MFP's step adjustment is puzzling

timtam163

Ok, this has probably been talked about but... if I count the 10 miles I walked today as exercise and I log it manually, I'd get like 600 calories. But if I use the step counter in my phone and MFPs adjustment I get only 200. Is that too low? Or just right?

Some possibilities:
-even though I put "sedentary" as my activity level to calculate my calorie goals, MFP's goal for physical activity for me is pretty high, so the adjustment doesn't reflect much of a change.
-MFP's calculation of calories burned during walking is much too high.
-Calorie burn is a quantum phenomenon and I both burn 200 and 600 calories, only settling on a state upon measurement. I am Schroedingers cat, we are all Schroedingers cat.

What gives?

Alatariel75

I'm totally going for option 3.

StaciMarie1974

With MFP you choose an activity level.

My theory: you did not walk 10 miles as cardio, but I gather the 10 miles was walked thru your normal day? So some of it was 'normal activity' and already counted in MFP's base calories for your day. The adjustment of +200 would indicate what you earned beyond what was already assumed.

If you log a 10 mile walk, MFP is assuming that is a single block of time and you're still meeting your stated activity level for the rest of the day. If you crunched all of that walking into 120 minutes for example, 600 would be a good estimate of your additonal burn for that bit of time. *Additional being above and beyond what you'd have done if you just met your activity level for those 2 hours.** And MFP assumes you managed your regular activity level for the other 22 hours, which would mean you had steps/movement in addition to the 10 miles.

timtam163

StaciMarie1974 wrote: »

With MFP you choose an activity level.

My theory: you did not walk 10 miles as cardio, but I gather the 10 miles was walked thru your normal day? So some of it was 'normal activity' and already counted in MFP's base calories for your day. The adjustment of +200 would indicate what you earned beyond what was already assumed.

If you log a 10 mile walk, MFP is assuming that is a single block of time and you're still meeting your stated activity level for the rest of the day. If you crunched all of that walking into 120 minutes for example, 600 would be a good estimate of your additonal burn for that bit of time. *Additional being above and beyond what you'd have done if you just met your activity level for those 2 hours.** And MFP assumes you managed your regular activity level for the other 22 hours, which would mean you had steps/movement in addition to the 10 miles.

That would make sense if I hadn't set my MFP to "sedentary" (I have a very short commute and a desk job). Hence why I'm puzzled as to how it would build much of the 10 miles into my daily energy expenditure.

capaul42

With a fitbit, your adjustment isn't based on your steps. It's actually based on your total calorie burn at time of sync. Though you just see steps and calories added on the main screen, when you go deeper into the adjustment you see that MFP takes fitbit's calorie burn and predicts what your burn will be for the full day. It then subtracts your MFP maintenance calories and that is the adjustment you see. Nothing to directly do with your steps.

I don't know if the step counter on your phone works at all the same way as the above but it's a possible reason for the discrepancy.

timtam163

capaul42 wrote: »

With a fitbit, your adjustment isn't based on your steps. It's actually based on your total calorie burn at time of sync. Though you just see steps and calories added on the main screen, when you go deeper into the adjustment you see that MFP takes fitbit's calorie burn and predicts what your burn will be for the full day. It then subtracts your MFP maintenance calories and that is the adjustment you see. Nothing to directly do with your steps.

I don't know if the step counter on your phone works at all the same way as the above but it's a possible reason for the discrepancy.

Yeah that's what I've figured, I think I am just used to logging walking as separate exercise and this is probably a more accurate method but also the discrepancy puzzled me.

Thanks for the feedback!