So confused with the calorie burn, please help.

Ordep81

Ok so I am totally confused as to how the calorie burn works with mfp app and my fitbit charge hr calorie burn measurement. I just turned on the 'negative adjustment' option since I have my fitbit on most of the time and let it sync quite often.
MFP has me at a goal of 1980 calories, which since im trying to lose weight this would be the 'max allowance of calories' from what I understand, is this correct?
For example as of lunch today, I have eaten 1600 calories of food according to mfp. And according to my fitbit have burned 1745 calories. Now this is where the confusion begins and im totally lost.
So at this point with a 1980 calorie goal or 'allowance', I have eaten 1600cals worth today which would leave me with just 380 calories left to eat. But since I have thus burned 1745calories already shouldnt that be considered credit towards the 1980 allowance and technically still be able to eat another 1745cals since those calories have thus been burned?
As of right now according to the mfp app im projected to burn 2394 today, mfp calories burn has 2461 for a -67 deficit. It has added that deficit to my cal intake for today and now im only allowed 313
for the rest of the day.
Can someone please explain as im totally lost.

NancyN795

If you go to the Exercise page in MFP (website - you get to the same info on the mobile app from the diary), you should see an entry for "Fitbit Calorie Adjustment". There will be a little 'i' next to it. Click on that (touch, and touch again in the mobile app). You should see something like this:



This shows you the math that MFP is using to calculate the adjustment. The first line is what MFP projects you'll burn for the full day based on how many calories Fitbit said you had burned at the last sync. To do this projection, MFP assumes you'll burn calories at your chosen activity level for the rest of the day.

The next line is your MyFitnessCalories Burned. If you haven't manually logged any exercise, then it is based on your stats (age, weight, height, gender) and chosen activity level. It should be close to your "calorie goal" (1980 in your case), plus your chosen deficit (250 calories for every 1/2 pound per week you want to lose).

The difference between the first line and the second line is your Fitbit Calorie adjustment.

If any of those numbers don't look right then either MFP has a bug or you've got something not right in your stats.

If you want more help, a screen grab of the screen I just explained (or just a typed in version) would be helpful.

Ordep81

I did not go to the gym today as today is a rest day. So is the calorie adjustment at this point subtracting more from the calories I could take since I didnt burn enough on my own, in order to help with losing the 1lb/week goal?

NancyN795

Yes, that's exactly right. Your calories burned reported by Fitbit are less that MFP expects based on your stats and activity level, so you have a negative adjustment. However, it is pretty close, so - given that today was a non-exercise day for you - it looks like your chosen MFP activity level is pretty accurate.

It just so happens that the bug I mentioned hit me tonight. Earlier today it was fine, but this is what I'm seeing now:



I can't examine the first one (I get an error message when I try), but the second one shows this:



Two days ago, with a similar level of exercise, it looked like this:



The end result is a very inaccurate calorie adjustment. This seems to be happening more often, so I'm going to report it to MFP support. Which is why I made the screen grabs.