Steps
Options
Trex5009
Posts: 171 Member
Why is it that every time I add an excerise.. my step calories go back to 0? My
1
Replies
-
Anybody lol0
-
Try rewording your question or explaining what you mean a bit more. I don't know what you mean that your step calories go back to 0.
Also, sometimes it takes more than 2 1/2 hours for someone with the answer to see your question and respond. Just sayin'.1 -
Try rewording your question or explaining what you mean a bit more. I don't know what you mean that your step calories go back to 0.
Also, sometimes it takes more than 2 1/2 hours for someone with the answer to see your question and respond. Just sayin'.
Ok... you know how your phone tracks your steps? Well MFP calculates how many calories you burn based on number of steps. Well sometimes I go into the app and I have like 50 calories burned or something just from my steps. However when I add my own excersie of cardio or something.. my calories burned from my steps reset to 0. Idk why I'm having trouble explaining this.. hope you got what I mean though
0 -
If your steps are being counted by an Apple Watch, there does seem to be a bug with the Apple Watch/my fitness pal synchronization. Every time my watch ads an exercise, any steps I have completed for the day go back to zero calories (or go to negative numbers if I have negative adjustments enabled).0
-
If your steps are being counted by an Apple Watch, there does seem to be a bug with the Apple Watch/my fitness pal synchronization. Every time my watch ads an exercise, any steps I have completed for the day go back to zero calories (or go to negative numbers if I have negative adjustments enabled).
I don't have an Apple Watch though.. they're all counted from my iphone
0 -
Because steps are considered a normal part of daily activity with no exercise.
At some point MFP decides your amount of steps has gone over your MFP selected activity level - so more active than what it assumed.
So you get more calories for that. Say 50.
You then go and add a workout that of course is not account for ahead of time. Say 400.
Well that time for those calories probably took away some of the reason, if not all the reason, for the extra steps - according to time.
MFP figures then the extra steps isn't because of increased daily activity that occurred - but rather that workout.
So the 400 goes in for that time, the 50 is replaced.
5 -
Because steps are considered a normal part of daily activity with no exercise.
At some point MFP decides your amount of steps has gone over your MFP selected activity level - so more active than what it assumed.
So you get more calories for that. Say 50.
You then go and add a workout that of course is not account for ahead of time. Say 400.
Well that time for those calories probably took away some of the reason, if not all the reason, for the extra steps - according to time.
MFP figures then the extra steps isn't because of increased daily activity that occurred - but rather that workout.
So the 400 goes in for that time, the 50 is replaced.
Can you explain further cause it makes no sense to me.
Scenario 1:
So, I’m set to sedentary and say I decide to walk to the gym. That is a 1.5 mile walk. So I see an MFP adjustment steps: 50 cals (makes sense to me, I usually don’t walk 1.5 miles.) Then I swim for a mile. I should get about 250 calories for that. I do, but what the heck did that have to do with my walk? Because after the swim MFP will say steps: 0 cals and swim 250 cals. I don’t understand why MFP exercise calories are not 300 - 50 step adjustment and 250 swim.
Scenario 2:
Still set to sedentary and want to walk to gym but this time I tell my watch the walk to the gym is a workout. I get to gym and see 50 calorie step adjustment on MFP. Then I save my WALKING workout and then MFP reads steps:0 - workout walking 52 cals. This makes sense to me. If it counted step adjustments AND walking workouts it would be double dipping. So now when I swim I get a MFP calorie total I understand 302 (250 swim +52 walk).
Personally I don’t care, I’m trying to lose weight and the ‘hidden’ step calories are fine with me. But with this type of bizarre synchronization I’m not likely to use MFP for maintenance because it doesn’t make any sense to me and I couldn’t judge my calories correctly. (And since I go from very sedentary days to very active days, I pretty much have to set MFP to sedentary and count movement and exercise separately. ).0 -
The adjustment is not specific to a block of time but rather the view of the day as a whole - but it is based on a block of time, when you had increased steps and therefore calorie burn.
So in your case #2 - you logged the workout when done and it replaces the data already there - but it's the same steps and calorie burn (steps isn't used in the math here, it merely is the start of getting a distance for time and therefore calorie burn). Not sure why step calorie burn would be nulled out though, unless related to the math below.
case #1 - Just the math for rest the day estimate. The block of time for the swim removed the extra calorie burn that made the day appear like it would be higher. And just to confirm, was that swim logged correct start/duration so as not to wipe out some of the walking time?
This is copied from the Fitbit FAQ - this math is used for all activity trackers in some manner the same way, regarding calories to this point, estimate for rest of the day, and calorie adjustment (which is what the steps is basically). Even MFP interacting with itself is doing similar.
What happens to those Fitbit calorie adjustments during the day?
Same pretend person as above, but using 3 pm as sync time, or 15:00 hrs, which is 62.5% of the day (15/24), meaning 37.5% is left.
MFP estimated daily burn 2000 x 0.375 = 750 more calories to the day.
Whatever Fitbit reports for the calorie burn up to that point, 750 is added on for Full Day Projection.
Let's say no workout yet, Fitbit reports 1375 burned.
Fitbit 1375 + 750 MFP rest of day = 2125 projected.
Fitbit 2125 - 2000 MFP estimated = 125 cal adjustment so far at 3 pm.
Let's say you did that 300 cal workout 2 - 3 pm and sync right then.
Fitbit 1675 + 750 MFP = 2425 projected
Fitbit 2425 - 2000 MFP = 425 cal adjustment.
So any exercise done early in the day does NOT cause inflated for rest of the day. Rest of the day is based on the activity level you selected in MFP.
Let's say to above you logged a 225 cal workout done in the morning, on MFP that was not seen by Fitbit right at 3pm, ie swimming, that would sync over to them and replace and increase their daily burn.
Fitbit 1900 + 750 MFP = 2650 projected
Fitbit 2650 - 2000 MFP - 250 workout = 400 cal adjustment.
It's that last example I think is probably happening to you - notice how adding in a 225 workout actually caused the adjustment to go down by 25 cal. In your case, it just causes it to disappear.
Now, to that last example, the eating goal would go like this if say base calories was 1500 (MFP estimated daily - 500 deficit).
MFP base 1500 + adjustment 400 + exercise 250 = 2150 new eating goal. Same 500 cal deficit from 2650 Projected.
All that adjusts of course as the day goes on.
Hope that makes sense.5 -
All caloric expenditure calculations finalise at **MIDNIGHT**
Before midnight you are dealing with interim, changing, numbers that are influenced by the non identical base assumptions that are made by MFP and the various trackers.
And they change because instead of using a label such as "catch all number that is trying to reconcile what your tracker thinks you've burned and what MFP is expecting you to burn to midnight tonight", MFP uses labels such as "exercise calories", and "steps" to accomplish the same task.
... assuming that integration is not broken... which it often is
1 -
Try rewording your question or explaining what you mean a bit more. I don't know what you mean that your step calories go back to 0.
Also, sometimes it takes more than 2 1/2 hours for someone with the answer to see your question and respond. Just sayin'.
Ok... you know how your phone tracks your steps? Well MFP calculates how many calories you burn based on number of steps. Well sometimes I go into the app and I have like 50 calories burned or something just from my steps. However when I add my own excersie of cardio or something.. my calories burned from my steps reset to 0. Idk why I'm having trouble explaining this.. hope you got what I mean though
If the exercise is logged at the same time as the steps, the exercise calories override the step calories to avoid double logging.4 -
All caloric expenditure calculations finalise at **MIDNIGHT**
Before midnight you are dealing with interim, changing, numbers that are influenced by the non identical base assumptions that are made by MFP and the various trackers.
And they change because instead of using a label such as "catch all number that is trying to reconcile what your tracker thinks you've burned and what MFP is expecting you to burn to midnight tonight", MFP uses labels such as "exercise calories", and "steps" to accomplish the same task.
... assuming that integration is not broken... which it often is
Yep, I often find wonky numbers and then it all magically gets sorted out at midnight so I don't worry too much. It is a bit annoying though having to do the calculations myself.1 -
Thanks all who tried to explain, but either I’m just too thick to get it or something is wrong in the sync.
Yesterday: Apple Watch. MFP set to sedentary. Apple Activity App ( which gets its data from my watch) says 15237 steps. MFP profile page agreed (MFP iPhone app). Exercise section however at end of day reads:
steps adjustment 11,207 :: -63
Swim 325
Walking (.5 hour) 102
MFP gave me 364 calories.
It is always the same.
If I have steps but no exercise a portion of the steps makes it from home page to exercise diary. A small adjustment to calories is recorded.
If I have ANY exercise during the day, at any time - MFP zeros out (or makes negative if negative adjustments allowed) the step calories. I have days (MFP set to sedentary) of 15000 ish steps with a 15 minute bike ride and get 45 calories for the bike ride and 0 for steps.
As I said, this is fine while I aim to lose weight. But I don’t understand it at all. And when I get to maintenance I’ll have to find a different app because I get no step activity adjustments if I record a bike ride or swim so more often than not MFP is going to just be wrong in its calculations (sometimes wildly wrong - like on HIIT days where I record 10 minutes of cardio so I get 40 or so calories and that workout negates any and all steps.)
0 -
Are you set at 1200 calories?
Do you have negative adjustments turned on?
Even with your step calories added in you could still be below 1200 and the system won't let you go below that. Basically, you haven't exercised enough to earn more than 1200 calories.1 -
tinkerbellang83 wrote: »Try rewording your question or explaining what you mean a bit more. I don't know what you mean that your step calories go back to 0.
Also, sometimes it takes more than 2 1/2 hours for someone with the answer to see your question and respond. Just sayin'.
Ok... you know how your phone tracks your steps? Well MFP calculates how many calories you burn based on number of steps. Well sometimes I go into the app and I have like 50 calories burned or something just from my steps. However when I add my own excersie of cardio or something.. my calories burned from my steps reset to 0. Idk why I'm having trouble explaining this.. hope you got what I mean though
If the exercise is logged at the same time as the steps, the exercise calories override the step calories to avoid double logging.
This may very well be the reason. I use a fitbit. Fitbit sends over step adjustments throughout the day. If I take a walk that burns 150 calories, and I try to log it as exercise, those calories will be subtracted from the fitbit adjustment so that I don't eat back my exercise calories twice (that walk had already been adjusted for by fitbit). There is a way to log extra exercise activity so that this doesn't happen (for instance, weight training that doesn't involve steps), but I don't do this so I don't know how.1 -
ladyhusker39 wrote: »Are you set at 1200 calories?
Do you have negative adjustments turned on?
Even with your step calories added in you could still be below 1200 and the system won't let you go below that. Basically, you haven't exercised enough to earn more than 1200 calories.
I’m set at 1500 calories. I don’t think it has anything to do with it. Step adjustments work fine on my rest days ( days when I don’t workout).
I walk throughout the day. MFP and Apple Watch sync pretty often and i can see my step count increase in MFP and the adjustment grows higher the more steps I take. Then I exercise. The exercise workout gets synced to MFP and recorded and the step adjustment changes to zero ( or to a negative number if negative adjustment is enabled).
I’m set to sedentary on MFP. The syncing of a workout cancels steps for that whole day no matter if I workout at 9am or 9pm. No matter how many steps, syncing a workout cancels out step adjustments. I do not need a walking workout for this to happen. My swim workouts negate all the days step adjustments.
It has been this way since I got my Apple Watch in May and makes no sense to me so I assume it is a bug.
0 -
Ok. I'm going to try and explain this to the best of my ability.
Let's start by asking what you're daily expenditure is set to. We'll assume it's set to sedentary.
For a sedentary person, let's say you will burn just by being alive 1500 calories a day (which is 62 calories/hour). That 1500 calories is just you living your life if you were to not do Any workouts except for your normal daily activity.
Now, let's assume that you walked to the gym. That was a mile walk that took you 15 minutes at a slow pace and that burned 50 calories according to your watch. Then you did an elliptical workout that burn 200 calories in 45 minutes. So, you assume that you've burned 250 total calories in that hour. BUT, you have to remember that your body burns calories every hour already just by being alive (remember what I said above?) and your watch doesn't take that into effect. BUT, Myfitnesspal and Fitbit (for example) do take that into affect. So, when you synced your watch, the FITBIT workout says 50calorie walk and 200calorie elliptical but if you have the negative adjustments turned on (it's a checkbox under settings and you SHOULD have it on), then MFP/FITBIT take that 62 calorie/hour burn that you would burn just by being alive and subtract it from that 250 calorie burn so it may say something like -62 calories which would bring your total to 188 total calories for that hour.
Seriously though, it takes a second to really understand. Give it sometime and don't eat back all your exercise calories right off the bat until you start seeing the pattern. Give it a couple weeks. AND what @PAV8888 said above, if you sync your watch the next day, you will see that MFP finalizes the energy expenditure at midnight when you're usually sleeping.0 -
need2belean wrote: »Ok. I'm going to try and explain this to the best of my ability.
Let's start by asking what you're daily expenditure is set to. We'll assume it's set to sedentary.
For a sedentary person, let's say you will burn just by being alive 1500 calories a day (which is 62 calories/hour). That 1500 calories is just you living your life if you were to not do Any workouts except for your normal daily activity.
Now, let's assume that you walked to the gym. That was a mile walk that took you 15 minutes at a slow pace and that burned 50 calories according to your watch. Then you did an elliptical workout that burn 200 calories in 45 minutes. So, you assume that you've burned 250 total calories in that hour. BUT, you have to remember that your body burns calories every hour already just by being alive (remember what I said above?) and your watch doesn't take that into effect. BUT, Myfitnesspal and Fitbit (for example) do take that into affect. So, when you synced your watch, the FITBIT workout says 50calorie walk and 200calorie elliptical but if you have the negative adjustments turned on (it's a checkbox under settings and you SHOULD have it on), then MFP/FITBIT take that 62 calorie/hour burn that you would burn just by being alive and subtract it from that 250 calorie burn so it may say something like -62 calories which would bring your total to 188 total calories for that hour.
Seriously though, it takes a second to really understand. Give it sometime and don't eat back all your exercise calories right off the bat until you start seeing the pattern. Give it a couple weeks. AND what @PAV8888 said above, if you sync your watch the next day, you will see that MFP finalizes the energy expenditure at midnight when you're usually sleeping.
Yeah, I don’t get it and yeah MFP energy Expenditure at midnight looks exactly the same as MFP energy Expenditure at 9pm (except for maybe a couple hundred steps I may have taken around the house are now listed).
I do have MFP at sedentary. I do have negative adjustments enabled. Any workout at all, no matter type or how small or time of day (indoor cycle for 10 minutes and 29 cals for instance) negates the step adjustment - no matter how big. So on Saturday 14000 steps is -95 with a 28 cal cycle workout recorded. But Sunday is 9000 steps for +76 because no workout is recorded.
Thanks for trying, but no that does not make sense to me
0 -
Try rewording your question or explaining what you mean a bit more. I don't know what you mean that your step calories go back to 0.
Also, sometimes it takes more than 2 1/2 hours for someone with the answer to see your question and respond. Just sayin'.
Ok... you know how your phone tracks your steps? Well MFP calculates how many calories you burn based on number of steps. Well sometimes I go into the app and I have like 50 calories burned or something just from my steps. However when I add my own excersie of cardio or something.. my calories burned from my steps reset to 0. Idk why I'm having trouble explaining this.. hope you got what I mean though
your fitness tracker is estimating your total calorie expenditure from what it sees, and MFP is adjusted to match the total. If the tracker didn't see/measure what you are manually adding it won't be in that total (and will thus be negated in the adjustment).0 -
Also- I'm not familiar with Apple/Fitbit, but the step&calories portion of the garmin server seems to only take step info when calculating the total calorie expenditure.. so a run or walk (measured as an activity) should even out fine (both sides of Garmin saw those steps), but stuff like cycling (that the step tracker portion of the site doesn't see) gets negated.0
-
Try rewording your question or explaining what you mean a bit more. I don't know what you mean that your step calories go back to 0.
Also, sometimes it takes more than 2 1/2 hours for someone with the answer to see your question and respond. Just sayin'.
Ok... you know how your phone tracks your steps? Well MFP calculates how many calories you burn based on number of steps. Well sometimes I go into the app and I have like 50 calories burned or something just from my steps. However when I add my own excersie of cardio or something.. my calories burned from my steps reset to 0. Idk why I'm having trouble explaining this.. hope you got what I mean though
your fitness tracker is estimating your total calorie expenditure from what it sees, and MFP is adjusted to match the total. If the tracker didn't see/measure what you are manually adding it won't be in that total (and will thus be negated in the adjustment).
I don’t manually add anything. The watch syncs steps AND workouts. If the Watch doesn’t see it, I’m not recording it (I.e. household cleaning) in MFP.0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.3K Introduce Yourself
- 43.4K Getting Started
- 259.6K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 387 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.2K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 911 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions