My Calories say OVER on the board but when I click on it...

[KimK]

When I log into the FitBit Board the Calories meeter is in the red and says im over Calories...when I click on it it says that I am in the green. What one is correct. Why does it keep telling my im over on the board but not when I click on it!???? Kinda anoying! 

[EdinburghLass]

mine does that too...I don't know how to fix it. It says over and then I click on it and it says under!

[indiri]

I've also noticed that some days I look at say around 2100 total burned on their own (yesterday and the 23rd are doing this at the moment) but if I look at the history view it says it's only around 1500.  So there are two different total burns for the same day.

[Spryguy]

Hey Guys let me try and exaplain how I think its working, you can make your own judgement and proceed accordingly.

The Dashboard on the main page looks stricly at in vs out so if you set your calorie deficit to 500 for example and your in vs out is a difference of -450 cals to -550 cals it will be green. If however your total is less then -450 cals it will say "over" similarly if you are above -550 (ex -600cals) then it will say "Under". This counter to me is basiclly only useful when looking at the end of the night since the calorie deficit (500 in this example) is already built in.

The Other (Calories in vs out)  on the food log page dynamically determining how many calories you can eat at the current time (this changes cause even if your not moving your body burns calories) it does this by looking at your past activity rate and tries to determine how many calories you will burn today and then looks at what you have eaten vs what time it is.

I personally use the second option and check the Dasboard one only when I am done eating for that day.

Hope this help, keep on fitbiting!

[Colinm39]

Examine this link about the calorie estimation setting which in turn links to the old forums about how Fitbit starts using previous calorie burn information to use when the Fitbit detects inactivity.  I have calorie estimation turned off.

Read this link

[indiri]

My fitbit is not yet hooked up (waiting on the mail) so all info on Fitbit is estimated for me at the moment.  In my case it's not the OVER/UNDER scale I'm concerned about. 

The Calories tile gives me an actual number (typically it estimates between 2100-2400) depending on what exercise I entered on MFP.  If I look back through previous days (by clicking the arrows in the top left of the dashboard) all days show somewhere in that range (2000+).  If I am on today I can also click on the magnifying glass on the Calories tile (appears when you hover over it) and it shows the previous two weeks of Calories burned in a little chart with green bars for burn and blue bars for food eaten.  On that chart it shows 3 days in the last week where it says the burn is only around 15-1600 but if I look at that same day on the main Calories tile (by using the arrows on the top of the dashboard) those days all say 2000+.

This is currently the case for the 23rd, 25th, and 26th.  However the 21st, 22nd, and 24th all match the amount shown on the Calories tile.  My concern is not about the total number being wrong but that it gives me two completely different numbers depending on where on the site I'm looking.

[indiri]

Here is an example of my view.  On the 25th I see 1528 and 2126 (both are estimates since my fitbit hasn't arrived yet).  Why are those two numbers different and which burn should I assume is closer?  Do I eat 500 under 2126 (my assumption) or do I eat 500 under 1528 (can't imagine that's healthy)?

[Colinm39]

Hi, I understand now and I don't use MFP, but all of my data is the same as the tiles.

Have you clicked on your Profile and examined the 30 day graph, I tend to use that because I can see the trend and it gives me my deficit. The numbers on that are accurate as well.

I can only surmise that the data from MFP is suspect because many Fitbitters in the posts tend to use MFP for their food and Fitbit for exercise. One reason for that is that MFP flatlines the data coming across because it cannot measure the effort/speed in steps/activities and you can lose "Active Minutes" because of the averaging. It can only average the calories across the time period in MFP.

The figures around 1500 seem like you BMR only. This calculator is the one Fitbit uses for BMR and it is with 4 calories of mine. BMR Calculator link

[indiri]

It makes sense that the two programs together might mess up sometimes in their interaction but shouldn't the two numbers within Fitbit match each other?  If MFP messes up the number by 200 calories (for example) then shouldn't the number on Fitbit be off by 200 calories in both places?

The days that the numbers don't match are days that I did NOT log any extra activities.  The days that they completely match up are days where I logged an activity on MFP.  That is the opposite of what I expected.

[Colinm39]

If you are saying that the first few days on your earlier chart are the ones that had no activity and don't match, I would put that down to Fitbit's calorie estimation setting kicking in. Fitbit assumes you were not wearing the Fitbit Tracker because there was no activity recorded.

You probably can't view past history of activity because there is a bug which is being addressed.