Saturday, January 27, 2024

Trying to understand Fitbit with LoseIt (Target Burns)

Perhaps this is a stupid and obvious question, but - why does my target burn (mainly BMR I believe) not contribute to my [energy in - energy out] calculation? If I am naturally burning X, and eating Y, shouldn't I only need to do extra exercise when Y exceeds X in order to achieve weight loss? Why is that chunk of burned calories through BMR being tossed aside?

Because my LoseIt says I'm over budget, but a napkin calcution between what LoseIt says I ate and FitBit says I'm burning shows a decent deficit (details below)

Presumably I need to change my LoseIt budget, but to what? It's at 5500kj/1300cal atm. Can I change my FitBit "target burn" from 10,000kj/2400cal to lower, even 0, so that ALL my burn (BMR + exercise) is subtracted from what I eat, and aim for a solid deficit total as a goal, rather than trying to balance it?

Maybe I should I swap programs, or swap watches?

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The long version, in case I'm making no sense and people want to figure out how I got here 😅:

(Just FYI Im rounding my kj -> calorie conversion just to keep things simple, so don't read too much into the specifics of my numbers.)

I've been using LoseIt for a month and seen slow but steady progress by keeping my "net" at 5500kj/1300cal (I'm very tall), by burning off any extra I ate over that limit using their manual exercise options. Simple, straightforward. You eat, you burn, and you balance those near 0 on LoseIt so your body is always in a deficit due to your BMR being higher.

Then I purchased a fitbit and found my "moderate" exercise levels were actually "light" exercise according to fitbit (dangit), so I havent been burning quite as much as I hoped, hence the very slow weight loss. But now I'm not sure I have it set up right.

For example, yesterday the fitbit recorded I burnt 12,000kj/2850cal, and I ate 8500kj/2000cal. So, I believe I was in a deficit of (eaten - burnt =) 3500kj/850cal. Hooray, right? However, on LoseIt, the FitBit has only credited me with 1900kj/450cal, meaning I am still OVER budget by 1100kj/250kj.

The discrepancy is due to the "target burn" on fitbit, which is 10,000kj/2400cal. As I understand, that's auto-calculated from my BMR, and that does align with most BMR calculators given my height, weight and activity level. But that means I am still burning more than I consumed before I exercised, yet I have to exercise for hours more to meet my budget.

I did try lowering my goal in the FitBit app down to 9000kj/2150cal but that didn't change anything in LoseIt.

submitted by /u/lozzadearnley
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/utmiHL4

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