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steps for calories?

keylime314159
keylime314159 Posts: 5 Member
in Social Groups
MFP gave me exercise calories today before I had exercised. . . was it using my steps from my fitbit to say I earned calories? I was active at work but only had 6 min in exercise zones according to the HR chart section of fitbit. Definitely not enough for the 400ish calories it gave me. I had walked about 8,000 steps at the time though. I deleted the calories because I didn't think I'd earned them, but where did they come from??

Replies

  • NancyN795
    NancyN795 Posts: 1,134 Member
    I would recommend that you read the FAQ found in the stickies. Here's a handy link: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy/p1

    The calories in your "Fitbit Calorie Adjustment" aren't exercise calories. They're essentially the difference between how active Fitbit says you've been and how active MFP expects you to have been (based on your selected activity level).

    Your day exactly illustrates this difference - you can have a day when you're quite active but don't do any formal exercise and get a significant adjustment and then you can have another day when you exercise, but then lay around on the couch the rest of the day and get very little adjustment.

    Your Fitbit is an "Activity Tracker", not an "Exercise Tracker".
  • Angierae75
    Angierae75 Posts: 417 Member
    Yup. I have MFP set to "sedentary" but most days I get 10k steps, which isn't sedentary, so it gives me more calories. It's the same calories I'd have if I had my self set to a different activity level, but I like seeing it at sedentary and then getting the extras added, because some days I have lazy days or I get stuck at my desk, and it's easier to just not have them added than to think "I have 1800 calories today!" and then see 500 of them taken away.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    Angierae75 wrote: »
    Yup. I have MFP set to "sedentary" but most days I get 10k steps, which isn't sedentary, so it gives me more calories. It's the same calories I'd have if I had my self set to a different activity level, but I like seeing it at sedentary and then getting the extras added, because some days I have lazy days or I get stuck at my desk, and it's easier to just not have them added than to think "I have 1800 calories today!" and then see 500 of them taken away.

    This is precisely why i changed the setting from lightly active to sedentary. I get over 20,000 steps most days, and I was still losing calories in the evening. Plus it put too much pressure on me, as there were days where i didn't feel like walking that much or i had a social gathering or whatever, but i HAD to overtake that lightly active setting! !

  • blossomingbutterfly
    blossomingbutterfly Posts: 743 Member
    I get about 10k steps a day and 500ish cals earned, sounds about right. Most of us arent sedentary and thats why we get an adjustment.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    blossomingbutterfly wrote: »
    I get about 10k steps a day and 500ish cals earned, sounds about right. Most of us arent sedentary and thats why we get an adjustment.

    Yep, I'm at 10,000 steps now and have earned an extra 432 calories.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    I have barely over 3K steps on this my normal super-sedentary day - and got 153 cal adjustment.

    Yes OP - you earned those calories - you were more active than MFP estimated you'd be by YOUR selection of activity level, and being unaware of any exercise.
    So if this was non-exercise day or up to that adjustment time - it just means you originally had on MFP the WRONG activity level by a big amount.

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