What's negative calorie adjustment?
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oat_bran
Posts: 370 Member
What is this negative calorie adjustment function everyone keeps talking about? How do I enable it? I can't seem to findanything in the settings...
Is this the function that's supposed to solve the problem of difference of calories between MFP and fitbit? I'm trying to use my fitbit HR to count the exercise I do and my fitbit activity is set to sedentary but it adds way too many calories in the exercise calories. Sometimes it's around 100 cals more, and other times way over that. Sometimes it just adds exercise calories out of nowhere. Like, for example, today I just woke up and didn't do anything yet and it already gives me 450 extra calories from some mysterious exercise?? So I continue to calculate my deficit manually (TDEE from fitbit - intake from MFP) but it's not always easy to project the TDEE many hours before midnight and it would be great if the apps could do the work for me.
On a related note, I have a question. Does MFP only takes the steps in consideration when adding calories as exercise. It doesn't take into account the heart rate? If so, maybe this what could explain the difference in calories. In this case, I don't see much point in synching the two.. I'll just continue to calculate the deficit manually.
Is this the function that's supposed to solve the problem of difference of calories between MFP and fitbit? I'm trying to use my fitbit HR to count the exercise I do and my fitbit activity is set to sedentary but it adds way too many calories in the exercise calories. Sometimes it's around 100 cals more, and other times way over that. Sometimes it just adds exercise calories out of nowhere. Like, for example, today I just woke up and didn't do anything yet and it already gives me 450 extra calories from some mysterious exercise?? So I continue to calculate my deficit manually (TDEE from fitbit - intake from MFP) but it's not always easy to project the TDEE many hours before midnight and it would be great if the apps could do the work for me.
On a related note, I have a question. Does MFP only takes the steps in consideration when adding calories as exercise. It doesn't take into account the heart rate? If so, maybe this what could explain the difference in calories. In this case, I don't see much point in synching the two.. I'll just continue to calculate the deficit manually.
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Are you saying your adjustment on MFP is 450 calories or your Fitbit said you burned 450 calories? If it’s the latter, that would be what you burned while you slept (your BMR for the time period).
Negative calorie adjustment will be found under your diary settings. What it does is ensure that if you have a day where you don’t move as much as expected, you don’t overeat. So say your calculated maintenance is 2500 calories and you’re set to 2000 to lose a pound a week. You have a day where you’re sick and only end up burning 2300 calories. In order to make sure your deficit is the same, MFP will deduct those 200 calories, meaning you will only need to eat 1800 calories to remain at that deficit. The negative adjustment will happen provided you aren’t at the 1200/1500 calorie floor based on your gender.
MFP’s adjustment comes from the total calories Fitbit days you burned up to that sync. MFP can not tell if you burned those calories through exercise, general activity, or your BMR. It doesn’t know your heart rate and only looks at your steps.3 -
Are you saying your adjustment on MFP is 450 calories or your Fitbit said you burned 450 calories? If it’s the latter, that would be what you burned while you slept (your BMR for the time period).
I mean that my diary now says for example: 1200 goal - 627 food + 489 exercise = 1062 remaining.
However, the 1200 goal that my MFP is set to (it's set to sedentary and I'm a short female) is already supposed to include my BMR. I know that fitbit shows me my TDEE and not just exercise calories, but I thought that when it synchs with MPF it only adds the calories burned over BMR and basic activity of a "sedentary lifestyle". And anyway, I have already burned 800 calories after waking up according to my fitbit (no intentional exercise, just some light walking around the house) so I really don't understand where the random number of 489 calories comes from... And in the end of the day, MFP always tells me I have many calories left even though if I deduct my intake from the TDEE the fitbit calculated I am at my goal intake.Negative calorie adjustment will be found under your diary settings. What it does is ensure that if you have a day where you don’t move as much as expected, you don’t overeat. So say your calculated maintenance is 2500 calories and you’re set to 2000 to lose a pound a week. You have a day where you’re sick and only end up burning 2300 calories. In order to make sure your deficit is the same, MFP will deduct those 200 calories, meaning you will only need to eat 1800 calories to remain at that deficit. The negative adjustment will happen provided you aren’t at the 1200/1500 calorie floor based on your gender.
Thanks for explaining! So it seems like the extra calories I receive are not from not enabling this function. I still enabled it though, since i do get those days where I'm not very active every now and then.MFP’s adjustment comes from the total calories Fitbit days you burned up to that sync. MFP can not tell if you burned those calories through exercise, general activity, or your BMR. It doesn’t know your heart rate and only looks at your steps.
I see. I suspect that this is probably where the difference comes from. Since I've started running several times a week my resting heart rate gradually dropped to 45bpm which is lower than an average person as far as I know so with a lower heart rate I burn less calories than an average person doing the same number of steps. I imagine that MFP adjustment's are based on what an average person of my BMI, gender and age burns doing a given number of steps. So basically I think I 'm better off continuing calculating my deficit/goal intake manually from fitbit's TDEE if I want to stay accurate.0 -
Sedentary means sedentary. If you’ve been walking around your house and fixing yourself 627 calories’ worth of food, you haven’t been sedentary, and your Fitbit is counting that a “exercise” (which, for a sedentary person, it would be). If you change your activity level to lightly active, you’ll get a smaller adjustment. And if there are ever days where you’re LESS active than your setting, allowing negative adjustments will let the Fitbit take calories away to compensate.
If you look at my diary in the next hour or two, you’ll see I have a negative adjustment for all the sleeping I’ve been doing since midnight. Once I get up and start moving, that number will move toward zero and eventually turn positive if I move enough.
EDIT: Oh! Speaking of midnight: what time did you go to bed last night? If you were active after midnight those calories are added to today, not yesterday.2 -
FlyingMolly wrote: »Sedentary means sedentary. If you’ve been walking around your house and fixing yourself 627 calories’ worth of food, you haven’t been sedentary, and your Fitbit is counting that a “exercise” (which, for a sedentary person, it would be). If you change your activity level to lightly active, you’ll get a smaller adjustment. And if there are ever days where you’re LESS active than your setting, allowing negative adjustments will let the Fitbit take calories away to compensate.
If you look at my diary in the next hour or two, you’ll see I have a negative adjustment for all the sleeping I’ve been doing since midnight. Once I get up and start moving, that number will move toward zero and eventually turn positive if I move enough.
In reality, I'm neither "sedentary" nor "lightly active". I'm "moderately active". Even without counting the intentional exercise most days I burn a lot just from walking around and doing my everyday stuff. The reason my diary is set to sedentary now is because I've seen over and over again people advising to set your life style to sedentary/not very active if you're synching your fitbit to your MFP account and using the fitbit to count your exercise. I mean, if I remember correctly when my diary was set to "active" I was getting even more extra calories to eat, not less.0 -
That can be an issue if you DON’T enable negative calorie adjustments. Some days you might be less active than your set level, and then MFP would be giving you too many calories. But if you’re allowing your Fitbit to deduct them it doesn’t really matter, because your calories are adjusted to whatever you actually burn that day, whether it’s more OR less.1
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Are you saying your adjustment on MFP is 450 calories or your Fitbit said you burned 450 calories? If it’s the latter, that would be what you burned while you slept (your BMR for the time period).
I mean that my diary now says for example: 1200 goal - 627 food + 489 exercise = 1062 remaining.
However, the 1200 goal that my MFP is set to (it's set to sedentary and I'm a short female) is already supposed to include my BMR. I know that fitbit shows me my TDEE and not just exercise calories, but I thought that when it synchs with MPF it only adds the calories burned over BMR and basic activity of a "sedentary lifestyle". And anyway, I have already burned 800 calories after waking up according to my fitbit (no intentional exercise, just some light walking around the house) so I really don't understand where the random number of 489 calories comes from... And in the end of the day, MFP always tells me I have many calories left even though if I deduct my intake from the TDEE the fitbit calculated I am at my goal intake.Negative calorie adjustment will be found under your diary settings. What it does is ensure that if you have a day where you don’t move as much as expected, you don’t overeat. So say your calculated maintenance is 2500 calories and you’re set to 2000 to lose a pound a week. You have a day where you’re sick and only end up burning 2300 calories. In order to make sure your deficit is the same, MFP will deduct those 200 calories, meaning you will only need to eat 1800 calories to remain at that deficit. The negative adjustment will happen provided you aren’t at the 1200/1500 calorie floor based on your gender.
Thanks for explaining! So it seems like the extra calories I receive are not from not enabling this function. I still enabled it though, since i do get those days where I'm not very active every now and then.MFP’s adjustment comes from the total calories Fitbit days you burned up to that sync. MFP can not tell if you burned those calories through exercise, general activity, or your BMR. It doesn’t know your heart rate and only looks at your steps.
I see. I suspect that this is probably where the difference comes from. Since I've started running several times a week my resting heart rate gradually dropped to 45bpm which is lower than an average person as far as I know so with a lower heart rate I burn less calories than an average person doing the same number of steps. I imagine that MFP adjustment's are based on what an average person of my BMI, gender and age burns doing a given number of steps. So basically I think I 'm better off continuing calculating my deficit/goal intake manually from fitbit's TDEE if I want to stay accurate.
At the end of the day (or the next morning) compare what MFP says you burned with your adjustment (you can check this out via the Info button by your adjustment on the exercise page) to your total burn from Fitbit. The adjustment throughout the day is based on an estimation MFP makes that you will remain that active for the remainder of the day, and it rises and falls based on how many more calories you burn between syncs. As for negative calories, if you're already at 1200 then you won't see those as you can't fall below that number.2 -
I'd like to jump in and also ask a question. My current reading is 1760 goal - 1488 food + 683 exercise = 805 Net.
This is just from steps tracked on my Polar A300 watch. Without tracking my steps I would have 272 calories left for the day. If you add the "exercise" calories into it it would total 955. I have the negative adjustment option marked off. I guess I am wondering 1) Why is the math different, and 2) Clearly I can't eat back those calories or I wouldn't lose weight right? Is this just for maintenance?
Thanks
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I'd like to jump in and also ask a question. My current reading is 1760 goal - 1488 food + 683 exercise = 805 Net.
This is just from steps tracked on my Polar A300 watch. Without tracking my steps I would have 272 calories left for the day. If you add the "exercise" calories into it it would total 955. I have the negative adjustment option marked off. I guess I am wondering 1) Why is the math different, and 2) Clearly I can't eat back those calories or I wouldn't lose weight right? Is this just for maintenance?
Thanks
Given the information you provided when you set up your stats and goals, MFP estimates you need 1,760 calories a day to lose however much weight you entered as your goal. This doesn't include any intentional exercise, it only includes the regular non-exercise daily activity you used to estimate your activity level.
Your synced device has picked up that you have moved more than your given activity level would have estimated and, as a result, you have burned 683 more calories than MFP would have expected.
MFP is designed for you to eat back those calories to bring you back to your original deficit, so you're netting 1,760 calories. That's why it is adding them on.
Assuming your synced device is accurately estimating your calories, you will lose weight if you eat those calories back exactly as you would as if you had eaten your original 1,760 and not had any adjustments.
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janejellyroll wrote: »
Given the information you provided when you set up your stats and goals, MFP estimates you need 1,760 calories a day to lose however much weight you entered as your goal. This doesn't include any intentional exercise, it only includes the regular non-exercise daily activity you used to estimate your activity level.
Your synced device has picked up that you have moved more than your given activity level would have estimated and, as a result, you have burned 683 more calories than MFP would have expected.
MFP is designed for you to eat back those calories to bring you back to your original deficit, so you're netting 1,760 calories. That's why it is adding them on.
Assuming your synced device is accurately estimating your calories, you will lose weight if you eat those calories back exactly as you would as if you had eaten your original 1,760 and not had any adjustments.
That's a lot of eating, I guess I will try and adjust my activity level. I work a desk job and in general am a couch potato, minus my one day a week of gym time. Thanks for the help.
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janejellyroll wrote: »
Given the information you provided when you set up your stats and goals, MFP estimates you need 1,760 calories a day to lose however much weight you entered as your goal. This doesn't include any intentional exercise, it only includes the regular non-exercise daily activity you used to estimate your activity level.
Your synced device has picked up that you have moved more than your given activity level would have estimated and, as a result, you have burned 683 more calories than MFP would have expected.
MFP is designed for you to eat back those calories to bring you back to your original deficit, so you're netting 1,760 calories. That's why it is adding them on.
Assuming your synced device is accurately estimating your calories, you will lose weight if you eat those calories back exactly as you would as if you had eaten your original 1,760 and not had any adjustments.
That's a lot of eating, I guess I will try and adjust my activity level. I work a desk job and in general am a couch potato, minus my one day a week of gym time. Thanks for the help.
Is this 673 from your one day at the gym or is it from a day of being a couch potato?
If the latter, I would be skeptical about whether it is accurate. If it is from your day at the gym, feel free to split up the calories over several days, save them for the weekend, whatever works for you. You don't have to eat all the calories the day that they're added.3 -
janejellyroll wrote: »Is this 673 from your one day at the gym or is it from a day of being a couch potato?
If the latter, I would be skeptical about whether it is accurate. If it is from your day at the gym, feel free to split up the calories over several days, save them for the weekend, whatever works for you. You don't have to eat all the calories the day that they're added.
This is from today. I got up at 7:00, got ready for work and have been at my desk job from 8:20 until now. I have gotten up here and there but nothing extreme. I would say I walked maybe 7 minutes from my bus to work and I walk quiet fast, but not 600 calories fast haha!0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »Is this 673 from your one day at the gym or is it from a day of being a couch potato?
If the latter, I would be skeptical about whether it is accurate. If it is from your day at the gym, feel free to split up the calories over several days, save them for the weekend, whatever works for you. You don't have to eat all the calories the day that they're added.
This is from today. I got up at 7:00, got ready for work and have been at my desk job from 8:20 until now. I have gotten up here and there but nothing extreme. I would say I walked maybe 7 minutes from my bus to work and I walk quiet fast, but not 600 calories fast haha!
I would not trust that adjustment. Something is off.1 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I would not trust that adjustment. Something is off.
Do you think I should change my activity level? I don't know what else would be off besides having MFP and Polar set to "sedetary"
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janejellyroll wrote: »I would not trust that adjustment. Something is off.
Do you think I should change my activity level? I don't know what else would be off besides having MFP and Polar set to "sedetary"
I don't have a Polar (my adjustments are made with a Fitbit), so I'm not sure if I'll be able to help you troubleshoot. Sorry!
Your activity level shouldn't be impacting the amount of the adjustment -- whether you're set to "sedentary" or anything else, the adjustment is meant to bridge the gap between your stated activity level and your actual activity level. It should work to the same end result no matter what activity level you choose.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I don't have a Polar (my adjustments are made with a Fitbit), so I'm not sure if I'll be able to help you troubleshoot. Sorry!
Your activity level shouldn't be impacting the amount of the adjustment -- whether you're set to "sedentary" or anything else, the adjustment is meant to bridge the gap between your stated activity level and your actual activity level. It should work to the same end result no matter what activity level you choose.
Dang, well thank you for helping! I might try ignoring the exercise calories for now and continue eating my daily allowance as usual.
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Your activity setting won't matter IF you have negative adjustments enabled (they allow for a reduction in case you move less than you've told MFP you will).
How many steps has your polar detected?
If you're set up as SEDENTARY, I would expect to see additional calories appear once you exceed ~3500 steps.1 -
Your activity setting won't matter IF you have negative adjustments enabled (they allow for a reduction in case you move less than you've told MFP you will).
How many steps has your polar detected?
If you're set up as SEDENTARY, I would expect to see additional calories appear once you exceed ~3500 steps.
I have negative adjustments enabled. So far I have 2574 steps recorded and an active time of 1hr 40 minutes. My polar watch is saying my burnt calories for the day are 1474. This calorie figure is my resting rate + whatever activity I've done so far.0 -
If you’re set to sedentary, you’ll get positive adjustments for basically everything you do aside from sleeping. It’s an appropriate setting if you literally lounge all day, but if you’re sitting upright and standing and walking around sometimes you’ll see the numbers climb. It might work better for you to say you’re lightly active, and have calories taken away if necessary.0
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FlyingMolly wrote: »If you’re set to sedentary, you’ll get positive adjustments for basically everything you do aside from sleeping. It’s an appropriate setting if you literally lounge all day, but if you’re sitting upright and standing and walking around sometimes you’ll see the numbers climb. It might work better for you to say you’re lightly active, and have calories taken away if necessary.
Thanks for the advice, I will try that and see what happens. I'm assuming I should change my Polar account and MFP to show lightly active?
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Adjusting to lightly active brings me daily calorie goal up to 2000 and I am not sure I am comfortable with that number. So I think I will keep it where it is.0
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