Can someone explain MFP's exercise calories?

stormyview

I don't use MFP to track exercise, but it does track my steps. I can't figure out where they're getting these numbers for exercise adjustments because the numbers don't seem to coincide with steps walked at all. Here are some examples:

32,008 steps -- exercise adjustment 109 cal.
18,389 --adjustment 273 calories
23,631 - adjustment 35 calories!

I don't understand how I can walk 12.5 miles and earn only 109 extra calories! I'm small and not trying to lose weight, but even at 115 pounds, I burn more than that! Even crazier was the 23,631-step day where I went 9.5 miles and earned a whopping 35 extra calories!

Can anyone explain? I'm trying to use this to keep an eye on maintenance calories occasionally, but those numbers are not exactly helpful.

janejellyroll

What is your activity level set to?

The higher you set your activity level, the more you will have to move to generate an adjustment.

stormyview

janejellyroll wrote: »

What is your activity level set to?

The higher you set your activity level, the more you will have to move to generate an adjustment.

My level is set at sedentary. But my question is what is going on with those numbers. It's not necessarily giving me more calories on more active days than on less active days (273 extra calories on an 18,000-step day but 35 extra calories on 23,000-step day?).

MichiM1

The variable you can't see is speed or pace of the steps. You probably had a faster pace at certain times on the 18K day than the 23K day, even though there were fewer steps.