Fitbit estimations - confused

kmaf2018

So on Friday I 7,716 steps and two 30min gym glasses and fitbit/mfp gave me exercise calories of 583, yesterday I did 10500 steps and no gym classes but earnt 503 exercise calories....I would’ve expected to have earnt way less than 503 exercise calories just for walking 10,500 steps!

I have my MFP settings set to calculate negative adjustments.

Is there a reason why its showing this?

Thanks

karahm78

The exercise calories earned by your Fitbit are not just the ones from your purposeful exercise. What the number means is that on those days you earned X calories more that day than your activity setting in MFP. Meaning if your setting is sedentary, MFP thinks that you actually burned 503 calories more that day than a sedentary person. Over 10k steps is not sedentary in MFP, hence the large adjustments.

The negative adjustments come into play if you actually move less than your activity setting. If you have a setting in MFP of Active but have a day where your Fitbit records activity less than that level, you will get a negative adjustment. This is because you aren’t moving as much as your calorie goal was set for that day so it would take some away.

Hope that helps! I get large adjustments too as I have my activity set to sedentary, even though most days I get over 10k steps. Getting the adjustments motivates me to move more, I’ve been using mine for 4 years. Some people like smaller adjustments and a steadier calorie goal, in those cases you can increase your activity setting in MFP to a higher level, but negative adjustments will come into playing you don’t actually move that much.

karahm78

Also, meant to say that as part of Fitbit’s calculations it factors more for intensity (the active minutes). This is why even though you got less steps, the intensity of the classes were higher than on the day you took more steps.