Activity calories going down

AmberGebell

I am not sure why my calories left keep going down? A couple hours ago I had 323 extra calories and now I have 92, Each time I sync it goes down

Ready2Rock206

Do you have a fit bit or similar device connected? It gives you calories based on your current activity level at the time and assumes you will remain at that same activity level until midnight. Unfortunately for most people in the evening we start being less active and then mfp goes whoopsie and starts taking those calories back depending on how inactive we become.

Christine_72

Do you have negative adjustments enabled? This would account for you losing calories if you haven't been as active as the activity level you selected in mfp.

I'm set at sedentary, and even if i get 20,000 steps a day i will start losing losing calories from about 5pm onwards, as i am very inactive from that time onward. I also always lose around 65 calories from bedtime to midnight every single day.

SusanMFindlay

What have you set your activity level to? Was it a long time between syncs? And were you inactive during that time?

Ready2Rock is right. Depending on your lifestyle, you may find it easiest to set yourself to "sedentary" to minimize this effect - especially if you are an "early to rise/early to bed" type. (I'm not, so I build up a good buffer of "did nothing" time in the morning before I get up. Plus I'm up until 11pm or midnight most days so I don't "lose" calories after going to bed.)

PAV8888

Activity calories are calculated to midnight and the calories assigned to an inactive minute differ between your tracker and mfp.

When you're less active as per your tracker than MFP expects you to be, you lose a few calories per inactive minute to midnight.

If you're sedentary on MFP you lose about 0.25 x BMR / 1440 Cal per minute of inactivity.

This increases to 0.4, 0.6, or 0.8 x BMR/1440 depending on whether you're setup at lightly active, active or very active.

The calculation "closes" at midnight.

*The above numbers apply to Fitbit - MFP integration; other trackers MAY be integrating differently.

AmberGebell

Thank you everyone! Yes I have my Fitbit charge hr synced to MFP. I am early to rise and early to bed, I have my activity set to lightly active. I do 6 days of heavy weight training and 3 days of cardio and I am a hairstylist and am on feet a lot. My steps on average are about 13,000. And I do have negative calories enabled. So do you think I should go to Sedentary? But yes today was a less movement day for me

SusanMFindlay

You'll see this effect less if you set yourself to sedentary. It's your call whether it bothers you enough to matter; your calories will be the same either way at midnight.

Christine_72

I go to bed early too, which is why i changed my setting from lightly active to sedentary. I got and an extra 250 calories for lightly active, but lost around 200 of those every evening because i turn into an inactive sloth! I'm very active during the day, but only up to around 5pm which leaves a full 7 hours of being sedentary.

AmberGebell

Ok great! Thank you

StaciMarie1974

MFP assumes you are lightly active each hour of the day. Since it has no way to break the day down into segments. When you sync for the last time, and sync again in the morning, there will be some lost.

You can figure out the difference. Using me for an example... My MFP goal is to eat 1300 a day and I have it set to 500 deficit. This means MFP expects me to burn 1800 in a day, or 75 an hour. My BMR is about 52 per hour. So that means after I am done moving for the day I will pretty much burn 52/hour which is about 23/hour less than MFP predicts. The difference between your expected activity rate and BMR per hour is about what the adjustment will be.

If you change to sedentary the adjustment will be less, but there will still be an adjustment.

YOu can also look to your Fitbit app, which only awards calories as you've earned them, and assumes BMR for the rest of the day. It never takes calories away. So right now, I've pre-logged my entire day @ 1335 calories in. Fitbit tells me I am 194 calories over. This means that I need to move more to earn 194 calories beyond my BMR. Its only 2:21pm, so this is not a problem. When I'm done moving for the day, and my Fitbit app says I have a few calories to spare, I'm typically satisfied. (PS I do log food in MFP but since Fitbit is synced it has access to the calorie #.)

AmberGebell wrote: »

Thank you everyone! Yes I have my Fitbit charge hr synced to MFP. I am early to rise and early to bed, I have my activity set to lightly active. I do 6 days of heavy weight training and 3 days of cardio and I am a hairstylist and am on feet a lot. My steps on average are about 13,000. And I do have negative calories enabled. So do you think I should go to Sedentary? But yes today was a less movement day for me

KWlosingit

I set MFP and my fitbit to think I am 3 hours later than it is so that when I go to sleep at 9 pm it thinks it is midnight. That way I lose less calories in the evening.