cutting that out and eating totally different caused the initial weight to just fly off. I guess I'd been gaining somewhere just over 1 lb per year since I was in my mid 20's but as I have always been pretty active, it's been a slow increase that was getting ON the increase as my activity decreased I think, rather than a completely steady incline. I've come to the conclusion that that was the weight my didn't 'think' it wanted anyways and a simple switch up of diet would have done that part regardless of my activity level. I've never been a person who's had to struggle with weight. The last bit of fat around my lower tummy though is like really stubborn. To me, it feels like that is the fat my body does think it needs. If my memory serves me correct, I think I started getting some fat there in my late teens but certainly, in my mid 20's.

Info says I'm just inside of the healthy weight now for my size, I have an amount of muscle mass, mostly around chest/arms/shoulders naturally and whilst there has possibly been some loss of muscle, it doesn't look like like it in an obvious way so I'm presuming it hasn't come off too fast? Either way, I wasn't intentionally trying to go too fast, like I say, it just started coming off pretty much as soon as I ate differently.

So yeah, 1st Jan this year to 20th March from ( at most ) 186 lbs to 164 lbs and I've been at 164 lbs for almost 2 months now. What's left now, is like what's been there for a long time. I have no clue as to whether that has any bearing on anything. Thanks for the video link, I shall watch it later 🙂

[MVibe]

@Heybales

Thanks for that post, in response, yes, it's perfectly possible I am eating more than I think, this week I am really getting strict with that so until I give it a few weeks of not eating out and weighing everything, I'm going to see if there's any difference there.

I weigh most things but some I've let go. To give an example, here's yesterdays food.

Breakfast: 2 slices wholemeal toast & 2 poached eggs.

( I didn't weigh or account for the margerine on the toast or the Brown sauce I put on my eggs )

Mid Morning and between dinner: 86 grams chargrilled chicken breast, 105 grams banana, 12 grams walnuts. Dynapro protein shake ( 100 cals ) made with 250mls unsweetened almond milk.

Dinner: 190 grams chicken breast, 185 grams broccoli, 200 grams green french beans, 2 Yorkshire puddings ( 84 cal approx ) Gravy made from granules and English Mustard ( few tsp )

( I didn't weigh or account for the gravy & mustard )

Late afternoon: Cacao Hike bar 190 cals.

Evening: Fori Chilli Beef bar 146 cals & Piri Piri chicken breast slices 122 cal

Late evening: Fruit & Quark. 126 grams vanilla quark, 68g strawberries 22cal, 46g watermelon 14 cal, 100g blueberries 57cal.

I eat a lot of Quark but lately I've switched to vanillia. I need to alter this fact as it contains some sugar and has a different calorific value.

I also drink several cups of tea per day and use semi skimmed milk which goes unaccounted for.

So whilst I am trying, I have sometimes adopted the approach of not bothering with some stuff with the mindset of 'well, let's assume a 100 or so cals for the unreported stuff' and take that into account when eating for the day.

I also find it impossible to judge food if eating out ( which my partner loves and I don't want to become some bore lol ) Also, she loves my home made chilli but when I make it, I have no clue as to go about entering that or any other home cooked food like a curry or other one pot meals with a lot of ingredients.

I totally get the time based calories used. It occured to me as soon as I had posted my post and you mirrored what was my thinking there.

No, I haven't done a known distance walk. Is that something you could expand on please. Do I do that first whilst counting in my head and then do it with the Blaze?

Yes, your point about what I'm consuming calorie-wise and whether I should be eating more/less is my current connundrum. Basically, I know nothing if I'm honest, only what I have read since I began at the start of the year.I reckon I have been a life-long undereater as since using fitbit, I've actually felt like I have never ate so much in a single day - at least not wholesome meals. I'd have like 1 decent meal, then snack on rubbish throughout the day. Oh, also, I will have beer around twice a month. I've always been a bit of pub goer and beer guzzler, often in the pub 3 or 4 times a week but I cut that right back to twice monthly. I haven't accounted for it and I don't know if it's affecting my goal. Here's how I have attempted to allow it which is prob a bit daft.

Like if it's a sat night and I'm gonna meet up with some buddies down the pub, I'll eat breakfast and a light lunch, then I'll go out and get my step count up to 15k and do some activity which elevates my heart rate, adds lots of cals remaining for the day so I can 'fit in' the cals from beer - which can be a lot. I'll prob drink up to 10 pints of 3.5% larger, walk home, drink water and go to bed. 2115 cals is roughly what I'd drink I think. It has been weened off a lot but unfortunately, it's the only social life I've ever known and it's been a toughie that one. I don't know to what extent this is affecting my goal, it hasn't affected weight loss until now as I have obviously lost weight, less the general health side if things, I don't know.

Thanks for the detailed response & link, I will check it out 🙂

[Bionicwoman71]

Yes I have. I have lost over 35 pounds in the last year with my fitbit blaze. I am now 162 and no longer overweight according to bmi. I still want to lose weight and reach my ideal weight of 155 pounds. I should reach that soon although I'm not putting a time frame on it.

[cyndistepper]

It my help to cut out the carbs for dinner since they aren’t needed for energy. Load up on the veggies and water and also protein to keep you full.
You might also find it helpful to start a challenge with the Fitbit on your app. It is fun to challenge to beat your best or team up with fellow fitbitters (friends who also have the app with Fitbit) and see who reaches the highest stepcount for the day or week or even weekend.
You appear to be very committed to tracking which is great to look back on and see which weeks varied and how food and movement played a role.

Have a great week
Cyndi



Sent from Mail for Windows 10

[MVibe]

Gave it a think today and thought I'd switch things up a bit and see how it goes for a few weeks but it's worrying me. I've obviously hit a plateu and I'm not sure I want to drop too low calorie-wise so this morning, I altered it to a 500 cal deficit having been on -750 until now. To be honest, I haven't done much today, I spent 4 hrs sat on a train, ok there was a spot of walking here and there with a few bags but nothing much. Prior to that, I was at home where I just happened to do 1000 on the spot jogging steps and then just normal activity.

Got back home at 7pm, ate a late dinner, rested, then did a brief 3000 step walk/jog and about 100 push ups. Step total for the day was 12,085 but about 9000 of that was normal everyday movement. With that in mind, fitbit has gave me a calorie out amount of 3003 and I've made a conscious effort to consume 2448 calories to 'get in the zone' ( with 58 cals remaining ) So that would be a 3000 cal a day intake if I were maintaining my current weight with minimal activity.

It seems really excessive to me considering im about 5'9 and 164 lbs and spent the vast majority of the day on my butt. I can't see how I could have possibly burnt 1400 cals above my 1600 bmr doing a tiny bit of activity.

Really really puzzled and it's one of the reasons why I have been apprehensive about eating the calories fitbit says are remaining in order to get in the zone. I just imagine I'd balloon on them. The other week I just happened to clock up 21258 steps and it said I had burned 3599 calories. I'd only been out walking at a leisure pace with my partner for the most part, nothing intense as it was a hot day, we just spent all of it outdoors. In order to be 'in the zone' that day, it would have had me eat 2849 calories and that's at a 750 cal deficit. I'd literally just walked around slowly as my partner has a bad knee.

I'd really like some insight here as I'm even more confused than I was when I initially posted. Does it all seem wrong? I wasn't eating that many calories years ago when I did some weight training and I was gaining muscle then. Here, I'm just trying to shed about 8 to 10 more lbs.

I've read about the heart rate thing, it has my resting BPM at 59/60, sometimes during my activities, it registers around 123 or thereabouts depending on what I'm doing never much above and below that regardless of whether I've jogged a bit or walked. I walk fairly quick I guess when on my own but like today, how I've burnt that much calories is a mystery.

I'm hoping someone can help out - or at least point me in some direction of whether it seems correct or just wrong. Cheers...

[jshaf]

yes, 152

[FrannieMa]

I just finished my 15,000th step...going for 20,000.  Hard work, yes, but I strive for this level of steps.
franniema

[jshaf]

have hit over 20K six straight days, it is tough but your body adjusts the more you do it, and you end up in a better place 🙂 

[Heybales]

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@MVibe wrote:

Gave it a think today and thought I'd switch things up a bit and see how it goes for a few weeks but it's worrying me. I've obviously hit a plateu and I'm not sure I want to drop too low calorie-wise so this morning, I altered it to a 500 cal deficit having been on -750 until now. To be honest, I haven't done much today, I spent 4 hrs sat on a train, ok there was a spot of walking here and there with a few bags but nothing much. Prior to that, I was at home where I just happened to do 1000 on the spot jogging steps and then just normal activity.

Got back home at 7pm, ate a late dinner, rested, then did a brief 3000 step walk/jog and about 100 push ups. Step total for the day was 12,085 but about 9000 of that was normal everyday movement. With that in mind, fitbit has gave me a calorie out amount of 3003 and I've made a conscious effort to consume 2448 calories to 'get in the zone' ( with 58 cals remaining ) So that would be a 3000 cal a day intake if I were maintaining my current weight with minimal activity.

It seems really excessive to me considering im about 5'9 and 164 lbs and spent the vast majority of the day on my butt. I can't see how I could have possibly burnt 1400 cals above my 1600 bmr doing a tiny bit of activity.

Really really puzzled and it's one of the reasons why I have been apprehensive about eating the calories fitbit says are remaining in order to get in the zone. I just imagine I'd balloon on them. The other week I just happened to clock up 21258 steps and it said I had burned 3599 calories. I'd only been out walking at a leisure pace with my partner for the most part, nothing intense as it was a hot day, we just spent all of it outdoors. In order to be 'in the zone' that day, it would have had me eat 2849 calories and that's at a 750 cal deficit. I'd literally just walked around slowly as my partner has a bad knee.

I'd really like some insight here as I'm even more confused than I was when I initially posted. Does it all seem wrong? I wasn't eating that many calories years ago when I did some weight training and I was gaining muscle then. Here, I'm just trying to shed about 8 to 10 more lbs.

I've read about the heart rate thing, it has my resting BPM at 59/60, sometimes during my activities, it registers around 123 or thereabouts depending on what I'm doing never much above and below that regardless of whether I've jogged a bit or walked. I walk fairly quick I guess when on my own but like today, how I've burnt that much calories is a mystery.

I'm hoping someone can help out - or at least point me in some direction of whether it seems correct or just wrong. Cheers...

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Add to your BMR about 10% of the calories you eat as processing for the food.

So 240 calories for day in review.

Consider that merely being awake non-moving burns more than BMR, why it's called RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate).

That amount works out to be by one decent formula 1.0185*(BMR-370)+500

 So for you using 1600, RMR = 1729 but for say 16 hrs awake = 1153 + 533 BMR sleeping = 1686

So 86 more.

At 320 now. That's what Fitbit doesn't even attempt to account for.

How often were you standing with no steps, where Fitbit was giving you BMR level burn, but it is actually more than RMR in reality since muscles used?

Unaccounted for also.

So of the 1400 cal above sleeping all day, 320 is roughly accountable - so 1080 based on the walking you did.

You said distance was not confirmed at your average daily pace?

First easy test is accuracy of step count. Look at current count, go take 100 right foot steps walking normal average daily pace with normal arm swing (it's attempting to count impacts despite the arm swing), look at current count - was it 200 more?

Second test - find a non-treadmill (which are rarely calibrated for accuracy) known distance route. Get an activity record ready to go and walk up past the line and start it, walk to end of known distance at average daily pace and stop the record - that will be hard as it should feel slow compared to perhaps wanting to get up to exercise pace. 1/2 mile is good distance to improve accuracy.

What distance did Fitbit report for it (may have to review the Record later) compared to known distance? (GPS with many turns not that accurate so don't use that).

9000 steps is well above Sedentary, actually on activity levels that would be above Lightly-Active too, approaching upper end of Active level. Your activity was NOT tiny bit above sitting on butt all day.

But as above test will show, that many steps with inaccurate distance could cause a decent inflation of calorie burn.

Now, times where your HR jumps up there, if it remains high for whatever is the current limit Fitbit sets for slipping into workout mode, you'll be getting HR-based calorie burn - and frankly at the lower end of aerobic range like you mention - that would be inflated calorie burn.

So you might look at your graph of calorie burn and see if you can correlate when that HR spikes, and if you see calorie burn per 5 min block increase noticeable.

May or may not be an inflation problem there. If it happens 2-3 times daily for 5 min - no big whoop, your food labels are more inaccurate than that. If it happens 20 times daily for 5-10 min - now you may be talking an issue with accuracy.

Walking at fast clip actually burns about as much as weight lifting does - so if years ago you were getting it logged by HR - that was for sure inflated back then.

Walking formulas for calorie burn are one of the most accurate for calculating - because treadmills have been used the majority of the time in research and studies, so comparisons between indirect calorie burns and calculated are some of the best known.

[Shadowsforbars]

I am now 13 months in and down 25 lbs.  It's been a good month for me, I shuffled my way through a local trail race finishing 2nd of 2 in my age and gender group, but that is apparently good enough to qualify to take part in the Canadian Mountain Running Championships.  I won't be going, but it is nice to know I am welcome.

[californiagirl9]

I have lost 15 pounds since end of March. I run 2 miles a day in the am, go for a 5 mile hike every Monday and I try to get 10,000 steps per day. I love the little motivational tidbits I get from my Versa. Definitely try the challenges if you haven't already, especially with your Fitbit friends! Competition always helps me reach my goal! Good Luck! 🙂 

[pk359]

I have lost 154lbs. When I started I was 154.30lbs. Slow but steady I will fly soon.

[Heybales]

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@pk359 wrote:

I have lost 154lbs. When I started I was 154.30lbs. Slow but steady I will fly soon.

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I guess if you eat like a hummingbird, you become a hummingbird.

Actually 1/3 lb sounds heavy for a hummingbird.