MFP negative calorie adjustment and Google fit

vesta1986

Hello everyone

Recently i enabled negative calorie adjustment on MFP and it is REALLY negative. For example today I have worked on my feet for 5 hours all the time moving, have a step count of 12000 steps and i bicycled for about 40 minutes. MFP says i should stick to 1200 calories as i am apparently not active enough. Something seems very wrong here.
On days when my only exercise is walking - let's say 22000 steps it gives me extra 900 calories. But should i add jogging to the equation it takes away all my step calories and saysy my exercise is worth -600 calories. Very odd to me.

heybales

MFP takes the activity tracker daily calorie burn so far and compares to what your MFP settings for activity level are saying was expected.

If receiving negative - it means MFP was expecting you to burn more so far - based on your selection of activity level.

Which sounds like it is not true.

MFP is to be set to your daily activity NOT counting exercise. Perhaps you set it incorrectly, based on most other sites including exercise.

Now - when syncing with 3rd party, Sedentary is better setting for couple reasons, though it does mean you have to be ready for big adjustments. But couple days should be enough to figure that amount out to be prepared for.

Now, how did Google fit log your cycling?
It's not step based workout at all - any calorie burn based on steps is usually badly under-estimated.

Look at the Exercise Diary, the Adjustment should have an "i" for more info, in the app hold down on the adjustment to view the details.

What does that screen say for time of last sync, calories at that time, MFP expected burn, and adjustment amount?

And what do you have MFP set to for activity level?

vesta1986

Thanks for your reply!
Well my activity level here was set to active as i am a janitor - activly on my feet 5-8 hours a day, usually about 10 000 steps.
I thought it would take that into account and only give adjustment for anything beyond that.
Today as I reached 20 000 steps I suddenly got my calories back again.
Google fit logged the cycling based on time spent and speed and gave me a much more modest estimate than MFP.
I always use mobile app so i had never taken a look at that "i"... Huge numbers there now - more than 3000 calories altogether including an adjustment of 855. But yes now I set it to sedentary so i will see how it goes.

Still weird why i would get negative exercise calories when i actually seem to do more.

heybales

It can be that your steps are not given as much distance or calorie burn as others may be.

You did indeed go for correct setup though if using MFP only.

The FAQ in the Fitbit group shows the math used for all trackers, 2nd section is mathy, but if curious why Sedentary may work out better for adjustments.
Won't matter if very active up until midnight.

So the Sedentary setting won't change the daily eating goal, it ends up the same.
So plan just as you have been, just don't be shocked by the huge adjustments now.

vesta1986

I have now been set to sedentary and the adjustments are still completely off very often. Today i jogged 4km and have walked 30 000 steps but the adjustment has not given me any extra calories. Could be worse of course - earlier today it had even taken away calories from 1200. I guess I will disable negative adjustment as it makes no sense at all.

jnapier44077

I am not sure if its the same problem as I have with Samsung Health. But if I manually add exercises to MFP, it will all of the sudden give me negative calories as an adjustment from Samsung Health. When I hit the 'I' it looks like it is doing the math wrong. Like it will say Samsung Health estimated calories 2400, MFP calories 2000 so it gives me -400 calories when it should give me 400 calories for exercise. I have had it say -1000 exercise calories before after 20000 steps. Sometime later it will flip back to positive calories but not always.

vesta1986

Yes, i have noticed this, too, that anything added not by Google fit makes adjustment negative. Or any exercise other than steps really. But yesterday it all went through Google Fit and it was still unwilling to give me any extra calories.
I have disabled negative adjustments and as i am set to the lowest calorie limit in MFP, it should work out now. Will see

heybales

jnapier44077 wrote: »

I am not sure if its the same problem as I have with Samsung Health. But if I manually add exercises to MFP, it will all of the sudden give me negative calories as an adjustment from Samsung Health. When I hit the 'I' it looks like it is doing the math wrong. Like it will say Samsung Health estimated calories 2400, MFP calories 2000 so it gives me -400 calories when it should give me 400 calories for exercise. I have had it say -1000 exercise calories before after 20000 steps. Sometime later it will flip back to positive calories but not always.

Well, for the adjustment part it should be removed. That is correct.

Because when MFP does the math on your eating goal - the exercise is always added.
base eating goal + exercise + (or -) adjustment = new eating goal.

You'd get double exercise counting if it failed to do that.

It's assuming that if you added exercise to MFP, it synced over to Samsung and increased that daily burn there - which then came back to MFP as increased calorie burn.

So the question would be, was the SH estimated calories 2000 a few seconds before you added the workout?
You added 400 exercise, synced over to SH, they increased to 2400, synced back to MFP. Was SH saying 2400?
MFP correctly removed the 400 since it was already going to be using it to adjust your eating goal.
SH 2400 - 400 exercise - 2000 MFP expected = 0 adjustment.

Eating goal say 1500 + 400 exercise = 1900 new goal (on burn of 2400, so 500 cal deficit - correct)

The kicker I'm discovering with Garmin is even when manually added in Garmin Connect directly, it will send the workout over to MFP before it even increases it's own daily burn correctly.
Several screen refreshes and it will finally - but it's already sent the workout and daily burn without it included to MFP.
Which hoses up MFP's math now.

Perhaps this is what is happening - that sync of the workout to increase S Health is delayed, or S Health sending an increased daily burn back to MFP is.


In my case, I have a hosed up MFP account they can't seem to fix - I only get one daily burn sync, the first one. Happened on prior Fitbit, happens now on Garmin. So the above effect really nails be on a long bike ride - huge negatives.

heybales

vesta1986 wrote: »

Yes, i have noticed this, too, that anything added not by Google fit makes adjustment negative. Or any exercise other than steps really. But yesterday it all went through Google Fit and it was still unwilling to give me any extra calories.
I have disabled negative adjustments and as i am set to the lowest calorie limit in MFP, it should work out now. Will see

You'll be eating too much - see math above on what is likely happening unless your account is screwed up like mine - and that is easily seen when you look at the more Info available on the adjustment.

Is that adjustment time recent, and does it match (or close) to what is on Google Fit as total daily burn so far?

3rd party syncs in are only supposed to be when it's 100 calories higher than prior sync (or you'd have way too many syncs going on drowning the system worse than it is already).

vesta1986

I am generally eating around the same amount every day - so that is ok.
And those adjustments have even left me with under 1000cal to eat throughout the day just because the system seems to assume that when I run, all the rest of my 20 000 steps turn into negative calories.
Now with negative adjustments disabled it works more like it should

jnapier44077

I agree something is messed up with the timing of the syncing that throws off the math. I can see SH calorie burn 2400 and MFP calorie burn as 2000 and it will list 400 Samsung calorie adjustment and give me that in the exercise diary feed. But if I add even a 100 calorie manual exercise to MFP, it will say SH 2400 and MFP 2100 and give me -300 calories now in my exercise diary feed. It should have changed it to a positive 300 in my exercise feed. At summer camp I walked over 25,000 steps and it said I could eat 500 calories for the day. That is bad programming there.
I do the same thing as you and turn off negative calories now.