Negative Calorie Adjustment not working

joflo723

Is anyone else having this issue, or has anyone had this issue before and found a way to fix it?

My FitBit Calories Burned (Full Day Projection) is 1527.
My MFP Calories Burned is 1569.
I should have a Negative Calorie Adjustment right now of -42.
However, my calorie adjustment right now is -0-.
I DO have "Enable Negative Calorie Adjustments" checked off...so I don't know what else to do. It only starts adjusting after it comes up out of a negative number.

Anyone have any ideas?

I contacted support and OMG what a joke. They respond (after 4 days) with a canned explanation of how the negative calorie adjustment works. I know how it works...I'm telling them that it DOESN'T work. That's so frustrating.

heybales

I'm wondering if they put in a failsafe to the system.

Because you could setup Fitbit to estimate your hourly calorie burn based on either historical average, or barely above BMR.
And outside of an actual sync with your device, that's what Fitbit reports to MFP.

Well, if you have selected the BMR (Sedentary on Fitbit's site) method, MFP would be getting some really low calorie burns as the day progressed that just aren't true, and as soon as your device syncs, bam, huge calorie adjustment.

So I'm wondering if they don't count what appears to be negative until closer to end of day, or only if the amount is negative by so much.

You said the negative really doesn't show up, how long in to the day have you had that where you really would have ended up negative, even with device syncing?

Then again, my own should be causing that if true, because I do no device sync until I get home, so it's running -4 right now, and indeed gives me -4 adjustment.

So perhaps it is an issue.

I'd suggest that since the setting seems to NOT be enabled - make the setting match the effect - disable it.
Website and phone app.
Then log out of phone app.
Enable it again on website account.
See if math is done correctly.

editorgrrl

joflo723 wrote: »

I should have a Negative Calorie Adjustment right now of -42.
However, my calorie adjustment right now is -0-.
I DO have "Enable Negative Calorie Adjustments" checked off...so I don't know what else to do. It only starts adjusting after it comes up out of a negative number.

You say the problem's been going on for more than four days? I haven't had any problems (my adjustment's currently -28), but starting yesterday the messages notification in the Fitbit app will not go away—it shows the total number of messages, rather than unread messages. So perhaps there's a problem on Fitbit's end?

breeze_brat

They responded to me with the same type of response with no help to the issue. I unsynced my Fitbit from MFP, revoked MFP access at Fitbit site, then redid everything and checked Fitbit can sync steps with MFP on the app and things are working so far

joflo723

Guys, I finally got a reply from MFP about this:

In the Fitbit Calorie Adjustment photo, you can see the text under the 0 adjustment that states "Your adjustment has been reduced to keep your goal above our 1200 calorie minimum."
Currently MyFitnessPal will not recommend a goal under 1200 calories for women and 1500 for men, so MyFitnessPal will not issue a negative adjustment tat will set you below those minimums. Since your goal is currently set to 1200, you will not see negative adjustments, only positive adjustments for when you earn extra calories.

My reply:

Since when? It used to adjust to a negative amount regardless of how many calories you had. Besides, who is MFP to decide how many calories I want to have set for myself?? I use MFP to help me TRACK my calories, not to Nazi me into making me stick to a certain amount of calories a day.
Not liking this feature at all.

Did you guys realize that MFP did this now? I know for a fact this is something new because I've never had this issue before...even on days that I had my calories set to 500 (I was doing a fast diet for a while), it would negatively adjust my calories.

editorgrrl

I've been using MFP + Fitbit for two years, and negative calorie adjustments have never, ever put my calories below 1,200.

Food is fuel, and we should all be looking for the maximum number of calories at which we lose weight (or maintain)—never the minimum. I'm 5'2", 118 lbs., and I eat more than 1,800 calories. There's no need to eat less than 1,200 calories.

joflo723

But it shouldn't be up to MFP to force us into anything. Make recommendations, yes. Even a warning if you do go under 1200, fine (that's actually what it used to do). But to disallow us to diet the way we want is a little overbearing.

breeze_brat

I have been below 1200 calories a few times no matter how much I exercised which is why I wrote MFP and got a generic reply with no help

editorgrrl

The warning when you complete your diary with fewer than 1,200 net calories & negative calorie adjustments are two entirely different things. As I said above, adjustments have never put your calories below 1,200 for the two years I've been using MFP + Fitbit.

If you want to use the free app, you have to accept MFP's terms. Or you can pay for MFP Premium. That's not "Nazi" (to quote @joflo723)—it's capitalism.

breeze_brat

No I mean the negative adjustment has put me below 1200 calories, not that I ate below 1200

Christine_72

I'm not sure if I'm reading this correctly. .. But i went to bed with 800ish net calories eaten last night. 1700 gross.
My daily goal is 1410 calories

NancyN795

I don't usually "complete" my diary - for me neither the "you'd weigh this much in 5 weeks" nor the status post are particularly motivating - but it would surprise me if it gave a warning for net calories below 1200. I could believe that it would give a warning if gross calories were below that. I wouldn't know because not only do I not complete my diary, I also never eat that little.

Christine_72

I don't complete my diary either, mostly because I eat pretty much the same things everyday and I don't want to bore people

heybales

So that makes sense actually I think.

They aren't going to create an eating goal that ends up below 1200, even if your non-exercise TDEE and deficit would cause that to happen purely with the math. (1800 - 1000 deficit = 800, nope, 1200).

So why would they then take a daily calorie burn from an external site that may or may not be correct (what if Fitbit was malfunctioning on their end), lower their TDEE figure, and now allow the deficit to go below 1200.

It's actually pretty consistent. They aren't going to allow a deficit to cause your eating level to go below 1200.

Now, the way to get around this is potentially be more accurate with MFP activity setting, because if set to lightly active, the deficit will usually work. (2016 - 1000 deficit = 1016, nope still not, 1200) Ok, some will never get it.

Where that is from their own estimated daily burn, or adjusted daily burn from external source.

I'd suggest that unless very short, if that is indeed occurring - your deficit is too great.

I'd also suggest it would have been nice to share that little fact of what MFP was stating right there on the page you were telling us was malfunctioning. None of us had every experienced having so low a calorie burn day and/or so high a deficit that we received it.
Pretty sure we all could have figured it out faster with that tidbit included.

SamiShirhan

My Negative Calorie Adjustment is not working. Tried everything. All this happened after i upgraded to Premium. I have been trying to get answers but no luck. This is frustrating and your customer service it terrible! Im seriously thinking of quitting this BS and find other apps and services. Anyone has a good alternative?

heybales

Premium has at least 1 option to NOT apply the differences from tracker 3rd party sites to adjust MFP's math, I thought 2 that would actually cause that effect.

But you are getting positive adjustments?

In which case probably a bug unless an option is specific to negatives.