Tracker Cheating

enickma1221
enickma1221 Posts: 29 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Someone pointed out to me today that I was cheating on my calorie counts after integrating my fancy new Garmin VivoSport tracker with MFP. When I initially set up MFP I selected my exercise/activity level, which was factored into my daily calories. I later added the fitness tracker, and it started factoring all of my exercise activity in as well. Basically I was double-counting my activity calories burned, and cheating by several hundred calories per day. I know this is probably a common noob mistake, but throwing it out there in case anyone else has missed this like I did.

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Replies

  • Purplebunnysarah
    Purplebunnysarah Posts: 3,252 Member
    edited May 2018
    I think it depends on your settings and maybe what kind of tracker you have.

    If you are set to sedentary and only log exercise via Garmin it should be fine.
  • enickma1221
    enickma1221 Posts: 29 Member
    sarahthes wrote: »
    I think it depends on your settings and maybe what kind of tracker you have.

    If you are set to sedentary and only log exercise via Garmin it should be fine.

    This is what was recommended to me.. set MFP to the lowest activity setting and rely on the Garmin tracker to add activity calories. Seems to be correct, because my MFP maintenance calories have decreased after setting the activity lower, and the tracker is adding calories like it always did. Reading some of these other posts, it sounds like this is an area that could use a bit of clarification.
  • enickma1221
    enickma1221 Posts: 29 Member
    strongwouldbenice wrote: »
    The fitness tracker doesn't just send over all of you exercise calories. It adjusts the difference between what it thinks your total burn for the day was, versus what mfp thinks your total burn is. It's completely fine to rely on your tracker's adjustment.

    Interesting. Will try to validate that is happening. Don't want to misinform anyone.
  • strongwouldbenice
    strongwouldbenice Posts: 153 Member
    enickma1221 wrote: »
    strongwouldbenice wrote: »
    The fitness tracker doesn't just send over all of you exercise calories. It adjusts the difference between what it thinks your total burn for the day was, versus what mfp thinks your total burn is. It's completely fine to rely on your tracker's adjustment.

    Interesting. Will try to validate that is happening. Don't want to misinform anyone.

    Or at least this it what it SHOULD be doing.

    If, for example, sedentary gave you 1200 calories per day and lightly active gave you 1400, but you burned 300 calories over sedentary according to your tracker, you should get a 300 cal adjustment or a 100cal adjustment depending on what you have mfp set to.
  • mkculs
    mkculs Posts: 316 Member
    "If, for example, sedentary gave you 1200 calories per day and lightly active gave you 1400, but you burned 300 calories over sedentary according to your tracker, you should get a 300 cal adjustment or a 100cal adjustment depending on what you have mfp set to."

    This probably explains why the "exercise calories" from my Fitbit seem so much lower than they should, as they appear on my MFP diary. I knew there was a reason, but couldn't remember it :)
  • enickma1221
    enickma1221 Posts: 29 Member
    There is about an 80 calorie difference between what the tracker tells me I've burned vs what MFP thinks I've burned. Perhaps this is why. Looks like MFP may be taking it into account, but the Garmin Connect app seems to just add total burned directly to my MFP daily number.
  • scarlett_k
    scarlett_k Posts: 812 Member
    I've always found MFP compensates for my activity level when it talks to my Garmin. After experimenting I just have my activity level at sedentary as it just works better for me mentally.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,242 Member
    If integration is working correctly and negative adjustments are enabled, your connected tracker and MFP should agree to the same caloric total *at midnight* regardless of your chosen activity setting.

  • enickma1221
    enickma1221 Posts: 29 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    If integration is working correctly and negative adjustments are enabled, your connected tracker and MFP should agree to the same caloric total *at midnight* regardless of your chosen activity setting.

    I did not have negative adjustments enabled. We'll see how that makes things look. Thanks.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,242 Member
    enickma1221 wrote: »
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    If integration is working correctly and negative adjustments are enabled, your connected tracker and MFP should agree to the same caloric total *at midnight* regardless of your chosen activity setting.

    I did not have negative adjustments enabled. We'll see how that makes things look. Thanks.

    You are unlikely to see a final negative adjustment at midnight once your daily activity exceeds 5K for sedentary, 8K for lightly, 12K for active, 16k for very. keep that in mind when you see negative adjustments as soon as you wake up. step figures are approximate.

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