Overestimating BMR?

[yzeew]

Okay this thing is saying a day at work and a yoga session is 3,500 calories. This would give me a deficit of 1,000 calories but I am gaining weight. Has been 2 months so I should be down like 15 lbs but I am up 10 lbs. Is there a way I could correct that or just assume it will overestimate it by 1k calories

[SebringDon]

@yzeew

First check to make sure your height, weight, and age are properly entered under settings, personal info. Those are the figures Fitbit uses to calculate your BMR. Then make sure you're logging all your food, including alcoholic beverages, accurately. I recommend buying a simple electronic scale for ten bucks or so.

How much do you have to lose? A 1000-calorie deficit is recommended for those with more than 40 pounds to lose. If you have less and try to lose at that weight, you may be burning muscle mass, which is hard to rebuild.

If you've been doing all that for two months and you're up 10 instead of down 15, there's definitely something wrong if your metabolism is normal. Were you eating way under for a period? That can get your metabolism in starvation mode. 

If that's not the case, then I'd say you have an unusual metabolism and may need to mentally adjust your Daily Calorie Allowance to leave more calories on the table.

If you'd like more in-depth information on Fitbit's Food Plan, the assumptions behind it and the tools you can use to have a successful experience, take a look at Fitbit's Food Plan Demystified

[Quondamprolix]

"If that's not the case, then I'd say you have an unusual metabolism and may need to mentally adjust your Daily Calorie Allowance to leave more calories on the table."

^ The above response is disappointing. I don't want to have to mentally adjust how much more I can eat (that is what the fitbit is *for*). I want to be able to manually adjust the number standing in for my basal metabolic rate (BMR),

I, too, gained over 10 pounds while staying "under" the calorie limit, as calculated by Fitbit. I had the tracker set to "sedentary".

It wasn't until my Versa suddenly broke. As I continued to to track my calories and try to stay "in the zone", I figured out that Fitbit calculates my BMR as an average of 67 calories per hour, over the course of one day.  It became apparent that 67 calories per hour is a good stand-in for (my BMR + my normal daily activities).  Over these two weeks I've lost 5 pounds.

Now that I have the warranty replacement for my Versa, I'm not sure I want to start wearing it again.  Aside from tracking my walking distance and strenuous cardio workouts, the caloric burn estimates from the device appear to be so high as to allow me to gain weight, even when staying "on track" for weight-loss in the digital metrics.

[SteveH]

Although you can't manually adjust your BMR rate you can cheat the system by adjusting one or more of your profile settings for age, height, weight etc until you get the BMR rate you think is correct. What some people do is to use an online BMR calculator to find the right combination of settings to give the desired BMR and then set the fitbit profile to those values.

[Colinm39]

I have "cheated" the system by setting my BMR to the weight I need to be and my next birthday.

I have then set my Calories Burned Goal to that to maintain weight.

I now record my food intake which matches that goal.  I'm "watching" food, rather than eating..

So far I feel better, weight is slowly moving off. I need to loose about 10kg. (22lb)

I have used this TDEE calculator and after comparing it to others they all have the similar Calorie result.