Calorie Adjustment Question

neens008

Hello Everyone,

I am new to MFP. I have a question about calorie adjustment. My apple watch is showing that I burned more calories than what MFP is adjusting. For example, I just did a workout and burned 477 calories, however my fitness pal is only adding 256 calories to my daily adjustment. Can someone explain this to me? Also, I am not seeing my exercise show up. Do I need to be entering it manually, or just let my watch sync with the app? I don't want to duplicate anything.

Thanks!

Nina

chelsierae406

I have noticed this as well. I figured it was adjusting the number lower to account for the fact that you would burn a basal level of calories without any exercise at all. I am just guessing... what do you think?

fearlesskate18

Mine is doing that as well. I did a hike this evening and burned over 640 calories however it’s only showing that I burned 334 in MFP. Following this to see what may be causing it! I use Fitbit to track and have an iPhone X.

concordancia

What is your activity level set to? They are only importing what you burn above and beyond that.

fearlesskate18

Mines set to light since I have a desk job and don’t get to move around too much during the day!

sijomial

OP - Apple Watch doesn't work well directly with MyFitnesspal (below copy/paste from the ever helpful @heybales response to another thread......

Because Apple provides the incorrect info to MFP, MFP does the required math and gets incorrect figures to adjust your eating goals.

You cannot sync MFP directly with Apple - the more active you are and the more workouts you do the worse the effect of getting less to eat.

You have to sync MFP with like Pacer app/account - which that then syncs with Apple Health.
Now MFP gets the correct info.

If you don't have them synced, you would manually log the Active calories.
Because MFP already has estimated some Active/Resting calories if you picked the correct Activity Level.
Then you manually add the workouts as you are planning on doing.

sijomial

fearlesskate18 wrote: »

Mine is doing that as well. I did a hike this evening and burned over 640 calories however it’s only showing that I burned 334 in MFP. Following this to see what may be causing it! I use Fitbit to track and have an iPhone X.

@fearlesskate18
Fitbit is sending adjustments to your combined daily activity and exercise and not just the particular exercise.
It isn't saying your hike only burned 334.

missjck2

I have the same issue with my Apple Watch. I delete whats automatically added and manually add my exercise calories to MFP just as I do with food. It always seems to be off by half or so.

hmhill17

fearlesskate18 wrote: »

Mines set to light since I have a desk job and don’t get to move around too much during the day!

I have the desk job that I pretty much only move to to deal with various biological needs. Everyone recommended I choose sedentary and track all my exercise. The 300 calorie difference was a bit of a shock.

As for tracking, my sync with the iPhone health app shows up as running 5mph for my morning walks which are still 3.5-3.75mph, I always delete it and add manually. The numbers in MFP always seem lower than the various running apps, so I view that as a good thing.

heybales

missjck2 wrote: »

I have the same issue with my Apple Watch. I delete whats automatically added and manually add my exercise calories to MFP just as I do with food. It always seems to be off by half or so.

This is bad effect if you still have MFP synced to Apple directly.

Since MFP knows about the workout, it's going to remove it from the Total Daily Calories Burned sent by a tracker since correct assumption would be the tracker already knows about this workout (a sync should send what you entered to the tracker at minimum if tracker doesn't know about it already).
This way it can estimate rest of the day's burn, and adjust your eating goals.

Problem is your manually entered workout did not sync back to Apple.
And even if it did, or more the case Apple already has the workout known - Apple doesn't send a Total calories burned figure to MFP, it sends your BMR calories burned (or was it Sedentary - 2 devices do it wrong different ways).

So even with manually entered workout - MFP is doing math with a faulty figure.
If synced.

mallinds

Mine works fine. It records the “active” calories and not the “total calories”

heybales

mallinds wrote: »

Mine works fine. It records the “active” calories and not the “total calories”

The bigger point is (several posts above yours) MFP is doing math with incorrect figure from Apple.
Your eating goal is totally screwed up based on an incorrect Adjustment.

missjck2

heybales wrote: »

missjck2 wrote: »

I have the same issue with my Apple Watch. I delete whats automatically added and manually add my exercise calories to MFP just as I do with food. It always seems to be off by half or so.

This is bad effect if you still have MFP synced to Apple directly.

Since MFP knows about the workout, it's going to remove it from the Total Daily Calories Burned sent by a tracker since correct assumption would be the tracker already knows about this workout (a sync should send what you entered to the tracker at minimum if tracker doesn't know about it already).
This way it can estimate rest of the day's burn, and adjust your eating goals.

Problem is your manually entered workout did not sync back to Apple.
And even if it did, or more the case Apple already has the workout known - Apple doesn't send a Total calories burned figure to MFP, it sends your BMR calories burned (or was it Sedentary - 2 devices do it wrong different ways).

So even with manually entered workout - MFP is doing math with a faulty figure.
If synced.

Thanks for the information but apparently Im doing something right having lost 25 lbs since mid June and my Dr. says all looks good. I even went as far as installing Pacer on my Apple watch and syncing it with MFP, my "Steps Calorie Adjustment" is still off so back to deleting them and manually inputting my exercise calories..

heybales

missjck2 wrote: »

heybales wrote: »

missjck2 wrote: »

I have the same issue with my Apple Watch. I delete whats automatically added and manually add my exercise calories to MFP just as I do with food. It always seems to be off by half or so.

This is bad effect if you still have MFP synced to Apple directly.

Since MFP knows about the workout, it's going to remove it from the Total Daily Calories Burned sent by a tracker since correct assumption would be the tracker already knows about this workout (a sync should send what you entered to the tracker at minimum if tracker doesn't know about it already).
This way it can estimate rest of the day's burn, and adjust your eating goals.

Problem is your manually entered workout did not sync back to Apple.
And even if it did, or more the case Apple already has the workout known - Apple doesn't send a Total calories burned figure to MFP, it sends your BMR calories burned (or was it Sedentary - 2 devices do it wrong different ways).

So even with manually entered workout - MFP is doing math with a faulty figure.
If synced.

Thanks for the information but apparently Im doing something right having lost 25 lbs since mid June and my Dr. says all looks good. I even went as far as installing Pacer on my Apple watch and syncing it with MFP, my "Steps Calorie Adjustment" is still off so back to deleting them and manually inputting my exercise calories..

Pacer is the solution, indeed.

It syncs the correct info back to MFP as all other trackers do - total daily calories burned (TDEE).
MFP can do correct math.

And there are some setup arrangements you can do with direct Apple sync that minimize the issue, or prevent seeing it if lifestyle is correct.