My Fitness Pal - Net Calories &Fitbits
 

Afternoon Everyone,

I hope everyone had a great weekend and stayed on whatever their individual plans were!

I am using MFP to count my calories and I have a fitbit flex synced to it...and I cannot decide if this is a good or bad thing. Since it ups my calorie count by adding in my walking exercise calories (not that I eat them back). My dilemma come in that once those "walking" calories are counted in my NET calories are coming in at under 1,000 each day.

Has anyone else had this happen?

No one has any thoughts on this? =\

I would either ignore the net calories or stop logging your walking calories into MFP if it's tripping you up. In reality, it's very difficult to accurately estimate how many calories you're burning -though personally, I do log my calories burned in a separate app for comparison's sake (so I can see I burned 350 calories today on the elliptical but 400 on Friday, for example).

I don't like that feature of MFP. You said you don't eat back those calories, which is excellent, but some people see those numbers and think it means they can have a snack at the end of the night and it's okay because look at all those calories they burned today! But it can lead to bad habits.

I don't know if that answered any questions, because I'm not really sure what you're asking. You obviously understand that it doesn't mean you can add those burned calories to what you can eat so I'm not totally sure of the issue?

I agree with Noname. I don't eat the extra calories from exercise because I also think they are inaccurate and over stated. I just ignore the extra calories as well as the warning that I am not eating enough calories for the day.

I think if one was to allow themselves the exercise calories, they'd probably be taking in more than they wanted or needed and would stall the weight loss.

I (and others who use MFP) also feel that the little blub at the bottom of the page when you complete your entry for the day that says "if you ate like this... you'd weigh that" is also off. Still ... it's a nice tool to log things and you can't beat the price ;)

I hate that blurb! I really think it does a disservice to the users.

When I logged calories on MFP when I first started 5:2, on my fasting days I only eat up to 500 calories. It would tell me I wasn't eating enough, but then tell me how much I would weigh if I ate like that every day. Thank goodness I wasn't motivated by that number...otherwise that number might have encouraged me to take some unhealthy approaches to weight loss. Yikes.