says I'm not eating enough calories when I had 1800. Trying to loss.

[twins9480]

I'm only on my 3rd day with fitbit but 2 weeks at trying to loss weight. On over my dashboard it says I can have over 3000 cal. I can figure out why when I'm trying to loss weight. I work out in the morning to Leslie Samson and the dashboard changes and says I'm not eating enough. Last night it said i didn't eat enough but i had over 1800 calories. HELP

[gerrymcd]

It all depends on how aggressive you have input as your weight loss goals.  Generally, the recommendation is 1 to 2 lbs a week.  Which equates to using 500 or 1000 calories a day less than you eat (as you can see, loosing 2lbs a week is not exactly easy). 

The simple equation is

The amount of calories you body requires to remain the same weight  MINUS the calories eaten EQUALS calorie deficit.

As the comment below points out, your body needs about 1940 calories a day to remain the same weight.  To loose one pound a week you should eat 500 calories a day less than this amount, ie 1440 calories, or eat 1940 calories and do 500 calories worth of exercise.  To loose 2lbs a week you would have to only eat 1440 calories AND do 500 calories.  Much more than this gets to be very difficult -- doing more exercise than 500 calories worth will really kickup your appetite, and 1440 calories worth won't feel like enough. 

Its kind of confusing, but make sense in the end.  

[HRH · Accepted solution]

The UK Department of Health Estimated Average Requirements (EAR) are a daily calorie intake of 1940 calories per day for women and 2550 for men. Your dashboard setting of 3000 calories per day is likely to high and should to be adjusted downward. The average person needs to eat 500 calories less per day in order to loss about 1lb per week. Based on this information your caloric intake should be about 1440 if you're female or 2150 if you're male.

[twins9480]

Thank you now i know where i should be.

[twins9480]

Thank you and yes it is very confusing. As long as i loss weight then I will be happy. I will try it and again thanks

[jortiz · Accepted solution]

The fitbit also adjusts your calories available based on your activity and how many calories you have burned. Ex. if you have burned 3500 calories in a day, you have more calories you are able to eat that day to offset your active day.

[gerrymcd]

I found it best not to bother with the scales...... perhaps weighing myself once a month at most.  Eating as well as I can and being as active as possible are my goals.  Like most people, I find the number on a scale is often disheartening rather than encouraging (if you are loosing 1lb a week you might not actually see a change on the scale for a few weeks -- it can be masked by water retention).  And besides, if I'm eating/exercising their isn't much more I can do to change what the scales tell me!

[twins9480]

Thank you

[twins9480]

I agree not getting on the scale until I have had the fit bit for one month and then will see how i did. Thank you

[geminiwitch]

You have to look at your calories burned for the day at the end of the day.  If you set your goal to lose 1 pound a week with a 500 calorie deficit per day and you have eaten 1800 calories and it tells you that you need to eat more, you probably burned more than 2300 calories during the day.  If you set it to 2 pounds per week then you probably burned more than 2800 calories, so you need to eat more to get in the right ratio of calories burned versus calories eaten.

[slysam]

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@geminiwitch wrote:

You have to look at your calories burned for the day at the end of the day.  If you set your goal to lose 1 pound a week with a 500 calorie deficit per day and you have eaten 1800 calories and it tells you that you need to eat more, you probably burned more than 2300 calories during the day.  If you set it to 2 pounds per week then you probably burned more than 2800 calories, so you need to eat more to get in the right ratio of calories burned versus calories eaten.

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This... How many calories you burn depend on your height, weight, age, gender and how active you are. To burn the UK average listed, I have to be very active and if sedentary would gain weight eating that. Someone taller than me, heavier than me, younger than me would burn more than I do and might burn considerably more on a sedentary day. There isn't really a one size fits all. When averages are given they are usually for a 150 pound person, not sure the height or gender. The 2000 calories on american food labels are for a 150 pound male (average height, not sure the age or what is considered average height). The same is true for calorie burn on a lot of cardio machines if you don't specify otherwise. If you burn 3,000 calories a day and were set for a 2 pound a week loss your allowance would be 2000 calories. This is based on the statistic that to lose a pound of fat you need to eat 3,500 calories less than you burn over time. In real life, I am not sure it always works out that way since calorie burn estimates are always estimates, people tend to underestimate their logged food and weight can go up and down for reasons that have nothing to do with bodyfat gain or loss. As you lose weight you will find your calorie burn decrease if that is the case, so then you would need to further decrease your allowance. The 2 pound a week loss is usually only suggested for people who are something like 40+ pounds over their healthy goal weight.  There is always a possibility that your calorie burn estimate might be higher than actual so if you are really not hungry at 1800, you are probably fine to eat that. I think you should feel hungry sometimes if losing weight--at least I haven't managed to without feeling hunger. I feel stiated but not full right after a  meal then hungry about an hour before the next meal and at night (but not distractingly hungry). If I eat to where I feel satieted until it is time for the next meal (but never full) I just stay the same weight.