Question about calories in vs out

[jesshampton91]

So i am trying to lose weight and on my fitbit it says I should eat 1300 Calories a day. when i do excerise it will give me more Calories to eat, if i want to lose weight should i stick to the 1300 Calories or if i go over that even when the fitbit tells me i have more, will i still lose weight? how accurate is the fitbit calories?

Moderator edit: subject for clarity

[jelly54]

I find if I eat those extra calories that I don't lose weight. So I find the Fitbit calories allowed by exercise very misleading as it infers I can eat much more than I should.

[WilsonFitbit]

Hello @jesshampton91, @jelly54. Welcome to the community forums. @jelly54 Thanks for your input and for taking the time to provide your feedback. 

@jesshampton91 Thank you for the detailed information. At this time, if you're referring to calories in vs out, I'd recommend visiting this Fitbit blog that explains about calorie allowances and how yours is calculated. Please click here. 

Hope this helps. 

[emili]

@jesshampton91 hey there. the easiest way to figure this out is to do your own math and then butt it up against the fitbit data. Use a calculator  like this one here to calculate your BMR. This site gives you options to also calculate in your activity level and breaks down the math for you so you can easily understand how much you should be in deficit for the day/week to lose weight. Once you know, you will be able to determine the right calories to eat back or not eat back through the app. 

[jelly54]

Thanks Jess,
The link did not show a calculator or an option to calculate activity level.

Thank you,
I will try that

Moderator Edit: Merged posts

[Glenda]

I just googled how to calculate my BMR and they calculate all kinds of stuff for you.  calories a day, body fat %  Ideal weight ....

[Heybales]

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@jesshampton91 wrote:

So i am trying to lose weight and on my fitbit it says I should eat 1300 Calories a day. when i do excerise it will give me more Calories to eat, if i want to lose weight should i stick to the 1300 Calories or if i go over that even when the fitbit tells me i have more, will i still lose weight? how accurate is the fitbit calories?

Moderator edit: subject for clarity

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Depends on how close to average you are for the device which is designed for average.

Farther away you are - the more the numbers need to be used to adjust and get your own.

Like daily burn calories is based on distance your steps take you - mass and pace being very accurate formula for calorie burn.

But if stride length is off - calories is off.

Exercise is by HR-based formula - which is only decent estimate for steady-state aerobic exercise in middle of range - not going anaerobic, not right above daily activity level (like walking), not intervals with HR up and down, not lifting - that's all causing inflated.

If you did 15 min a day of workouts with inflated reading, but were very accurate otherwise - probably no big whoop - more inaccuracy allowed in food labels (up to 20% inaccuracy allowed - and that's if you logged everything very accurate by weight).

But if you did 60 min of something daily that was inflated - and pretty sedentary outside of exercise - now it matters more.

So what's your exercise?

Do you log food by weight? (because you could be logging badly and eating more than 1300 anyway)

What rate of loss did you pick, and how much to lose to healthy weight? (too extreme and body will adapt and make it slower anyway)

Many people can eat every hard earned exercise calorie back and lose at their expected rate - many others have to adjust for inaccuracies somewhere in their logging.

[jkjacks]

First off, your caloric intake can be off by 20-50% depending on source of your nutritional data (you can see multiple entries with all different data for same items).  Things like chicken eggs should vary by the weight/size of the egg not on the brand of egg you buy.  However, between manufacturer errors (or fudges) and your errors in rounding you can be really off when calculating that 1300 calories consumed.  Your BMR is another figure that is prone to errors.  When you calculate your BMR on the website, it can give you an "idea" of what your minimum caloric needs may be, however, just as with your fitbit, your bodies variance from the normal calculated in the equation will make it off by some degree plus the error involved in estimating your daily expenditures.  Someone living in a studio apartment and stays there 24/7 will spend a different amount of calories per day than someone living in a large split level house.  That is simply because one will walk more to get from the couch to the bathroom etc.  This is all before considering access to good nutritional food and water.  If most of your calories are from processed foods your body will consume more of those calories before the material exits your body.  Unprocessed food (fresh fruits and vegetables) take longer to digest leaving more of it undigested altering your absorption rate of calories eaten.  

With all of that under consideration, you are far better just staying at 1100-1300 calories per day for your nutrition rather than boosting to stay exactly -1000 or -500 caloric deficit per day.  Also, you do not need to track your caloric deficit on a daily basis.  You can consume 2000 calories one day, 1000 the next and 1200 for the next 5 days and still average 1285.7 calories per day which is just under your 1300 per day recommendation.

[WilsonFitbit]

Hello everyone. Thank you very much for sharing these nice suggestions! 

Have a great day!