Ability to customize calorie deficit

[yunakitten]

hey guys,

I love my fitbit flex but the thing that is missing for me is a custom calorie deficit setting. You can set it to --250, -500, -750 and -1000

Well I have a thyroidism disorder which makes it impossible to lose weight with these settings, I have to manually count -1500 by myself and I wish I could input it and so I could use the "below, in the zone, over" feature as intended.

That or to set up a "slow metabolism" which makes the calories burnt formula adjust lower.

I know the number written for me even when not doing anything is just incredibly too high.

Please make this a thing soon ❤️

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject and labels

[gravityhomer]

I love the food plan and how you can choose 1 of 4 different difficulty levels for weight loss. It determines your base calorie burn and then estimates the calories you need based on the selection of  250, 500, 750 or 1000 calorie deficit. I'd like to be able to enter a manual calorie deficit. I still would like Fitbit to calculate my calorie burn based on my activity level, but I would like to enter say 900 calories or 1100 calories. And if this could be set for different days of the week that would be great. Say you have alternating days of the week where you have a greater or less calorie deficit.  

I know that the manual option is that you just eat a specific number of calories for each day, but I'd rather have fitbit estimate my calorie burn per day. 

[KimR]

I agree!  Being able to put in an exact number for the calorie deficit besideds 250, 500, 750, and 1000 would be great.  I think I've finally got everything else set up exactly like I want it, except for this. 

[jessbeez]

Agreed! I would like to set up different deficits for different days of the week. For example, Monday-Thursday, 750 calorie deficit, Friday and Saturday 0 calorie deficit, and Sunday, 500 deficit. I always "cheat" a little on the weekends and it's frustrating to see it in the red. 

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@gravityhomer wrote:

I love the food plan and how you can choose 1 of 4 different difficulty levels for weight loss. It determines your base calorie burn and then estimates the calories you need based on the selection of  250, 500, 750 or 1000 calorie deficit. I'd like to be able to enter a manual calorie deficit. I still would like Fitbit to calculate my calorie burn based on my activity level, but I would like to enter say 900 calories or 1100 calories. And if this could be set for different days of the week that would be great. Say you have alternating days of the week where you have a greater or less calorie deficit.  

I know that the manual option is that you just eat a specific number of calories for each day, but I'd rather have fitbit estimate my calorie burn per day. 

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[SunsetRunner]

Would be great to be able to set a custom calorie deficit in food plan as would like to set a daily deficit of 350 but only options are 250, 500, 750 and 1000.

Prefer to set a deficit than an absolute daily food/calorie amount as that would not vary with activity, that is calories burned...

Would setting a custom calorie deficit be posisble?

[SunsetRunner]

Oops, meant to write "prefer not to set a fixed daily food/calroie instake.."

[Grimster]

I was just about to request the same thing until I saw it was already asked.

I would still like to use the food plan, just not with the auto generated deficit. I would like to be able to set my own. 

[Grimster]

I came here to create a request for a manual deficit option, but I see there are already a few people who have thought the same, which is great.

I also love the idea to be able to set it up per day! (Or at least a difference between week days and the weekend). Right now I want to be strict and also have the same deficit during the weekends. But once I'm at my desired weight I could really use that feature!

[jtr67]

Fyi, I deal with this by using the manually set calorie goal instead of calorie deficit option. I wasn't losing weight with the calorie deficit anyway since, I believe, the formula is greatly overestimating calories burned. So, in short, my eating and exercise goals now are separate: 1350 calories a day, and 10,000 steps, and I don't allow myself more calories if I walk more. It works better for me this way.

[DJayne]

While you can set a specific calorie goal, for many that's not nearly as useful as a calorie deficit goal. The former assumes you have a consistent level of effort from one day to the next, the latter is more useful for folks who have varying levels of activity from day-to-day, but want to keep a consistent deficit, or who want to be able to glance at the dashboard and see how they're doing on deficit vs. activity during the day.

I'd also really like to see a custome calorie deficit setting.

[DJayne]

Please add custom calorie deficit. I love the deficit feature as it lets me just glance at my dashboard regardless of how active the day, and see how many calories I have left. Really a boost on days when I'm super active and see that I can have that scoop of ice cream!

Either add custom deficit, or add more levels in the deficit. Maybe 50 calorie intervals: 500, 550, 600, etc... That would let folks who want to gradually work up to a higher deficit do so and still use the feature.

[jtr67]

I completely agree that this should be an option!

[AllanL]

Both my wife and myself love our fitbits (we both had the flex and now the Charge HR and Surge) and we have lost about 160 pounds of fat between us but now as we approach goals the default food plans are not as useful as they used to be.  We need to cycle calories between dieting and reverse dieting which include increase calories slowly against the daily burn rate until we reach or possibly exceed our calculated MBR so as to restore our Metabolic Burn Rate (which goes slow down with dieting) and then we can cut again but we would like to move in smaller increments up and down so a custom deficit as mentioned would be ideal (and the option of a set calorie count is antequated and not really they type of target a person who values a fitbit would really use).  This type of food plan is in use by many top personal trainers with their competive bodybuilding/fitness model contestants with great results and the fitbit with custom deficit would be a perfect match for this.

[Tomv805]

I really would like to be able to set my caloric deficit/surplus to 1000-4000. The current plans just don't have what I need. Some times I have to make weight, and lose /gain 10 pounds in 7 days.

[joeyjj]

I came to add something similar so upvote and also to add; I'd like better graphs in the App for this feature.

I will aim for a Calorie deficit (or surplus) each day and care only if I hit it - rather than say a daily target. It's hard to properly track the deficit. 

I have the Aria (weighing scales) and the 'Lean Mass' feature shows two lines - something like this for Calories each day would be great. 

[RoadSinger]

Me, too!  Manual calorie deficit would be great.  I burn far fewer calories on my "weekend" but my work requires quite a lot off walking.  Does Fitbit monitor these ideas?  Maybe not.  I just noticed the dates of these discussions.  Hasn't happened yet.

[JamesSS]

Not that I think the Fitbit staff actually reads these things, but this is another software feature that would be super easy to implement. Several of these types of requests could be done by a good web designer/DBA in a couple of days tops. I "never" see any added features to the app, and although there are a few bugs every thing else works relatively well. Right now the products are comparable to competitors but not superior by any means. By not moving forwarward Fitbit is starting to fall behind the competitors and are in danger of losing market share. I personally no longer recommend Fitbit without reservation, and suggest anyone who asks to have a look into Garmin as well.

[SilviaFitbit]

You can set your own calorie deficit in your Dashboard by doing this procedure: 

- Go to your Dashboard 

- Click on the gear icon of the Food Plan tile 

- Click on the pen to edit it > click on Food Plan 

- Finally, click on Set my own calorie target

Hope you can guys can enjoy this. 

[Grimster]

Hi,

That's not what is meant by this.
I don't want to set a custom calorie goal, I already have that. What I want is a custom calorie deficit. The ones from the food plan are too low, I want a higher deficit.

Otherwise tracking what I eat vs. my calories is pointless

[AJV3]

I totally agree. We should be able to set our own goal based on personal need not an imposed limit and then track progress in real time. I love that everything else can be customized to the nth degree! Why not this?! In my case I need to lose weight faster than what I would normally and need to exceed the preset deficit for a period of time. Tracking my calories in and out and doing the math is fine, but unnecessary. Thanks Fitbit!

[BDubya12345]

I agree- would be really great to set a custom deficit goal (-100 calories) rather than the custom but fixed caloric goal as suggested here:

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Requests/Custom-calorie-deficits-for-the-Food-Plan/idi-p/652...

[RobertoME]

It seems this is a growing popular request and it sounds logical to have custom calorie deficit when the default options does not met the user requirements. I have merged similar ideas to make more popular this request and don't forget to keep voting to help this feature grows in popularity. Thanks for sharing your ideas!

[gtg947h]

I agree, I'd like a custom calorie deficit and the ability to apply it even when my goal is "maintain weight".

I am within a pound or two of my target, and using long-term data I've found that I consistently either under-enter food or over-estimate calorie expenditure by about 150 cal/day.  I'd like to be able to set that as my deficit target, instead of having to choose either 0 or -250. 

Either that, or some kind of "correction factor" for the calorie burn estimate.

[mama2em]

YES!!!!! I’ve hit my goal weight (yay!y, but now I need a maintenance mode, but I know at my age and with my body, a simple calories in = calories out will result in a slow gain for me. I need to maintain at about a 100 calorie deficit. It seems like this should be a fairly easy thing to implement. I’d love to know if it’s even in the plans for a future update!

[LThdwYm4]

Allow users to customize their calorie deficit or surplus.

[DJayne]

This is now a YEARS OLD thread, and we still don't have a way to set a custom calorie deficit. Hey, Fitbit...how about a status update?