MFP overestimated calories burned with Fitbit!

AnneMelody

Does anybody else have the problem of being given loads of extra calories with the Fitbit adjustment? I have been awarded 782 extra calories for 5,700 steps so far today!! 🤭 I did a mile swim this morning and was awarded 610 for that which is ok; surely there is a problem somewhere with the Fitbit adjustment!! 🧐

iSneakers

Do you have “Negative Calorie Adjustment” enabled? If not, that might be why you are see that. My Apple Watch 4 only gives me 125 calories for 16,000 steps.

angmarie28

I had to adjust my activity level in my settings to active, now i only get extra calories after about 11000 steps

shadow2soul

Fitbit’s adjustment has nothing to do with your steps. It’s a calorie burn comparison. If you have activities that don’t account for a lot of steps but increase your calorie burn it will increase your adjustment here.

Here is an example of how the math works:

Lightly Active MFP estimated burn (based on my stats): 1914

That breaks down to:
79.75 calories per hour
Or
1.329 calories per minute

Now as of 10:30 am my Fitbit calorie burn is 1097.

So there is 13hrs 30 mins MFP has to estimate calories for.

13 * 79.75 = 1036.75
30 * 1.329 = 39.87

1097 (Fitbit) + 1076.62 (MFP Lightly active estimation for remainder of day) =2173.62

So MFP is estimating that based on my current Fitbit burn and my lightly active setting on MFP that Fitbit say I burned 2173 by midnight. It uses this estimation to form an adjustment.

2173* - 1914 = 259

So currently I’m currently gaining 259 calories. However after each Fitbit Sync, MFP will redo it’s math estimation for the day. It could increase or even decrease. MFP won’t stop this estimation calculation until around midnight when the Final calories burned # is sent over to MFP from Fitbit.

The higher your activity level setting is on MFP the higher it will estimate your remaining calorie burn and the more likely you will see a huge adjustment early in the day that decreases later. On the opposite side if you are set to Sedentary, but are actually really active you will see a large adjustment by the end of the day.

shadow2soul

iSneakers wrote: »

Do you have “Negative Calorie Adjustment” enabled? If not, that might be why you are see that. My Apple Watch 4 only gives me 125 calories for 16,000 steps.

Ya I’ve noticed the Apple Watch adjustment is weird. I have no idea where it pulls it’s calories from, but they are always really low. Apples adjustment would have me undereating a lot, because while the watch may say I burned a total of 2497 calories yesterday I only get an additional 172 yesterday and it doesn’t matter if I’m set to Sedentary or Very Active the adjustment is always the same. I’ve used a Fitbit for years and only recently started using an Apple Watch. With Fitbit, I was always able to eat 100% of my adjustment and lose/maintain/gain as expected. With Apple being so much lower here I am currently using another app to log my food (this is seriously the only app that syncs with Apple that gives me such a small amount to eat for my activity).

Phirrgus

shadow2soul wrote: »

Fitbit’s adjustment has nothing to do with your steps. It’s a calorie burn comparison. If you have activities that don’t account for a lot of steps but increase your calorie burn it will increase your adjustment here.

Here is an example of how the math works:

Lightly Active MFP estimated burn (based on my stats): 1914

That breaks down to:
79.75 calories per hour
Or
1.329 calories per minute

Now as of 10:30 am my Fitbit calorie burn is 1097.

So there is 13hrs 30 mins MFP has to estimate calories for.

13 * 79.75 = 1036.75
30 * 1.329 = 39.87

1097 (Fitbit) + 1076.62 (MFP Lightly active estimation for remainder of day) =2173.62

So MFP is estimating that based on my current Fitbit burn and my lightly active setting on MFP that Fitbit say I burned 2173 by midnight. It uses this estimation to form an adjustment.

2173* - 1914 = 259

So currently I’m currently gaining 259 calories. However after each Fitbit Sync, MFP will redo it’s math estimation for the day. It could increase or even decrease. MFP won’t stop this estimation calculation until around midnight when the Final calories burned # is sent over to MFP from Fitbit.

The higher your activity level setting is on MFP the higher it will estimate your remaining calorie burn and the more likely you will see a huge adjustment early in the day that decreases later. On the opposite side if you are set to Sedentary, but are actually really active you will see a large adjustment by the end of the day.

Thank you for posting that. I'm coming to trust my fitbit more each week, but still had a bit of a time figuring out how it all works.