fitbit dashboard and my fitness pal !

[EllaBella]

Hey, I have hardly worn my fitbit for a bit (naughty me). I have decided to join my local gym . I really need to lose some weight so i have downloaded my fitness pal to track my food, i have synced it with fitbit. ok so i have never looked at the calorie option on fitbit dashboard but it says i need to eat a lot more calories then myfitness pal ? should they be the same ? also i dont understand the scales , the whole calories in and calories out ? at the end of the day it says i have burnt a lot of calories and need to eat 1000 extra !! i might as well go to mcdonalds lol so i havent been losing any weight. but if i stick to the calories given in my fitness pal then i do lose weight ?

 help please guys! 

[bbkitty]

i used my fitness pal for ages last year. i wasn't going to the gym and i lost about 7kg (2.2lbs in 1kg) just from changing my calorie intake according to my fitness pal in about 2 - 3 months, i was not walking or anything only working. it was a slow process but eating really made a difference. oh and i ate healthy, i wasn't just going off how many calories i tried hard to make it healthy food as well. diet makes such a difference. but if you're going to the gym, you should be eating more calories than fitness pal says, correct me if i'm wrong but my fitness pal i think is based on if you were to only eat the calories and not really work out?

good luck. 

[EllaBella]

If you put in the exercise you have done on my fittness pal it allows extra calories for you to eat . I'll just have to see how I get on 🙂

[zebrahamster]

I know exactly what you mean.  The same thing happen to me.  I was eating the calories from my fitness pal but I just kept gaining weight.  I had to look at what I had been doing over the last 2 1/2 months.  Finally, I found out what was happening.  When I walked with my fitbit on, it tracked every movement like when I was cooking dinner or folding clothes, making the bed ect....  each time my foot moved or my arm quickly, the fitbit thought I took steps.  Those steps were calculated as exersize, then I was given more calories to eat.  I wasn't paying attention and just ate what the calorie amount said.  well I was eating too many calories to loose weight.  I backed up mu calorie goal on fitness pal to 1150 and even with the added calories from "exersize" I began to loose again. so ,, try backing your calorie intake on fitness pal to about 600 calories lower and see if that works for you. 

[Heybales]

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@EllaBella wrote:

Hey, I have hardly worn my fitbit for a bit (naughty me). I have decided to join my local gym . I really need to lose some weight so i have downloaded my fitness pal to track my food, i have synced it with fitbit. ok so i have never looked at the calorie option on fitbit dashboard but it says i need to eat a lot more calories then myfitness pal ? should they be the same ? also i dont understand the scales , the whole calories in and calories out ? at the end of the day it says i have burnt a lot of calories and need to eat 1000 extra !! i might as well go to mcdonalds lol so i havent been losing any weight. but if i stick to the calories given in my fitness pal then i do lose weight ?

 help please guys! 

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Suggest you don't try to follow 2 roads to the same destination, nothing but aggravation and confusion.

Even if a man isn't driving, not asking for directions. 😉

First - did you setup the weight loss profiles on MFP and Fitbit to the same weight loss goal?

Second - if you have the accounts synced, the MFP rough estimate of daily calories burned based on your selection of non-exercise activity level, is corrected throughout the day by Fitbit's better estimate of daily burn.

Meaning by the end of day, Fitbit says you burned 2500 and reports that to MFP, MFP corrects it's estimate to 2500, and if the deficit is the same, the final eating goal is the same. Because 2500 - 500 = 2000 no matter where you do it.

The differences will come during the day depending on how frequently you sync.

If infrequently, than a Fitbit option could confuse MFP's math.

But suggest that sync MFP already has the food logging, follow it's eating level guide, which will indeed adjust as Fitbit reports different daily burns.

And yes, to lose weight you merely need to burn more calories than you eat in daily.

Not by a huge amount though. Bigger is not better in this case, unless you want to lose muscle mass and stress your body out.

And why couldn't you go to McDonalds if you have an extra 1000 calories you could eat? You could eat nothing but McD and lose weight, as long as you burned more than you ate. Pick the right things, nutrition may not even be a factor.