Google fit integration and activity level

misnomer1

I've synced google fit with mfp for steps. Activity level is set to 'active'.

So far, mfp has given me 83 kcal for 800 steps. Does this take activity level into account? Will the adjustment be same regardless of activity level setting, or will mfp adjust?
I changed activity level setting to check but the adjustment remained the same. It is possible that the new change takes effect from the next day also.

Anyone know the answer? I've read the FAQ but it's not helpful.

heybales

This may be for Fitbit, but the method MFP uses for any activity tracker is the same.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy/p1


The MFP steps and Google Fit steps is similar in the math, and when you log purposeful exercise.

Yes, activity level on MFP changes things - because that tells MFP you already expected the day to burn so much because of so much activity.

If the steps and resulting calorie burn from them, or activity tracker daily calorie burn - aren't higher than what MFP accounted for already - no adjustment up, or not much.

If you tell MFP Sedentary (which the FAQ gives a reason why that may be better on section 2), then you'll get the biggest adjustment.

And yes, with some devices/syncing - it happens the the next day, the current days math just gets screwed up or adjusted much later.

misnomer1

@heybales heres what i dont understand


google fit says i took 1900 steps till 3:00 pm. im set as active. if i extrapolate for the whole 24 hours, i get 3040 steps for the day. This is too less for 'active' setting and I should be getting negative adjustments.
so why do i have a 228 kcal positive adjustment?

i have a feeling that this is being logged as exercise, rather than activity monitoring, so my activity level is not being taken into account at all.

misnomer1

It's 8pm and have taken only 2700 steps. Still a big positive adjustment 330 kcals. This number doesn't change if I change activity level setting.

heybales

So they use exactly the same method as Fitbit.

The FAQ applies - if you want fun with numbers how the intra-day stuff works, it's in section 2.
Your Activity level is used to estimate rest of the day, not steps.

And you'll want to start separating the idea that so many steps should equal so much adjustment.
The are related, through several calculations which can change the association.

Steps is given a distance per impact seen and expected.
Distance and time is pace.
Pace and mass is pretty good calculation of calories burned.

That added on to a base (BMR) gives daily activity burn, workouts added of course add or rather replace some of that.

As to adjustment changing mid-day when you change activity level - it's probably awaiting a new sync, or new day.

Google Fit is probably like Fitbit and others - only sends new data when it's 100 higher than prior sync.
And MFP isn't doing any new math until it receives new data.

Creating a workout on MFP for 1 calorie may force that change to use new figures, may need to wait until the next day.
Test it and let me know, that way I can maybe try to remember for next time.

misnomer1

My BMR is 1750-1800. maintenance at sedentary is 2150, maintenance at lightly active is 2450, maintenance at active is 2750. So 0.5kg loss per week at active is around 2280 (all these without any sync). My maintenance was 2700 according to my 50 day weight loss results, corresponding to level 'active' and 7000-9000 steps daily average acc to mfp i guess. Nothing was synced before today.

I have only walked around 3500 steps today, MFP adjusted and gave me 420 kcal extra as of now.
This 420 is not changing whether i change my activity to 'sedentary' or 'active'. Also, the sync of GFit with MFP is working fine. The steps update as soon as i refresh. I have no issue with the number, i believe 3500steps burning 420kcal is perfectly plausible.

The issue is that the calorie allowance I get is 1660 + 420 at sedentary, 2280 + 420 at 'active'. Shouldnt it have been 2280 + (-200) to keep the sum total the same? Basically MFP is giving me the exercise calories and adding it, it is not taking activity level setting into account at all. Its adding the calories same as one would manually log a run.

I think the following could be the reasons:
1. This integration doesnt consider activity level setting at all. The only setting which i should have is 'sedentary'.
2. I need to upgrade to premium for MFP to also consider activity level setting.
3. I integrated today morning, maybe itll start working as expected after 12 midnight.
4. I read the IOS FAQ, there it is clearly mentioned that activity level setting is factored in, not so for the google fit FAQ.

thanks for the help @heybales

janejellyroll

misnomer1 wrote: »

My BMR is 1750-1800. maintenance at sedentary is 2150, maintenance at lightly active is 2450, maintenance at active is 2750. So 0.5kg loss per week at active is around 2280 (all these without any sync). My maintenance was 2700 according to my 50 day weight loss results, corresponding to level 'active' and 7000-9000 steps daily average acc to mfp i guess. Nothing was synced before today.

I have only walked around 3500 steps today, MFP adjusted and gave me 420 kcal extra as of now.
This 420 is not changing whether i change my activity to 'sedentary' or 'active'. Also, the sync of GFit with MFP is working fine. The steps update as soon as i refresh. I have no issue with the number, i believe 3500steps burning 420kcal is perfectly plausible.

The issue is that the calorie allowance I get is 1660 + 420 at sedentary, 2280 + 420 at 'active'. Shouldnt it have been 2280 + (-200) to keep the sum total the same? Basically MFP is giving me the exercise calories and adding it, it is not taking activity level setting into account at all. Its adding the calories same as one would manually log a run.

I think the following could be the reasons:
1. This integration doesnt consider activity level setting at all. The only setting which i should have is 'sedentary'.
2. I need to upgrade to premium for MFP to also consider activity level setting.
3. I integrated today morning, maybe itll start working as expected after 12 midnight.
4. I read the IOS FAQ, there it is clearly mentioned that activity level setting is factored in, not so for the google fit FAQ.

thanks for the help @heybales

I've never done adjustments in activity level midday, I'm wondering if that could be part of your issue.

misnomer1

janejellyroll wrote: »

misnomer1 wrote: »

My BMR is 1750-1800. maintenance at sedentary is 2150, maintenance at lightly active is 2450, maintenance at active is 2750. So 0.5kg loss per week at active is around 2280 (all these without any sync). My maintenance was 2700 according to my 50 day weight loss results, corresponding to level 'active' and 7000-9000 steps daily average acc to mfp i guess. Nothing was synced before today.

I have only walked around 3500 steps today, MFP adjusted and gave me 420 kcal extra as of now.
This 420 is not changing whether i change my activity to 'sedentary' or 'active'. Also, the sync of GFit with MFP is working fine. The steps update as soon as i refresh. I have no issue with the number, i believe 3500steps burning 420kcal is perfectly plausible.

The issue is that the calorie allowance I get is 1660 + 420 at sedentary, 2280 + 420 at 'active'. Shouldnt it have been 2280 + (-200) to keep the sum total the same? Basically MFP is giving me the exercise calories and adding it, it is not taking activity level setting into account at all. Its adding the calories same as one would manually log a run.

I think the following could be the reasons:
1. This integration doesnt consider activity level setting at all. The only setting which i should have is 'sedentary'.
2. I need to upgrade to premium for MFP to also consider activity level setting.
3. I integrated today morning, maybe itll start working as expected after 12 midnight.
4. I read the IOS FAQ, there it is clearly mentioned that activity level setting is factored in, not so for the google fit FAQ.

thanks for the help @heybales

I've never done adjustments in activity level midday, I'm wondering if that could be part of your issue.

do you use google fit step sync as well, or fitbit? im going to change setting back to active before midnight. and then not move my phone at all till tomorrow noon. if i dont get negative adjustment (ive turned that option on), then I will know that my activity level is not being considered at all.

misnomer1

Update:

I was fiddling with the settings on my computer, changed back to 'active', updated a few privacy settings. When i went back to exercise diary, +500kcal adjustment had changed to -1080kcal. basically, it has started working. problem solved somehow.

heybales

misnomer1 wrote: »

My BMR is 1750-1800. maintenance at sedentary is 2150, maintenance at lightly active is 2450, maintenance at active is 2750. So 0.5kg loss per week at active is around 2280 (all these without any sync). My maintenance was 2700 according to my 50 day weight loss results, corresponding to level 'active' and 7000-9000 steps daily average acc to mfp i guess. Nothing was synced before today.

I have only walked around 3500 steps today, MFP adjusted and gave me 420 kcal extra as of now.
This 420 is not changing whether i change my activity to 'sedentary' or 'active'. Also, the sync of GFit with MFP is working fine. The steps update as soon as i refresh. I have no issue with the number, i believe 3500steps burning 420kcal is perfectly plausible.

The issue is that the calorie allowance I get is 1660 + 420 at sedentary, 2280 + 420 at 'active'. Shouldnt it have been 2280 + (-200) to keep the sum total the same? Basically MFP is giving me the exercise calories and adding it, it is not taking activity level setting into account at all. Its adding the calories same as one would manually log a run.

I think the following could be the reasons:
1. This integration doesnt consider activity level setting at all. The only setting which i should have is 'sedentary'.
2. I need to upgrade to premium for MFP to also consider activity level setting.
3. I integrated today morning, maybe itll start working as expected after 12 midnight.
4. I read the IOS FAQ, there it is clearly mentioned that activity level setting is factored in, not so for the google fit FAQ.

thanks for the help @heybales

So MFP has 2813 according to screen shot for total daily burn.

2813 / 1.6 Active = 1758 BMR

So I guess that was with Active still set.

You may be using those external TDEE calc's which are about only exercise levels, which is NOT what MFP is doing which is ONLY daily activity.
Your calculation of TDEE based on eating level and weight loss is not how MFP activity levels work either, though you could attempt to get close.

But this integration is not totally the same as Fitbit, it's deciding how much of the calorie burn is related to activity above and beyond what Active level would have given you anyway.

So it's deciding that amounts to 228 calories at 3pm. And 330 calories at 8pm.
That would depend on activity level, probably from start of day setting.

Since rest of the day is estimated at same rate as what has occurred - your daily burn is what it's already decided - 2813.

And in this case true it would not change if you change activity level unless it recalculated the rate.

It's probably the same way Fitbit works if you change your stats and therefore BMR. Intra-day doesn't matter.
The device uses your BMR in calculations of total daily burn, and calorie burn on the distance it sees you go.
I've done the math - if you change your weight and therefore BMR mid-day - it will sync over that new value to the device, and instantly your daily burn changes.
But I've done the math and it's only the BMR part of the daily burn that changed - the already calculated burn from step distance isn't changed.
With the amount of steps I do and amount of change - no big whoop.
If I had huge distance and calorie burn that day, but was actually lighter by 5 lbs - probably a bigger deal.
Now the next day, the step distance calories are correct.

So the device doesn't keep the raw data needed to apply new BMR to (METS is what is used), but that point forward new data is calculated with it.

So either you move to sedentary, and from that point forward it's going to increase adjustment faster than if set to active, or just wait until the next day.

2 - premium won't change anything to do with that. Except give option to ignore it if doing like weekly avg TDEE method instead of MFP method.

4 - Google Fit may be doing like Garmin - it knows your MFP activity setting and is itself estimating at what point you go over the base calories, and then just sending that over like a workout.
iOS like Fitbit, estimating daily burn and sending that over for MFP to do the math.

What do the figures on Google Fit show as to total daily burned, activity levels, base burn, extra burn, exercise burn, ect?

Saw your update - was hoping it's not like my syncing - one good sync a day, then MFP fails to get more from Fitbit and update math.
Glad it got working.

misnomer1

Nah that update was a bug. On my computer when I update privacy settings, the cal adjustment goes to -1080 regardless of steps. So steps increased and that adjustment was still -1080. When I opened the phone app and it refreshed, the adjustment came back to 521kcal.
Did this twice. Same result.

Google fit for 21sep showed 4921 steps. 1914kcal burned, off which 1597was BMR and whatever other stuff, 316 from the steps. Mfp changed this 316 to 521 because it adjusts for age sex and height, which seems fine to me.

I've disabled the integration for now, it's giving me way too many calories. At 'active' I make sure I take 8000 steps. For 4921 steps I was expecting a reduction of 200 kilocalories, not 521 extra.

bluex232

Can you tell me what settings you changed to fix this because I too am getting way too many extra calories from my Google Fit each day? On a day I dont exercise I am still getting 400+ extra calories because of my step count (which at times is only 7600ish). I have my activity set to not active. I work overnight, a desk job, sleep during the day, and am moving around with kids in the late afternoon evening.