Apple Watch Workout Calories

Pannduh

I am confused. There are two numbers given on the Apple Watch for each completed workout. Which should I be logging the active calories or the total calories?

bioreplika

Active Calories (active energy) are calories that you burn by standing, moving around or other activity (including workouts). Active calories + resting calories (those used each day when your body is minimally active) = total calories. (Google 2017)

lizzzornes

I have mine synced and it logs the active calories amount.

heybales

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.

Jthanmyfitnesspal

I've had Fitbit and Garmin, and for both, I've ignored the "incidental" calories, using only the added workout calories.

artdson

You should not need to log seperatly, if you go to "Health" on your phone you can choose to have your watch give MFP the info, i choose everything...i do find that some days i need to add something to MFP from the watch to get the info to sync. i have just gotten into the habit of logging water after a workout. it is fast and easy....but occasionally it will give me a negative adjustment but usually goes away after a while or you can just delete the negative adjustment on the app
hope this helps

heybales

artdson wrote: »

You should not need to log seperatly, if you go to "Health" on your phone you can choose to have your watch give MFP the info, i choose everything...i do find that some days i need to add something to MFP from the watch to get the info to sync. i have just gotten into the habit of logging water after a workout. it is fast and easy....but occasionally it will give me a negative adjustment but usually goes away after a while or you can just delete the negative adjustment on the app
hope this helps

Read the thread and discover why you don't direct sync.

panda4153

heybales wrote: »

artdson wrote: »

You should not need to log seperatly, if you go to "Health" on your phone you can choose to have your watch give MFP the info, i choose everything...i do find that some days i need to add something to MFP from the watch to get the info to sync. i have just gotten into the habit of logging water after a workout. it is fast and easy....but occasionally it will give me a negative adjustment but usually goes away after a while or you can just delete the negative adjustment on the app
hope this helps

Read the thread and discover why you don't direct sync.

I direct sync and have never had a problem with it adding the right amount. It always just syncs my active calories from workouts, nothing else. It calculates the same as if I manually added my workouts and I have lost and gained at the rate I would expect to.

To OP if you are planning to eat back exercise calories use the active calorie amount from your workouts. I suggest this because it essentially mirrors how MFP is designed to work, assuming you have set your activity level based on your normal activity outside of intentional exercise.

heybales

panda4153 wrote: »

heybales wrote: »

artdson wrote: »

You should not need to log seperatly, if you go to "Health" on your phone you can choose to have your watch give MFP the info, i choose everything...i do find that some days i need to add something to MFP from the watch to get the info to sync. i have just gotten into the habit of logging water after a workout. it is fast and easy....but occasionally it will give me a negative adjustment but usually goes away after a while or you can just delete the negative adjustment on the app
hope this helps

Read the thread and discover why you don't direct sync.

I direct sync and have never had a problem with it adding the right amount. It always just syncs my active calories from workouts, nothing else. It calculates the same as if I manually added my workouts and I have lost and gained at the rate I would expect to.

To OP if you are planning to eat back exercise calories use the active calorie amount from your workouts. I suggest this because it essentially mirrors how MFP is designed to work, assuming you have set your activity level based on your normal activity outside of intentional exercise.

Actually it doesn't work. Been proven many times over.

Apple doesn't send on the Total Daily Calories burned that MFP is expecting and gets from all other trackers.
Apple syncs a value very close to Sedentary.

MFP though is expecting Total calories burned - which as the name implies - contains all calories - Active calories above sedentary, and exercise calories in those workouts.

So when it takes the workout calories that were sent, and subtracts them from the sedentary value that was sent, to calculate your eating goal - you have wrong math.

This has been proven by every Apple watch owner that used to sync directly and cared to discover why they got the effect they did.

Go to your Exercise Diary to that Apple Adjustment near the end of the day - tap and hold to view more details.
It will say time of last sync, and total calories burned as reported at that time from Apple.
Look at your Apple watch, add your base, active, and exercise calories together.
Does it match?

panda4153

heybales wrote: »

panda4153 wrote: »

heybales wrote: »

artdson wrote: »

You should not need to log seperatly, if you go to "Health" on your phone you can choose to have your watch give MFP the info, i choose everything...i do find that some days i need to add something to MFP from the watch to get the info to sync. i have just gotten into the habit of logging water after a workout. it is fast and easy....but occasionally it will give me a negative adjustment but usually goes away after a while or you can just delete the negative adjustment on the app
hope this helps

Read the thread and discover why you don't direct sync.

I direct sync and have never had a problem with it adding the right amount. It always just syncs my active calories from workouts, nothing else. It calculates the same as if I manually added my workouts and I have lost and gained at the rate I would expect to.

To OP if you are planning to eat back exercise calories use the active calorie amount from your workouts. I suggest this because it essentially mirrors how MFP is designed to work, assuming you have set your activity level based on your normal activity outside of intentional exercise.

Actually it doesn't work. Been proven many times over.

Apple doesn't send on the Total Daily Calories burned that MFP is expecting and gets from all other trackers.
Apple syncs a value very close to Sedentary.

MFP though is expecting Total calories burned - which as the name implies - contains all calories - Active calories above sedentary, and exercise calories in those workouts.

So when it takes the workout calories that were sent, and subtracts them from the sedentary value that was sent, to calculate your eating goal - you have wrong math.

This has been proven by every Apple watch owner that used to sync directly and cared to discover why they got the effect they did.

Go to your Exercise Diary to that Apple Adjustment near the end of the day - tap and hold to view more details.
It will say time of last sync, and total calories burned as reported at that time from Apple.
Look at your Apple watch, add your base, active, and exercise calories together.
Does it match?

Well maybe it’s because I don’t have negative calorie adjustment turned on. When it syncs it only gives me credit for the active calories burned during my workouts. I just checked today. My calorie adjustment exactly matches my workout active calorie amount. I’m just saying mine matches and syncs fine everyday. I have my activity set to lightly active...I guess it doesn’t really matter for me, as I used TDEE to calculate my deficit anyways so I don’t worry much about how many exercise calories I get or don’t get in MFP. I use it mostly for the the CI part of CICO.