Someone please explain how adjustments work
Replies
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Maybe this will explain it better --
https://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/410332-how-does-myfitnesspal-calculate-my-initial-goals-
I don't need to read that. I've been using MFP for 4 years almost continuously. I can go in and change my goals right now and it doesn't alter anything. In fact, I just did that just to verify that MFP hasn't suddenly changed how it works. No matter what my exercise goal was, my calorie goal remained the same - 1600. That sort of change would alter the very premise of MFP - NEAT. If your weekly exercise goal mattered, MFP would be using the TDEE method.
There are so many posts about exercise calories because people don't understand NEAT [MFP] vs TDEE [pretty much every other calculator]. Anyway, this is a side conversation. OP has been here a long time, too, and I'm pretty sure understands adding exercise calories. The issue seems like it's coming down to some sort of synching or something with the device itself.
Exactly this. I already contacted support yesterday to see what was up and they pretty much said "yeah, it's added calories based on your predicted movement" and closed the ticket. Which left me completely confused, so i decided to start this thread. I just could not understand the logic behind WHY this would work this way and WHY i don't see anyone else complaining about it.
Luckily i understand how MFP works, how to properly create a deficit, how the "exercise goal" doesn't actually add calories, etc. Otherwise I could be completely undoing my deficit. Like i said... my boyfriend who doesn't know any better got an extra 600 calories added to his and it's the same thing (he maintained on 2,100 yesterday and has both set to maintenance yet MFP added 600 calories telling him to consume 2,700). thank god i saw it and stopped him
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rainbowbow wrote: »Maybe this will explain it better --
https://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/410332-how-does-myfitnesspal-calculate-my-initial-goals-
I don't need to read that. I've been using MFP for 4 years almost continuously. I can go in and change my goals right now and it doesn't alter anything. In fact, I just did that just to verify that MFP hasn't suddenly changed how it works. No matter what my exercise goal was, my calorie goal remained the same - 1600. That sort of change would alter the very premise of MFP - NEAT. If your weekly exercise goal mattered, MFP would be using the TDEE method.
There are so many posts about exercise calories because people don't understand NEAT [MFP] vs TDEE [pretty much every other calculator]. Anyway, this is a side conversation. OP has been here a long time, too, and I'm pretty sure understands adding exercise calories. The issue seems like it's coming down to some sort of synching or something with the device itself.
Exactly this. I already contacted support yesterday to see what was up and they pretty much said "yeah, it's added calories based on your predicted movement" and closed the ticket. Which left me completely confused, so i decided to start this thread. I just could not understand the logic behind WHY this would work this way and WHY i don't see anyone else complaining about it.
Luckily i understand how MFP works, how to properly create a deficit, how the "exercise goal" doesn't actually add calories, etc. Otherwise I could be completely undoing my deficit. Like i said... my boyfriend who doesn't know any better got an extra 600 calories added to his and it's the same thing (he maintained on 2,100 yesterday and has both set to maintenance yet MFP added 600 calories telling him to consume 2,700). thank god i saw it and stopped him
Maybe someone who uses a Garmin will come in here and help. I have a fitbit and have negative adjustments enabled and have not had this issue. It will do some extrapolation based on activity, but I've never had hundreds of calories of adjustments like that. I've had it long enough that I know I can eat about 1800 each day and be within my deficit, so I don't necessarily have to synch it if I don't want to. Primarily I synch it because I use a weekly average deficit, and it really simplifies that. Otherwise, I could unsynch it and be okay. Even though it's frustrating that it's doing that right now, maybe you can focus on using it for a period of time and see what it's giving you as an average and at least use that? Good luck!0 -
Think of it this way...
Myfitnesspal creates a hypothetical calorie burn based on your age, height, activity level, and sex. It gives you a number to start off and then starts subtracting or add based on calorie intake and outtake.
The number is hypothetical and may or may not reflect your actual activities day to day.
A fitness tracker tracks your calories realtime based on your activities. It starts with zero and ends with what you actually did. It does not use any hypothetical numbers. It uses your real activity.
The issue here is they MFP starts with a hypothetical number while a tracker creates the number. Sometimes the number your personal tracker tracks will be lower than the hypothetical number that MFP creates. Since it is in real-time, of you have the negative adjust feature set, it will start removing calories until you start doing activities to add it back. That's why the negative count happens. It says disable the feature of you don't wear your tracker consistently. That is best as you want MFP to give you future calories left. Use the bands information as guidance to help you understand if you are tracking the right typical calories burned daily. The best indicator is of course the scale.
Use the fitness tracker for workout tracking. Remove the negative tracking. Also if the tracker gets more calories MFP will adjust for you.
Hope this helps0 -
Based upon the numbers data that you posted and from my understanding of what you said you entered into MFP (1,500 C, daily need), the 523 C addition was from the manual entry for exercise (151 C) and Garmin's adjustment (372 C). So, your MFP calorie adjustment is 1,500 + (151 + 372) = 2,023. And, the macros were adjusted proportionally. [Note: If you were wearing your Garmin during the exercise, its adjustment also included those exercise calories.]
I have a Garmin Vivosmart that records steps and produces Garmin's estimate of daily calorie burn. I cannot recall any time (not even once) that calorie burn & calorie consumed on Garmin Connect and on MFP were the same...and I have them linked. I only pay attention to MFP goals. I'm trying to "maintain," currently, and, if my calorie consumption is fairly close to MFP's "Your Daily Goals" over a week's time, I do maintain my weight (with slight variations, weekly).0 -
jessiethe3rd wrote: »Think of it this way...
Myfitnesspal creates a hypothetical calorie burn based on your age, height, activity level, and sex. It gives you a number to start off and then starts subtracting or add based on calorie intake and outtake.
The number is hypothetical and may or may not reflect your actual activities day to day.
A fitness tracker tracks your calories realtime based on your activities. It starts with zero and ends with what you actually did. It does not use any hypothetical numbers. It uses your real activity.
The issue here is they MFP starts with a hypothetical number while a tracker creates the number. Sometimes the number your personal tracker tracks will be lower than the hypothetical number that MFP creates. Since it is in real-time, of you have the negative adjust feature set, it will start removing calories until you start doing activities to add it back. That's why the negative count happens. It says disable the feature of you don't wear your tracker consistently. That is best as you want MFP to give you future calories left. Use the bands information as guidance to help you understand if you are tracking the right typical calories burned daily. The best indicator is of course the scale.
Use the fitness tracker for workout tracking. Remove the negative tracking. Also if the tracker gets more calories MFP will adjust for you.
Hope this helps
I don't think you read any of my posts.
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Based upon the numbers data that you posted and from my understanding of what you said you entered into MFP (1,500 C, daily need), the 523 C addition was from the manual entry for exercise (151 C) and Garmin's adjustment (372 C). So, your MFP calorie adjustment is 1,500 + (151 + 372) = 2,023. And, the macros were adjusted proportionally. [Note: If you were wearing your Garmin during the exercise, its adjustment also included those exercise calories.]
I have a Garmin Vivosmart that records steps and produces Garmin's estimate of daily calorie burn. I cannot recall any time (not even once) that calorie burn & calorie consumed on Garmin Connect and on MFP were the same...and I have them linked. I only pay attention to MFP goals. I'm trying to "maintain," currently, and, if my calorie consumption is fairly close to MFP's "Your Daily Goals" over a week's time, I do maintain my weight (with slight variations, weekly).
this is the issue. I did not burn more than 1,500 that day total.0 -
rainbowbow wrote: »Maybe this will explain it better --
https://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/410332-how-does-myfitnesspal-calculate-my-initial-goals-
I don't need to read that. I've been using MFP for 4 years almost continuously. I can go in and change my goals right now and it doesn't alter anything. In fact, I just did that just to verify that MFP hasn't suddenly changed how it works. No matter what my exercise goal was, my calorie goal remained the same - 1600. That sort of change would alter the very premise of MFP - NEAT. If your weekly exercise goal mattered, MFP would be using the TDEE method.
There are so many posts about exercise calories because people don't understand NEAT [MFP] vs TDEE [pretty much every other calculator]. Anyway, this is a side conversation. OP has been here a long time, too, and I'm pretty sure understands adding exercise calories. The issue seems like it's coming down to some sort of synching or something with the device itself.
Exactly this. I already contacted support yesterday to see what was up and they pretty much said "yeah, it's added calories based on your predicted movement" and closed the ticket. Which left me completely confused, so i decided to start this thread. I just could not understand the logic behind WHY this would work this way and WHY i don't see anyone else complaining about it.
Luckily i understand how MFP works, how to properly create a deficit, how the "exercise goal" doesn't actually add calories, etc. Otherwise I could be completely undoing my deficit. Like i said... my boyfriend who doesn't know any better got an extra 600 calories added to his and it's the same thing (he maintained on 2,100 yesterday and has both set to maintenance yet MFP added 600 calories telling him to consume 2,700). thank god i saw it and stopped him
Maybe someone who uses a Garmin will come in here and help. I have a fitbit and have negative adjustments enabled and have not had this issue. It will do some extrapolation based on activity, but I've never had hundreds of calories of adjustments like that. I've had it long enough that I know I can eat about 1800 each day and be within my deficit, so I don't necessarily have to synch it if I don't want to. Primarily I synch it because I use a weekly average deficit, and it really simplifies that. Otherwise, I could unsynch it and be okay. Even though it's frustrating that it's doing that right now, maybe you can focus on using it for a period of time and see what it's giving you as an average and at least use that? Good luck!
Thanks. The main reason i bought it is because i'm a personal trainer. on my days off like today and yesterday i don't burn very much. on days i'm training clients i think it will vary wildly. Some days i do morning and evening bootcamps, sessions, group classes, etc. This is the whole reason i bought it.
I can, however, just see what i'm burning manually. It's just a shame that it isn't working as i'd envisioned.
Thanks again. I don't think anyone else is really understanding what i'm saying here. XD0 -
First, are you able to click on the adjustment? When I do, it gives me a breakdown of the numbers. It tells me I've burned, for example, 1500 so far , so it expects me to burn 2000 by the end of the day, and then shows that the difference between that last number and my mfp estimate is that adjustment. You still burn calories while you're asleep, all evening. So, that could be why, it is estimating that since you've burn 1500 so far, and will burn calories the rest of the day, you will end up burnimg tha 2000k calories. I have a fitbit, not a Garmin, but that would be my guess. If it giving you problems sometimes deleting the adjustment, unsyncing and resyncing can help.0
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rainbowbow wrote: »Did you set your goals for exercise? Me, I have mine set to 3 days @ 30 minutes each time, so fitnesspal already makes the adjustment to my calorie goals BEFORE I even do any thing else. Do you have a fitbit or similar device or app synced with your fitnesspal account? Mapmyride? ANY app that records your exercise that is linked/synced with fitnesspal will automatically adjust your calories that you need for the day. If you do, then unsync them and they will not record any of your workouts to fitnesspal.
MFP doesn't ever include exercise until you add it in each and every time you exercise. It sounds like you're referring too the exercise goal section, which does nothing to adjust your calories.
OP - where are you getting the 1500 from? How long have you had your fitibit? Maybe you're more active than you think you are?
Yes, I was referring to when you first set up MFP to calculate how many calories you need based on what you put in, which includes the exercise goals, and yes I know it does not post anything in the exercise section
MFP doesn't include that in your calories needs, though, which it sound like you're saying it does and that it might somehow affect OP's numbers.
OP - Maybe you just shouldn't have them synced for a while, and see what your results are based on MFP's numbers and Garmin's estimations.
I guess. It just makes me mad. I've been a member of MFP for 5 years. I finally have a really really expensive device and one of it's features is "sync's with MFP". It's just infuriating that MFP would even offer such a technology if it doesn't even work.
Like, why even track with MFP instead of fitbit, garmin, etc. , ya know? Seems kind of useless to track my activity with one device and then have to manually add up "okay today i burned x calories so i can eat x calories".
Is the Garmin new? People say to give fitbits a few days/week for it to "get to know you" so the same may be true for your Garmin.
If it doesn't straighten out in a few days, try Garmin support.
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I hate to say it, but this is why my setup in MFP is set to SEDENTARY. Period. Any exercise I do, I'll add it myself. If I pull it off a fitness watch or not, doesn't matter, I'll add it manually.
It stops problems like this dead in their tracks.
I know everyone and their sister has a FitBit and every other health/fitness/smartwatch gizmo, but that doesn't make them standardized tech yet. They're still very, very new tech with lots of bugs, glitches, headaches and hassles with accuracy, quality and a surplus or deficit of data measured (accurately or not) and recorded.
Now let's add to that the ability to "sync" with a website's data server. The website now has to know how each and every single one of these devices works, reports and fails. Or, they just have to guesstimate.
MFP looks like they're trying something a little too cutting edge by trying to predict your calorie burn remaining - which is just plain stupid on so many levels I don't even want to get into it.
Just because you can do something wizzy and cool, doesn't mean it's useful at all.
Seriously though, stop letting cutting edge new tech dictate your health. Use it as a tool, nothing more and you'll do fine.
In this case, that means exactly what I said earlier - you log the exercise, not the Garmin. When you do that, I don't think MFP will be attempting prediction based calories.1 -
I got a Garmin 920XT watch for Xmas 14. Brilliant device in it's own right. With a Heart Rate Monitor I can accurately record runs, cycling, swimming even skiing and also it counts steps and measures sleep. I wear it all day around.
However, the Garmin Connect side is permanently bugged, and this knocks onto My Fitness Pal. The "active calories" section in Garmin Connect is what MFP relies upon, and for me, as soon as I do a running activity on the watch, the whole thing goes pear shaped at Garmin's end, which results in incorrect Step Calorie Adjustments on MFP.
I have been in an endless email exchange with Garmin about this for well over a year and they just say, the issue is still being investigated.
Now to cap it all, my watch's software was updated to 7.1 on Friday and it's broken the watch's data, which of course means poor data being sent to the already bugged Garmin Connect. It appears to now think my base calorie burn is 1599 calories, meaning to get any Step Adjustment on MFP requires about 20000 steps ;-)
My wife also has a Garmin ( 635 ) and her calorie adjustments are such patent nonsense she just deletes them from MFP each day. I should add that both of us have checked our settings at both ends as per the usual Garmin/MFP support advice.
To summarise, if the OP is using a Garmin I would not be remotely surprised if the issues are related to these somehow.
All that said, the Garmin is a fantastic watch in it's own right in terms of sports activity recording etc. It's just their software side that lets them down.
Now I suppose I could unlink the Garmin from MFP and just add manually but that defeats the entire object of step tracking and also it is a massive pain to convert Garmin steps to MFP minutes walking. Plus I am 99% certain MFP activity database is inaccurate especially walking.
If Apple ever make their watch into a serious piece of sports hardware it will be game over.1 -
Paul_Collyer wrote: »I got a Garmin 920XT watch for Xmas 14. Brilliant device in it's own right. With a Heart Rate Monitor I can accurately record runs, cycling, swimming even skiing and also it counts steps and measures sleep. I wear it all day around.
However, the Garmin Connect side is permanently bugged, and this knocks onto My Fitness Pal. The "active calories" section in Garmin Connect is what MFP relies upon, and for me, as soon as I do a running activity on the watch, the whole thing goes pear shaped at Garmin's end, which results in incorrect Step Calorie Adjustments on MFP.
I have been in an endless email exchange with Garmin about this for well over a year and they just say, the issue is still being investigated.
Now to cap it all, my watch's software was updated to 7.1 on Friday and it's broken the watch's data, which of course means poor data being sent to the already bugged Garmin Connect. It appears to now think my base calorie burn is 1599 calories, meaning to get any Step Adjustment on MFP requires about 20000 steps ;-)
My wife also has a Garmin ( 635 ) and her calorie adjustments are such patent nonsense she just deletes them from MFP each day. I should add that both of us have checked our settings at both ends as per the usual Garmin/MFP support advice.
To summarise, if the OP is using a Garmin I would not be remotely surprised if the issues are related to these somehow.
All that said, the Garmin is a fantastic watch in it's own right in terms of sports activity recording etc. It's just their software side that lets them down.
Now I suppose I could unlink the Garmin from MFP and just add manually but that defeats the entire object of step tracking and also it is a massive pain to convert Garmin steps to MFP minutes walking. Plus I am 99% certain MFP activity database is inaccurate especially walking.
If Apple ever make their watch into a serious piece of sports hardware it will be game over.
Thank you! Now that i see it... i get my "base calories" and then "active calories" from garmin. THIS is what it's adding, so it's basically adding calories if i do ANYTHING.
Amazing, i finally know where the issue lies. I guess i'm just going to manually delete the adjustment (if i can figure out where to do that).
I have the Forerunner 230 (without the optical HRM) so it tracks my all day activity and pairs with my garmin HRM for more intense exercise. I love the darn thing (plus it's beautiful) i was just getting sooo frustrated. Gah!
thanks so much to everyone who answered!2 -
A thread from the Garmin forums about their change to resting calories, which seems to break the MyFitnessPal link.
https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?350371-Random-change-in-resting-calories
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