Exercise calories bleeding away at end of day.

d_thomas02

No issues with my FitBit syncing with MFP. This issue appears to be a normal function of MFP.

Had a pretty active day and at 9 pm had this adjustment:



Looked again about fifteen minutes later after just surfing the web and saw this:



MFP appears to be projecting past activity for the day through to midnight



I am never as active after 9 pm as I have been through the day and as the night wears on, my projected exercise calories bleed away. Makes planing my dinner calories very difficult.

Is there any way to get MFP to not project the past activity level through to midnight? i.e. Use my stated activity level only and actual adjusted exercises without projecting to midnight.

heybales

MFP does not project past activity to midnight.

2nd half of the FAQ shows the math used (if you aren't getting hit by bug of course).

Fitbit reported calorie burn (3424) is used for up to that point in time.
MFP projects rest of the time based on your selected MFP activity level.
Sedentary is BMR x 1.25, Lightly Active 1.4, ect.
Once you start sitting in the evening - you are no longer even Sedentary, but closer to BMR.
Everyone should start losing a positive adjustment at that point of sitting. Bigger loss the higher your activity level is set to.

9:11 pm is 169 min left to day to project.

3715 - 3424 = 291 cal in that time calculated.

291 / 169 = 1.722 cal/min x 1440 = 2480 daily burn (close to 2483, math rounding probably)

2483 / 1.25 if sedentary = 1986 BMR / 1440 = 1.379 cal/min. ( / 1.4 if Lightly Active = 1774 BMR / 1440 = 1.232)

1.722 used - 1.379 actual = 0.343 x 15 min = 5 cal difference lost in 15 min. ( - 1.232 = 0.49 x 15 = 7)

Sure the first one was at 9 pm exactly?

Merkavar

I don't see the issue. Looks normal.

Your less active after 9pm so your exercise adjustment will decrease.

What you seem to want would create an overestimation of your exercise burn and lead to less weightloss or a gain depending on how much your deficit is.

janejellyroll

If you are less active at the end of the day, isn't this exactly what you would want to have happen?

d_thomas02

heybales wrote: »

Once you start sitting in the evening - you are no longer even Sedentary, but closer to BMR.
Everyone should start losing a positive adjustment at that point of sitting. Bigger loss the higher your activity level is set to.

Sure the first one was at 9 pm exactly?

Honestly, I'm not sure how much time elapsed between capturing the first image and saving it. First 420 cals remaining was saved at 21:15 but probably captured earlier, second 406 cals remaining saved at 21:19, the last image was saved between the first two, at 21:16.

@heybales, @Merkavar, and @janejellyroll

My concern is that I try to eat within 100-200 calories of my adjust goal as it is shown between 6 and 9 pm. But now I see that the adjusted exercises for the day can bleed away my remaining calories, from 420 (when I noticed it dropping around 9 pm) to 379 by midnight in the instance I noted.

Granted, losing 40 calories over three hours isn't that much looking back on it, but it was a bit of a shocker for me at the time, especially with all the talk of MFP and FitBit issues.

All in all, this isn't that big a deal after all. Sorry for being twitchy.

Merkavar

that is how it always has been in my experience. predictable. so take 50cal off your total and then eat that much.

for simplicity sake i use 10cal for every hour, so saying i start watching tv around 6pm ill expect 60 cal to drop off my exercise calories before midnight.

d_thomas02

That's the plan.

Thanks.

heybales

One thing nice - if evening routine is the same and about same time - the change you see on first login in the morning for previous day will always be about the same.

So say you tried to meet your goal as shown at 9 pm (or off by however much), and you reached it.
And either didn't sync or notice it for rest of night.
But next morning on review of prior day after Fitbit synced what really happened until midnight, you see you were over by 200 calories - it'll always be 200 calories.

So just start leaving 200 in the green at night. On adjustment next morning - you'll hit goal.

d_thomas02

I've also noticed waking each morning to a negative 100 calories adjustment (give or take) for the day. I figure this is probably equivalent to the negative drop I've noticed between dropping into the LazyBoy after dinner and midnight.

Bottom line, looks like leaving 100 calories in the green at dinner will keep me from bleeding into the red by midnight.

Thanks all.

NancyN795

Yep, the negative number that you start the day with is the same issue - MFP assumes you burn calories at your chosen activity level constantly over 24 hours while Fitbit assumes you're burning at a lower rate when it doesn't see any activity. The folks at MFP know that you don't have the same activity level all day, but assuming a constant burn is the most sensible, and simplest, way to do it with the information they have.