Too many exercise calories

AmberGebell

Ok I am a bit confused, I started my day with negative -137 calories. I went to the gym and did weights for 90 minutes. I did not have my activity button pushed because it doesn't work and I did not think it mattered since it was just weights. After gym I synced Fitbit and MFP and it gave me 386 extra calories but I had not even added manually my weight workout, Then I just added my weight workout on Fitbit and now I am up to 745 extra calories. Doesn't that seem too high?

heybales

You've got the wrong figures for really discerning something well.

The negative at day start doesn't seem high enough actually, unless you are getting up really early.

If your HR goes up along with enough steps - the Charge HR (forgotten to mention it again ;-) , it matters because other devices do it differently) will start a record and start HR-based calorie burn. Unless you've disabled that ability.
Which is indeed inflated for weight lifting when it's done.

Have you looked at your Fitbit stats to see what is going on?

MFP is merely getting sent that daily calorie burn and doing math.

You need to look on Fitbit to see what that daily calorie burn is made up of and why it may seem so high.

That does seem like a big jump though, not of the 386 because that could have just been step based and not counting the workout. But up to the 745.

You sure you used the correct start / duration time?
If you replaced the calories Fitbit came up with, with your manually entered database entry - but you got the time wrong - some of the original could still be getting counted along with it - so some double counting for some portion of time.

Look at Fitbit site - leave the figure at the end of the math (MPF calorie adjustment) out of it until you know the figures being worked with.

What did Fitbit put for that manually entered workout in calories?
Confirm the time and duration are correct - and is time and time zone correct on device? And account? And matches MFP?

AmberGebell

I do wake up at 4:30 or 5 am. Here is a screenshot from yesterday's workout

Should I turn my HR off when lifting so it doesn't double dip me? And I did put correct time, and I am in the right time zone

heybales

Ugh that's early!
And therefore about correct negative adjustment.

If correct start/duration time for a manually entered workout - it replaces whatever Fitbit was estimating for calorie burn - so no double dipping.
Disabling HR would merely have device make step-based calorie burn estimate - of course that's not correct for lifting either.
Then again - if manually entering a workout, neither method matters as calories getting replaced anyway.
But the HR data would be more interesting.
That ability in lifting to hit a higher HR is good to see. If you start seeing it go the other direction, it usually means too tired. Then again, it generally feels that way anyway, so it's just confirming how you feel.

The 357 calories for 90 min Weights sound about right, it's low, and that's true.

That means of that 745 MFP calorie adjustment - only 357 was related to that workout.
The other 388 was other increased to daily burn above whatever you have MFP set as.
Like if you have MFP set to Sedentary, and you are no where near sedentary outside exercise (like more than 4000 steps daily) - you'll always be getting big adjustments up.

If you leave meal planning rather tight and need those figures closer to little adjustments, then increase MFP activity level. But then deal with increased night time adjustments dropping by next morning - guessing you go to bed early too.

Or get a rough figure of total daily burn in mind, less deficit, to plan meals on, knowing dinner / snack will be final adjustment to reach goal.

Now the walking you don't manually enter, right?
Both those workouts appear the same, so can't decide if Device created Activity Record, or you manually created Workout Record.

AmberGebell

No I didn't add walking on Sunday, Fitbit just recorded it! So do you think I should change it to Sedentary? I get no less than 8000 steps a day on days I don't work out and days I do, I get upwards of 14,000

heybales

Totally depends on if your daily meal planning really starts with MFP non-adjusted eating goal, or based on what you know it's going to end up as.

The calories in the end will be the same, but at Lightly Active, or Active, your adjustments will be lower because your base calories will be higher.

This can make it easier for some to plan their day.
And reach their goal with no big surprises to make up in the evening.


Now, the other caveat to this is in the evening, with your likely early to bed, early on couch wind-down to the day.
If this happens at say 7pm and you have a eating goal you have just or will soon hit, but rest of the evening 5 hrs is easy - MFP is estimating hourly burn rate at still Lightly Active or Active for the 5 hrs, and that means the daily burn and eating calorie estimate is higher than reality.
It thinks you'll burn say 2400 and eating goal based on that, your Fitbit syncs the next morning and shares the fact it was only say 2200 burned until midnight, because of course 5 hrs easy.

But this is easy to plan to. If you hit the couch and bed about the same time, and stop eating about the same time, the amount of that adjustment being lowered will always be about the same.

So leave that much of your eating goal in the green. The next day it'll be right on.

Set to sedentary that evening effect is smaller, Active its bigger. But whatever amount it is won't change as I mentioned.

SparklyBubblyBabe

I get up at 5:30 on the weekdays and my calorie adjust begins at -20. I usually have about 700 exercise calories on a regular day. I have both FitBit and MFP set to sedentary. Yesterday, I did nothing practically and it still said i could eat 1600 calories and net 1200 with 167 calories to spare. Seems ridiculously high though. I've had my FitBit for a month and a half now so I'm sure it's got my correct resting heart rate by now.

heybales

The calorie adjustment by itself is a useless figure really - you have no idea what it's based on.

What were steps and distance?

SparklyBubblyBabe wrote: »

I get up at 5:30 on the weekdays and my calorie adjust begins at -20. I usually have about 700 exercise calories on a regular day. I have both FitBit and MFP set to sedentary. Yesterday, I did nothing practically and it still said i could eat 1600 calories and net 1200 with 167 calories to spare. Seems ridiculously high though. I've had my FitBit for a month and a half now so I'm sure it's got my correct resting heart rate by now.