How does logging food work?

[Lynn14]

I have just started to log my food so I can see calories.

But I thought that it would give me the calories I should be eating then minus each meal during the day, then reset at the start of the day.

But have just imputed my breakfast and there is a deficit.

I am starting to walk more after a operation, so only doing about 2000/5000 a day.

I want an app that will give me calories minus intake and reset every day- will fitbit give me this? Thankyou for reading.

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[MarreFitbit · Accepted solution]

Hi there @Lynn14, it's nice to see you around the Community Forums. We're sorry for the late response, due to recent events affecting our operations, we're taking longer to respond.

I'll be more than glad to help you to understand how logging food in the Fitbit app works.

The calories burned tile you have on your Dashboard indicates the calories you've burned throughout the day; this includes your BMR calories, and calories burned as you are more active throughout the day (steps and activities are taken into account). BMR calories are what you see on your Fitbit dashboard when you wake up in the morning as well. This tile has nothing to do with the calories from your Food Plan; although these calories right here influence on your Food plan. 

If you have a Food Plan, this tile will indicate how many calories you have left to eat depending on the food that you've been logging during the day. The calories from this tile will always be different from the first tile because this one is for your Food Plan. You can modify the settings so this tile will help you achieve your weight goal through a food plan and calories to eat. See more information here: How do I track my food with the Fitbit app?

Now, the tile for calories in vs out will provide a daily calorie estimate as well as a gauge of real-time. The calories in vs. out gauge gives dynamic feedback of whether you are under, in, or above your selected plan's recommended calorie deficit. You can also see a simple readout of the number of calories you have burned and eaten for that day. 

The first tile will always be different from the other two since it's counting calories from different things.

1. The first tile will count your activities' and steps' calories plus your BMR calories; BMR calories are the ones your body burns just by maintaining vital functions.
2. The second will provide you a calculation for the calories you've eaten during the day and how many are left to be eaten within your calorie budget.
3. The third will provide a comparison of the calories you've eaten and the calories you've burned.

Under

More can be eaten (up to 'in range' / green zone) to stay within the food plan, when being under the deficit will be larger than the selected deficit and more weight will be lost instead.

In zone

Stay in this zone to keep on track to stay within the desired deficit, when watching the food plan, you are able to see how many calories can be eaten for the day.

The zone chart only looks at the total intake / calories burned since midnight until (now). When eating more calories (according to the food plan allowance) more can be eaten but the chart can display being over at the moment since the body didn't burned as many calories yet.

When staying within the food plan, even when being over at the moment (eating more at dinner), it will drop back to 'within range' during the day.

Over

More calories have been eaten than the food plan (desired deficit), there may still be a deficit, and still loosing weight, but not as much as the selected weight loss plan.

Deficit: 500

Eat over with 200, there's still a deficit of 300 and still being on track to loose weight however the weight loss will be a bit less. It's allowed to be 50 calories under or above the food plan to stay on track.

I hope this clarifies your inquiry, let me know if you have any questions present.