Negative calorie adjustment

So for the past two days, every time I wake up, I have something like negative 200 calories. I know Fitbit and MFP communicate and if I haven't burned the calories it thinks I should, it adjusts. So am I not burning enough calories in my sleep? Like wtfreak does that even mean, to wake up with negative calories at 8:00 in the morning?

Replies

kathrynjean_

Over the day as you get more steps, that negative calorie adjustment will diminish. Essentially it means that if you woke up that day and did nothing else but lay in bed, that's how many calories you could eat. Fitbit estimates your daily burns based on your current activity level - which if you were sleeping, is nothing.

It depends on you what you have your activity level set to. If the negative adjustment bothers you, you can put it to sedentary and then "earn" more calories throughout the day with Fitbit.

BeYouTiful94

Thanks! It's just really strange because I've always had it set to lightly active and everything, and it's never done this. When I wake up it's always been 0 and then it adjusts up and down during the day

Crao7916

thanks I just discovered this too. I think It actually will help me out. I have just been doing the 1500 calories and not losing any weight. now I added the negative calorie adjustment and I can tailor my food intake to my activity level more. Thanks for the question and reply from you two!

heybales

So even the Sedentary Activity level calorie burn rate is not true while you sleep.

MFP is taking an all day predicted burn, getting input from Fitbit as to what is actually burned up to that point - and correcting itself for rest of the day.

You are burning correctly during the night, you aren't supposed to be burning more. It's just the way the math works is all.

There must have been a syncing issue prior - because if you are set to Lightly Active, then you should have been getting negatives the whole time.

You sleep at BMR burn rate, MFP is estimating the day at 1.4 x BMR, which includes that 8 hrs.
Fitbit is reporting you were indeed at BMR burn rate.
So your negative should indeed be 0.4 x BMR x 0.33 (for 8 hrs or 1/3 the day).

Same thing will happen at night.
If you met your eating goal at say 9 pm and then it was couch and sleep time after that, MFP is still estimating those final 3 hrs at 1.4 x BMR burn rate, but Fitbit will report later that you actually burned BMR rate.
So next morning on review of prior day, it should appear you actually went over eating goal.

When using Fitbit and MFP correcting itself anyway - usually best to set to Sedentary to minimize that effect (1.25 x BMR).
Your calorie adjustments will be bigger once the day gets going - but after a few days you should really have it down about how much you can eat anyway, and dinner and final snack is all you'll need to worry about to tweak some calories.

If really curious about the math that happens, the 2nd half of this FAQ gets into it.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy/p1

kpkitten

Have you changed how you sync? It might be that you never synced that early so mfp based your daily goals purely on your activity level, but now fitbit us syncing early with 0 steps so mfp panics and adjusts accordingly?
I know I often have a big negative or positive adjustment show up as soon as I do my first sync for the day.

thesecondtolastone

This happened to me yesterday. I have my Fitbit charge HR synced with MFP. Last night after dinner I synced my Fitbit and my steps were accurate on MFP. It said I had 200+ calories. I did not eat anything after this point and walked about 1000 more steps. This morning when I looked back at yesterday it is showing as -257.
I'm assuming MFP is doing some sort of daily projection. The problem is when I see calories I eat what I have. Is there any way to have a real time accurate view of available calories?

heybales

You need to look at the time of the last sync to see how accurate MFP is at the moment.

Look at the details on the Fitbit Calorie adjustment.
If last sync was couple hours ago (and steps may be accurate and more recent too) for calories - then the math MFP is doing is going to potentially be way off.
Especially if you have the activity level higher than sedentary.

Yes, MFP does daily projection for hours after last Fitbit sync.

And even if it was syncing correctly right up to say 9 pm and your last eating to goal moment - the last 3 hrs would be wrong if you then sat on couch and then went to bed - but didn't sync again until next morning.

Because Fitbit from 9 pm on would be showing correctly as BMR level calorie burn for 3 hrs.
Fitbit would have been projecting 3 hrs at whatever activity level - even sedentary is BMR x 1.25.
So by next sync in morning - if you met your goal night before at 9 pm - you'll be over as the daily burn was dropped because of correction.

Read FAQ link 2 posts up.