Oh..so i got tricked...

[Caramammal]

i synced MyFitnessPal to my fitbit account, and because i'm so used to just logging food in MFP, i just looked at the 'left to eat' calories, without actually looking at it properly. I didnt realise it had already taken into account my activity from fitbit and was actually saying i could eat more, and now i find that i've eaten 1600 calories, instead of 1200 (yes i know i should have realised something was amiss, but this is my first offical day of logging food and upping activity, and using fitbit officially, plus the syncing was taking over an hour). I'll be putting this down to a live and learn experience 🙂

Anyway, i guess my question is about what you've experienced if you're syncing MFP to fibit. I'm tempted to unpair them and just log food in MFP, as i'm not keen on MFP predicting my activity level for the evening based on my days activity, as i'm less active in the evening so it stands to reason it will over estimate what i do and think i can eat more than i should, does that make sense?

[SunsetRunner]

Super! @Caramammal 

Nothing makes sense in the evening..

Spoiler

[Greginnd]

I don't look at the calories left to eat number. Just the calories eaten and stop when I hit my limit.

[yldthng]

I love using MFP to log my food. I find it much easier than fitbit. I have my calories set at 1,400 per day, and I don't go over that amount no matter how much exercise I do. 

[LucyAnn22]

I used MyFitnessPal in a health class in college. I began by only eating my set calories for the day no matter how much I exercised and found that I actually gained weight. When I talked to my professor (a health psychologist) she told me that you need to make up for the calories you burn or your body thinks that it is starving and needs to hold on to everything that you eat. So, I upped my caloric intake by how much I burned at the gym and began losing weight. I lost about 20 pounds in 4 months by making sure that my net calories were never under 1300 for the day (anything less can be dangerously low and lead to issues and/or unmaintainable weight loss--as I was told). Of course, the calories you take in need to be healthy calories--not candy and cookies (like I wished they could be). 

This is what worked for me and what I was told by a trusted professional in the field. 

Hope it helps! 

[Caramammal]

thanks everyone. I think there is a whole debate on eating back exercise calories over on MFP, i've always eaten them back and have had continued loss in the past my doing that.

As for the confusion about calories burned, when i got into bed, my calories burned had increased so i ended up using loads more than i thought i had in the evening, i guess it will just take some getting used to and i just need to trust my fitbit a little more.

Have a great day x

[fifthwheel]

You can manually set your calories so that it won't change based on activity. You just need to go where you'd set your calories for weight loss goals and manually set your target calories. I plan to do this when I'm ready to set my new goal.

For now, just like everyone else, I try not to go above a specific calorie target, even if FB says I can have more. 

[lonerchick]

I log my food in my fitnesspal but I look to fitbit to tell me if I am okay to eat more.

[jessiW3]

I was just getting confused about how come my preset calorie limits on MFP changed once I synced!

When I click on the gear to attempt to manually set my daily cal limit on the Dashboard, it won't let me go past the weight section without putting a weight in. However, I don't have a set goal weight. 

Where can I manually set my target calories? 

[Heybales]

---

@jessiW3 wrote:

I was just getting confused about how come my preset calorie limits on MFP changed once I synced!

When I click on the gear to attempt to manually set my daily cal limit on the Dashboard, it won't let me go past the weight section without putting a weight in. However, I don't have a set goal weight. 

Where can I manually set my target calories? 

---

Doesn't matter, it won't prevent Fitbit from reporting total calories burned, MFP doing the math from what it thought you'd burn, and adjusting the eating goal by that much.

Since you merely have to eat less than you burn by a reasonable amount to lose fat (make it unreasonable if muscle mass loss is your goal), MFP without Fitbit estimated that daily burn with no exercise accounted for until actually done.

When done, you logged it.

Now with Fitbit synced, no more estimate based on a users selection of activity level that could be very wrong and dishonest.

MFP adjusts daily burned to what Fitbit says, deficit is removed, there's eating goal.

So I hope if you have a daily goal that is based on what you think you burn, you are at least using Fitbit for what it does to tell you what it thinks you burn, rather than guessing from a table of 5 rough levels.

You'll have to unsync accounts and just use Fitbit for motivation to move more, since it must not matter what you actually burn.

[jessiW3]

Thanks for the input. I'm on day two of my first FB, so I'm trying to sort it all out! I appreciate your assistance!

[uberwench]

me too.