Is the energy target not suggested calories?
I’m having a really hard time figuring out the calorie tracking part of this app. Is it not the energy budget? Mostly what I want from it is nutrient tracking, and it’s great for that, but I’d also like to keep an eye on how much I’m eating. But I can’t seem to be able to find how many calories it thinks I should have a day. I’ll log breakfast, at about 300 calories at 6:00 in the morning and it tells me I have 200 or less left for the day. It varies. My meal doesn’t but the number does.
But later when I log lunch, I’ve got more. So I guess it goes up with activity? I use a watch to track activity, but it’s not like I exercised between breakfast and lunch. Just work, which is not sedentary but it’s not a work out either. It’s been kind of frustrating, but livable as I’ve said the primary purpose of me using this app was to make sure I’m getting what I need from the food I eat. And normally I work out in the afternoon, so I’ll be a tiny bit over at the end of the day, but by like 100 or less, which feels right for the food I eat.But yesterday, I didn’t work out and this has been such a weird, yet not super inconvenient mystery, that I was legitimately curious what the number would end up being on just a standard day without any additional exercise.872 is the limit, counting an additional 92 calories of expenditure above baseline and 97 TEF. Anything else and it says over, with an exclamation mark. So what’s the energy target if it’s not your daily calories, because there’s no way an app that’s all about measuring nutrient needs thinks that’s healthy much less a “goal”.
So did I set something up wrong or does that number mean something else entirely.
and as a note to the app developers, for the love of litigation, whatever mistake I made or assumption I made, please make it less makable before some 16 year old teenage girl with body image issues gets a hold of this app and thinks she’s legitimately being told to eat… what is that, 683 calories a day?!
Answers
-
Lots of questions wrapped in above but I will give it a go.
this is my estimated calorie usage for the day (it is still early). The baseline activity is your "lifestyle" most users place it to sedentary so that crono relies on your fitness tracker to truly measure activity. The BMR is based on your age, height, weight set in your profile. The TEF again optional some users turn this on, others don't because your tracker can't measure it so "differences" are created between the two sources of info.
When you have your workout for the day this exercise will add calories expended. Crono allows use to choose from a list of activities or simply allow the data to come from your tracker. The tracker "activity" is you just doing things as part of your normal day that may be more than the "adjusted baseline activity".
Thus your total calorie goal will change dynamically throughout the day. If you review your history you should get a pretty good idea of what your average daily target will be.
Nutrients is a whole different ballgame. Many nutrients are based on a static number of mg / iu per day so whether you eat a 1000 calories or 5000 calories that number stays the same. Thus if you are eating a balanced diet you will likely hit most nutrient targets. This is where further reading based on sex, age, etc. are required to truly understand what those targets should be and some understanding of absorption rates if you are relying on supplements for specific items.
Hope this helps. -
okay, so that’s calories used. But what about calories consumed. What is that energy target based on?
-
also thank you!
-
In more > targets > macro and energy targets, you are likely using the ratios a percentage for each of protein carbs and fats. Again these targets (grams) move with your expenditure above baseline activity. Area for improvement here is that protein needs are often stated in literature as g per kg based on age sex activity and Cronometer should allow a static setting here with carbs and fat falling and rising.