Kilojoules/calories earned says such-and-such, next day you find you over-ate as they changed

getfitchelle

Hi everyone, I apologise as I am sure this has been asked a million times.

I understand that there is an algorithm involved, and that there are estimates about what the end of the day will bring based on how the earlier parts of the day went, but I wondered how everyone else deals with the "you've earned such and such from exercise" being a good, happy number at 6pm when you are eating dinner, only to find that at midnight when everything squared up, you ended up at a much lower number and ate too much? There is no way I can keep up being as active at the end of the day as the start, I am too worn out by then.

I know 99% of you use calories, I use kilojoules so I hope I get my numbers right here. The fitbit dashboard says I did fine - ate 2022 versus 2765 'burned'. That is appropriate for my small weekly goal. I am also breastfeeding and not including it in anything, as baby has just turned 12 months, and while she does nurse frequently, it is only for brief amounts of time.

Myfitnesspal last night when I finished eating for the day told me I could chow down on 2151 calories, I left it 2021 and was pretty inactive for the evening. I go to bed early and get up early (3:30am or so) because of baby and my husband starts work very early. However this morning it says I should have had only had 1852.

I take it I should maybe only eat half back of the myfitnesspal extra exercise calories, like I would if I were manually adding activity? And see how it goes over the next few weeks?

I did have a fitbit in 2015 but don't ever recall having this happen, but I am sure it must have. I have a charge HR.

When I go to the Exercise tab on the computer browser, and click the blue circle with the i in it, it still tells me the same numbers I saw at 6pm while I was eating though? This was for the previous day, it is early Tuesday morning here now. Bit confusing.

getfitchelle

Ok, weird. I changed my units to calories and now it says I still had some to eat for yesterday. I don't want to have to use calories, we work in metric here! Is this a known issue? Is something getting lost in translation between the 2 energy units?

heybales

The amount of adjustment, if the activity is the same between last look and midnight for the same amount of time - will be about the same.

Just note it a couple and then leave that much in the green.

It's not actually because of what has happened during the day already - it's because MFP is estimating the rest of the day (6 hrs in your example) at the rate of burn based on the activity level you selected.

But Fitbit is later reporting that the calorie burn was BMR sleeping level for any non-step time.
The longer the time, the bigger the correction.

But - if you don't actually go to sleep, your device will keep syncing with phone and account and over to MFP - so instead of hitting goal with dinner, leave a decent chunck for a later snack, and adjust that snack size based on how much you'll learn must be left in the green.

And since that adjustment is not actually exercise, but merely MFP correcting itself, most seem to use Sedentary even though the adjustments prove they are not.
So don't do any silly 50% eatback nonsense, since it's not exercise calories.

But again, have some average days, you'll know about where it'll be and can plan accordingly so you don't have some huge amount end of day to deal with.

The only kicker to getting a normal figure of adjustment in the evening - Fitbit syncs when the current calorie burn is 100 more than prior sync.
So if 6pm looking was a mere 3 cal before the next sync and increase of 100 more, compared to right after a sync took place, that difference may throw you off.
You can always look at the extra info on that Adjustment entry to see what time it was done and calories - and then look at device to see how close it is and next sync.

If that really is still showing the same sync time and calories as day before - you have a sync issue.
Not a normal one - because you got at least one good one, if not many during the day.
Confirm your time-zones are correct between apps and accounts on MFP and Fitbit.
That is a difference issue.

Christine_72

I'm set at sedentary and go to bed early too. I lose roughly 60 calories every night. When i was set at lightly active which is my true activity level, it was closer to 200, so i changed it back down to sedentary.

Now that you know roughly how many cals you lose every night, make sure and leave that many in the green before going to bed.

I'm in Australia too, and reeefuse to use kilojoules lol I've used calories for as long as i can remember, and just can not make the change. kj's are stupid confusing for me!!

SummerSkier

I have an HR. I have had it linked for about 8 weeks now, and it really seems to exaggerate the calories earned. Based on the 'in five weeks if' thing it's running anywhere from 2-3 pounds off. I am experimenting with delinking it today and see if the in five weeks predictions are any closer. For baseline purposes I do not eat exercise calories back. I do like all the data on hr and sleep it keeps, but not sure I can use it completely accurately for when I hit maintenance.

heybales

The "in 5 weeks" only applies if you make each and every day of that 5 weeks the exact same amount of calories above or under the eating goal.
And if losing weight it can't be correct because you'll actually be burning less and less daily as weight goes down, and MFP doesn't self-correct until 10 lbs down. Fitbit would be adjusted after each weight loss entry.

And it doesn't apply if you do more but don't eat more.

So that's really a worthless test since impossible to meet those requirements.

Besides, the life lesson that brings vast majority to needing a diet is:
If you do more, you eat more.
If you do less, you eat less.

In a diet, a tad less in either case.

If you trust MFP enough, trust it trying to correct itself with better data.
That adjustment is not just exercise - most discover adjustments on days with no exercise - because the MFP estimate based on your guess of activity level was wrong.

You can try to improve the Fitbit of course to better accuracy.
Now it uses your restingHR and other things to try to figure out when exercise really starts - so if you are still out of aerobic shape, it may think every walk up some stairs or to the water cooler deserves HR-based calorie burn, which is wrong. Or if certain meds cause high HR, it'll never be correct using HR, so turning that off may be better.

And the stride length setting for your walking step distance could be off for the vast majority of your day, giving inflated calorie burn. That figure can be adjusted to average daily pace stride length.

You have available a better tool, figure out how to make it even better, rather than going back to just an older rougher tool.

SummerSkier

heybales wrote: »

The "in 5 weeks" only applies if you make each and every day of that 5 weeks the exact same amount of calories above or under the eating goal.
And if losing weight it can't be correct because you'll actually be burning less and less daily as weight goes down, and MFP doesn't self-correct until 10 lbs down. Fitbit would be adjusted after each weight loss entry.

And it doesn't apply if you do more but don't eat more.

So that's really a worthless test since impossible to meet those requirements.

Besides, the life lesson that brings vast majority to needing a diet is:
If you do more, you eat more.
If you do less, you eat less.

In a diet, a tad less in either case.

If you trust MFP enough, trust it trying to correct itself with better data.
That adjustment is not just exercise - most discover adjustments on days with no exercise - because the MFP estimate based on your guess of activity level was wrong.

You can try to improve the Fitbit of course to better accuracy.
Now it uses your restingHR and other things to try to figure out when exercise really starts - so if you are still out of aerobic shape, it may think every walk up some stairs or to the water cooler deserves HR-based calorie burn, which is wrong. Or if certain meds cause high HR, it'll never be correct using HR, so turning that off may be better.

And the stride length setting for your walking step distance could be off for the vast majority of your day, giving inflated calorie burn. That figure can be adjusted to average daily pace stride length.

You have available a better tool, figure out how to make it even better, rather than going back to just an older rougher tool.

Gosh, it might just be my lack of sleep today but that response came across as a little abrasive. But since you have about 12000 more posts than I do, it looks like you are a ton more active and probably are just throwing this out there like you have 200 times before in dismay at my feeble attempts to learn thru experience what you have learned 50 times before. Allow me my little experiment please without judging too harshly. I actually AM eating the same # of calories per day within a very small margin, and I do see that MFP adjusts the ' in five weeks ' calc based on current weight. So if I went back a few days when I weighed differently the 'in five weeks' calcs something different. When I am done losing and go on maintaining than I am definitely going to try to zero in on getting fitbit and MFP to work together to more accurately account for exercise adjustments, but since I am not doing any eat back now, it is not going to effect my intake.

Not trying to divert this thread but just adding my little fitbit/MFP experiment. In about 7 more weeks or so I will see if the in 5 weeks is more accurate or not with the exercise cals unlinked.

heybales

Didn't intend any emotion in the post to imply judging, just info.
Some people like to learn from the experience of others, some need to repeat on their own.

And the info was in case you didn't know how the things worked. You'll find people with 3 x as many posts as you still asking how the 5 week thing works, so it's not always understood.

The reason why the calc is different is not because of the weight change - MFP only changes goals which would effect the math after 10 lbs is lost.
That change is exactly what I was talking about - if you don't exactly hit the same calories eaten each day, the whole estimate is different.

The part about eating more when you do more - that is general advice to attempt to save you from yourself.
Keep reading the forums about those who regret having done that method. Usually many of us that have seen those comments can discern someone else going down that road by the way they say things.
Because sometimes, the school of hard-knocks is not the best way to learn.

SummerSkier

Still sounding a little condescending. Regardless of your intent. Just because someone doesn't post a lot does not make them inexperienced. And vice versa. I like the part about eating more when you do more. Definitely looking forward to that.

SezxyStef

SummerSkier wrote: »

Still sounding a little condescending. Regardless of your intent. Just because someone doesn't post a lot does not make them inexperienced. And vice versa. I like the part about eating more when you do more. Definitely looking forward to that.

and this still sounds like you want to argue with someone who gave better information and educated the masses on why your experiment isn't valid as the "in 5 weeks" means that everything remains the same not just the CI part of the equation.

SummerSkier

naw Mz Sexy... not trying to be argumentative. What I am saying is that internet advice is just that. If it is not an admin posting or someone affiliated with MFP or Fitbit than it is just one person's experience. We all have our biases. And just because someone has a LOT of posts does not really make them any more an expert than someone with less posts. I think it's important to take "advice" exactly for what it is. Another data point based on their personal experience and not gospel. I have been using fitbit and MFP for a long time as well - just don't post a lot. I like to experiment and see for myself. There are a LOT of settings on both which can effect results. And things are always changing so something someone experienced say back in 2014 or 15 might no longer be the current case. Apologies to you all if I have offended.

Francl27

Don't trust MFP's adjustment, it's always off. If you go to your Fitbit's dashboard, it should tell you how many calories you have left, and that's accurate (counting whatever calories you'll burn by midnight by being sedentary as a base, instead of MFP that, for some unknown reason, assumes that you'll have the same amount of activity all day).

heybales

Not really an unknown reason - they don't know when you'll be going to bed or waking up so as to count some as BMR level burn, and throw the balance into rest of the hours of the day.

But great idea to set Fitbit to Sedentary which is barely above BMR, and then when you hit that couch time and may want a final snack, use that as estimator instead.