Weight Loss

[Healthizwealth]

I enjoy using the fitbit to keep me accountable and help me keep track of my activity and food. That said I am trying to lose weight. I have read tons of articles about the accuracy (or inaccuracy rather) of the calories burned shown on the device and app. My question is, has anyone followed the app to the letter as far as logging food and eating the shown amount of calories allowed and had success with losing weight? It seems like perhaps everyone is eating less than what the app says. Any advice on how to navigate this so that I am not eating too much?

[WavyDavey]

Hi @Healthizwealth 

Many people have had success logging their food and calories burned. The trick is to properly calibrate it to you. You can do this by tracking your food for a few weeks, making sure the calories in match the calories out. Then, when you weigh yourself, it will be obvious if the calories burned are too high (you'd gain weight) or too low (you'll lose weight). From there you can make an adjustment to your calorie intake to compensate.

Some people can maintain by keeping a balance between calories in and out. But it's pretty common to have to see how it works for us individually, and making an adjustment from there. In my case, it seems to under-report calories burned by about 200kcal per day. So I just have an extra small snack, to keep weight at maintenance.

Edit: I moved your thread to the Manage Weight section of the forum so it can get better visibility.

[Baltoscott]

@Healthizwealth -- I will add to what @WavyDavey said. 

I think the best way to test whether Fitbit's calorie burn estimate is accurate for you (or accurate enough to rely on to lose weight) is daily weigh-ins for the purpose of collecting data, and focusing on the change in your weekly average weight to see if you are moving in the right direction.  The difference fat change between two weigh-ins, even if they are a week apart, can be and usually is swamped by changes in water retention and food that has not yet made it fully through your system.  Focusing on the change to your weekly average (if you actually weigh in daily) is a much better barometer of your progress.  (Measuring your waist and tracking that over time is also a good way to measure of fat loss).

In response to your original question, in my case, Fitbit seemed to overestimate calorie burn by about 500 calories/day when my BMI was at the top end of the 'overweight' range and I basically had to shoot for a 1000 cal/day deficit (which would project a 2 lb weekly loss) in order to achieve a 1 lb weekly loss.  But the reason I realized what was going on and was able to correct for it was because I weigh in every day and kept my focus on the trend revealed by the weekly changes.  (Linking your fitbit account to the free website TrendWeight, see link in my signature, will give you a daily moving average of past weigh-ins making it easier to understand that no single weigh-in makes that much difference).