Allow users to enter a customized BMR or RMR

[BarbieAS]

Hi!

For a very long time, I couldn't understand why I wasn't losing weight even though I was eating at the calorie level dictated by my Fitbit - when I say "long time," I mean over a few years (I've been a Fitbit user since May of 2012).  Finally, last year I had my resting metabolic rate tested by my doctor, and found it to be about 25% lower than what it appears Fitbit was using as a baseline for my daily calorie burns.  This made the total daily burns given to me by Fitbit almost useless.

Through a lot of research and trial and error I was able to work something out where I adjusted my age and height as well as switched from a Charge HR to an Alta and I think I've finally gotten my daily burns where they should be.  However: (1) my distance walked each day is incorrect due to not being able to appropriately adjust my stride, (2) my expensive Charge HR is now useless to me (as the change in my age has lowered the HR range for exercise zones for me and significantly over-inflates calories burned), (3) the body fat percentage feature on my expensive Aria scale is now useless to me (it won't even calculate anymore, I assume due to the age I entered since that's when it stopped), and, possibly most importantly, (4) not everyone who runs into this issue is going to have the time and knowledge to figure something like this out.

It's an accepted fact that BMR calculations based on general statistics can be off by a wide margin - they are based on estimates and averages only, and while they're "good enough" for most people they're still going to be grossly incorrect for a lot of Fitbit users.  Being able to take those estimates and averages and replace them with a personalized number based on actual medical testing would be a huge step in making the Fitbit experience infinitely more accurate and useful for those users who need that capability and are armed with the knowledge to address it appropriately.

PLEASE incorporate this feature!!

[BatterUp137]

I see that a lot of these are now 'reviewed by moderator' but I don't know if that means steps have been taken to remedy the issue. I also want to put my vote in for manually changing the BMR. On the contrary to most of these comments, my BMR is too low. It says I burn 439 calories for BMR/RMR, which can't be true. My entry for weight height age gender etc., are all accurate, I at first thought maybe I entered something WAY off. Not the case. I hope they can fix this glitch soon as there has clearly been a ton of feedback requesting it.

Thanks.

[J3ff]

This is a super important feature request. Nobody is average, and in fact it seems like EVERYBODY has a slower calorie burn than Fitbit's heart-rate based estimates. I have been meticulous about keeping my calorie defecit over 1000 cal/d, but my actual weight loss has been 1.0 lb per week (over many months). So, it's off by 500 cal for me. In fact I tried a 500 cal deficit according to Fitbit for a few months and that was in reality totally steady at maintenance. I guess knowing that gets me most of the way there, but it involves doing a lot of math in my head throughout the day. Eg "Let's see, it's 3pm, and Fitbit says I should eat 600 cal, but it over does it by 500 cal per day and I'm 63% through the day, so right now it's over by 313 cal, so I *really* can eat 287 cal." These are the kinds of calculations computers should do for me.

[LizFitbit]

Hi everyone, thanks for sharing this suggestion. In terms of an update, there aren't currently any plans to release this feature. Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us and we will let you know if anything changes.

[BarbieAS]

Cool.  Thanks for the update.

Time for me to stop spending money with Fitbit, I think. 

[SunsetRunner]

@LizFitbit I would venture to predict that your team members do not even understand the problem! "Fitbit" is a misnomer -- should be "ToyBracelets".

[SunsetRunner]

@gfugal, @honda_grom, @LizFitbit, @BarbieAS, @CerebralMonkey, @LeshaM, @richkrt, @ddn1981, @stemloop, @Tooraj, @MattRecknagel, @kratos, @spatula, @kkbrennan, @Pjnipper, @chaseme, @AmritaFitbit, @jkstorm75, @V-Silly, @MaryBfromMD, @Wimbs65, @MacWade
Here's the current response. Judge the meaning implied for yourselves:

Declined!

[spatula]

 Pathetic.  It would probably take, at most, a dozen lines of code.

[WRLong]

Well my fitbit is falling apart anyway (after only a year).. time to move on. Good luck on your crumbling infrastructure fitbit! I'll certainly never buy again and will strongly advise against anyone else buying one. I'll just bust out my old pokemon toy to track my steps if i ever feel so inclined.

[ktrubey]

Important feature, easy to fix. why is it declined? would love to understand the rationale for not making the BMR number adjustable, given how easy it is for someone to actually have a test and know their exact number. 

[Tooraj]

I have been using Fitbit for 4 1/2 years now. I was initially hell bent on
this feature. I now know that Fitbit, at best, just makes an estimate of
the calories you burn. Plus having used MyFitnessPal for 7 years, know my
body works differently from time to time burning calories too much or too
little (or absorbing too many calories or too little calories from food,
who knows).

So take it easy everyone! This feature is not going to be a huge help. We
all want a device and a solution that can tell us what on earth is
happening with calories and our bodies. But there is no magic solution.

Fitbit just shows you the level of activity, the calories is just a very
rough estimate, an order of magnitude indicator, when it comes to calories.

[StacyJan]

I would like the ability to enter my own BMR manually to ensure my calorie burn is as accurate as possible.  I get my body composition done regularly  (lean body mass , skeletal muscle mass, fat mass and water mass) and that reading calculates my BMR based on my lean mass.  I should be able to enter this so that my Fitbit calorie burn is more accurate.  Right now my fitbit calorie burn is low.   I know many other athletes who get their body composition dinner regularly and this feature would make the app more accurate.

[PetraTheBadass]

Hello, Fitbit Community! My suggestion refers to an improved calorie estimate for petite women, as I feel my caloric needs/burning are severely underestimated.

To explain more broadly, let me give my personal example: I’ve just been delivered my Fitbit Charge 2 yesterday and I already love it! But I have one major issue: I am a very petite girl, about 5’2 (160cm) tall and under 100lbs (99lbs/44kg is my current goal, and I still need to gain for that lol), so my Fitbit displays a very small no of calories as my BMR and which I naturally burn, unless I am engaged in intense physical activity. But, believe me, I have a very fast metabolism, I am all muscle mass and I am also very young and active- I engage in more than 4hrs of intense physical activity and 3/4 of moderate activity weekly. But fitbit doesen’t ask me anything about such thing as muscle mass or metabolism. Eating 1500-1600 kcal each day (which I thought was okay) has led me to being severly underweight (and even anorexic) about 2 years ago. Fortunately, now I’ve recovered amd I am very knowledgeable about nutrition and fitness (I'll soon be an official fitness trainer) but I am currently eating at least 1900-2100 kcal daily and I’m barely maintaining and struggling to gain more muscle mass, even at a very slow pace. So it feels a bit confusing and quite bad for my morale to see such a small number of calories- I’ve set my weight and height with about 20 kg/cm higher to approach what I know is true for me.

I am very confident and I know my body well, but I am concerned that many people, especially petite, young women will be encouraged to undereat, overtrain and in this way damage their metabolism, bodies and minds- which is bad for health and very hard to overcome, as I know from my own experience. I know that most people will not have this problem, as they are taller and weigth more and usually try to lose weight, but I still think it's an issue worth considering.

Except for this inconvenience, I love Fitbit and the variety of options and stats it offers, as well as the modern design and accessibilty. Thanks for reading this and I hope it will be taken care of soon!

[LanuzaFitbit]

Nice suggestion, thanks for sharing. We look forward to hearing what other community members think.

[LaHof]

I have had my RMR measured and would like to use it on my FitBit.
I have had my Alta HR for over a year and the calorie read outs have always been extremely inaccurate. A 5'8" female getting 2400-2700 calories a day for a few walks around her office building? My RMR is actually 1467, making FitBit's numbers comically inaccurate.

Please let me include my information so my FitBit can be more than a pedometer. I would love to be able to make use of the HR feature by calibrating to myself.

[GaryDeMoss]

Fitbit Ionics are known to be off by a percentage in either direction of calorie expendatures depending upon the individual user.  Maybe a setting to offset calories necessary set by the end user would allow the end user to still use the benefits of color coding (blue, green and red) while adjusting for errors due to metabolism etc.

Thanks for listening and considering!

[Missmissy6891]

My fitbit’s calculation of my BMR is off! How do I know? Because I was medically tested and it’s almost 150 calories less than my Fitbit tells me it is! When I’m relying on the numbers to hit certain goals, it’s quite frustrating to have them inaccurate. Im guessing that if my BMR is off then my active calories are being estimated too high as well.... please change the settings so that I can edit my BMR and active calories burned to be accurate! 

[Clover123]

Here has been a number of topics out there from users concerned that the calories burned estimation is overstated. In fact there are a lot of articles out there debating activity trackers accuracy and addressing this issue would give Fitbit a competitive advantage.  

I myself can confirm that Fitbit does indeed overestimate for me, especially when in fat burn mode. I have to regularly log extra calories consumed to rectify the deficit in the app in order for it to match actual weight lost. 

It would be nice to have one, or preferably both options: 

1. Have the option to amend the calories burned for an activity

2. Have some kind of a multiplier in advance settings. E.g. Default would be ''1''. In my case, I would set it as ''0.8''. If I were to burn 300kcals though exercise according to my watch, only 240kcal would be counted in the app (0.8 x 300 = 240)

Both shouldn't be hard to achieve from a development perspective, and it would allow fanatic users like myself to fine tune our fitbit. 

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @Clover123, thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us,this feature suggestion already exists so I’ve moved your post here as it is not currently planned. Thanks for your understanding, I hope to see you around.

[Dmase16]

Be able to edit calorie count in some sort of way. I know it’s not 100% accurate but based off the math and trends I’ve been tracking lately, my Fitbit is ballpark 1100-ish calories off at the end of the day. I can always subtract this error for each day, but it would nice to be able to just slow the BMR down or somethin. Alright thanks for listening!

[goliath1333]

Hello! I would like to suggest the ability to adjust our Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) without turning off fitbit's really cool calorie adjustment features. I know there is a workaround by adjusting your food plan, but as the food plan drives your weight loss estimates then that is not ideal. The current extreme/hard setting on the food plan is also not enough for me to adjust my BMR to give correct estimates.

I am a 6'6'' individual, but I unfortunately can only consume about 1,900 calories/day walking about 8,000 steps with no exercise. Fitbit thinks that with the same level of activity I should be able to consume 3,200 calories! So, with the hardest food plan adjustment fitbit is still telling me to eat too much food.

However, the exercise calorie estimates seems to be fairly accurate. That means on days when I do exercise I can often eat close to 2,400 calories.

Fitbits customization options only allow me to use their cool reactive calorie counter if I'm using their BMR estimate. I don't understand why this needs to be when they have an option to enter your own BMR. Why do these two features have to cancel out?

[gtg947h]

I agree; there ought to be some way to adjust/calibrate the calorie burn figures so you can match them up with measured values.  I don't like having to fake it with a weight loss target.

[AlexandraFitbit]

Hi @goliath1333 , thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us, this feature suggestion already exists so I’ve moved your post here as it is not currently planned.

[Windex]

Dear developers:

frankly I find it almost ridiculous that this is not an option, but hey, maybe some corporate bean counter got in the way.

Of the many uses, people use your devices to track calories expended, which is a VERY important feature, as it is insanely easy to track calorie consumption, but calorie expenditure is much harder due to individual characteristic differences. 

That said, you use general BMR info combined with heart rate to come up with caloric burn. In this day and age, anyone can go get their RMR tested, (frankly, any trainer or weight loss coach worth their salt would START with this, as it is THE crucial first step in understanding and working on your nutrition).

So, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, allow users to input a custom RMR. so we can have a more accurate reading of our caloric expenditure, and while you are at it.... add in a VO2 section as well. 

you are FITBIT.....FITBIT people, a leader in the fitness wearables/tracker industry, you should be offering these features, as it it at the CORE of nutrition, which is the CORE of being fit!

I mean no disrespect to any of you with my use of CAPS or the bluntness of this post, it is intended to get your attention at a crucial and frankly easily implemented feature (coding wise at least). 

Hopefully the bean counters can be convinced as well....

[Mamboo]

Hi. I know what my BMR is from my internist and it's not what the app pre-populated for me based on the algorithm you use (based on my stats). It'd be great to have a way to choose the fitbit BMR or input our own.

[EdsonFitbit]

Hi @Mamboo, thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us, this feature suggestion already exists so I’ve moved your post here as it is not currently planned.