Hey all! I’m trying to beemind my calorie intake to make sure I stay within a certain range. I followed the setup and added the goal via my Fitbit, but the chart is impossible for me to understand. I’m not sure what data I should be aiming for. Any tips?
Here’s the chart: https://www.beeminder.com/xomiamoore/goals/netcals
I think it’d be simpler if I was tracking calorie intake versus net calories, but that doesn’t seem to be an option.
Hi, from the graph I would say that you have a calorie defizit of 200 calories per day. Is this what you see in fitbit?
No, net calories are exactly the right thing to measure - and smart because that means you can get back if you are in danger of derailing. If Beeminder doesn’t support that then that is an issue with Beeminder, which should be dealt with.
This looks wrong:
You are tracking net calories, your graph shows you coming up each day with a negative number of net calories (ie you are losing weight), but your have a weekly rate of 0 - ie your road is flat (which is the right thing to do if you want to stay at the same weight).
If you set your goal as -200 net calories a day then you should set the weekly rate to -200 * 7 = -1400, rather than zero. This should give you a correct road, that goes to whatever you want to lose.
Ah! Thank you, @tomjen! This makes more sense. It wasn’t as evident what my goal should be so I hadn’t changed any of those numbers. Let me play around and see if it works…
@chriswax, I seem to have a bigger deficit than that, just looking at my past week or so. Let me adjust and see if it changes.
For net calories we subtract CaloriesIn - CaloriesOut – So @tomjen’s description is correct.
If you don’t track food consumed on a given day then you get a 0 for that day, rather than giving you a huge negative number.
However, tracking calories and logging food is really tedious, and I don’t recommend it as a long term strategy because I don’t think it’s very maintainable, sadly. I like the strategy of tracking with something like fitbit for a week or two in order to train/calibrate yourself, and then after that switch to a much rougher estimation. I’ve used jelly bracelets to count calories, each bracelet worth 150 Calories, and move them from one wrist to the other with each serving, just making an on the fly rough estimate. You’re sufficiently self-consistent to get a rough ballpark of how much food you’re consuming day to day, you’re paying attention to what and how much you eat, and you’re not fussing with entering every single bite into an app (often after the fact).
and now in case you want to track calorie intake in addition to net calories, there is now a “total calories eaten” option at fitbit goal creation!
Jelly bracelets?! I love this idea. I’m gonna use them for food groups/servings in a day. Thank you so much for the idea! 
How does it work?
The website doesn’t seem to contain this useful piece of information.
Friction. You just slide the beads and they stay where you slide them. I’ve worn this bracelet continuously (literally – I haven’t ever taken it off for any reason) for a couple years and it shows no signs of wearing out.
