Exercise calories way off

Hi all,

I am travelling this week for work and I’m not logging food on fitness pal. I know, I know! Anyway, I am eating healthily though and exercising daily. That said, my calories burned from exercise on my fitness pal is insane though. It must be incorrect, I’m just confused as to why it’s way off? For example, it’s saying I’ve burned 2000 calories so far today (it’s almost 9pm) just from exercise. Any idea why it seems so high?

Replies

  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,846 Member
    How is your exercise added to MFP? Manually, through an activity tracker,...?
    I use a heart rate monitor when exercising (connected to my activity tracker, which is in turn syned to MFP) so I get this kind of problem when I forget to take off/disconnect my HRM after exercising.
  • fitnessboxermfp
    fitnessboxermfp Posts: 7 Member
    You said you are travelling so maybe it is logging the distance you are travelling and counting it as exercise?
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,481 Member
    If you’re wearing a device, my Apple Watch (or MFP) sometimes adds the same exercise twice. Also, lately it randomly adds in calories for steps taken which it never has before.

    Check the bottom of your diary for duplications.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Doesn't sound like a MyFitnessPal problem.
    It might also be an adjustment from a tracker for your total calories ("2,000 by 9pm") rather than just exercise but you need to give far more detail OP.

  • bdonahue12188
    bdonahue12188 Posts: 8 Member
    It’s tracked from my Fitbit. Which I understand isn’t always that accurate but these same way off.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited November 2019
    It’s tracked from my Fitbit. Which I understand isn’t always that accurate but these same way off.

    Compared to?

    Are you moving more on your travels than you would at home?

    Compare steps, but more importantly - distance which is where the calories actually come from.

    Pick a travel day with insanely high Fitbit adjustment (it may be in exercise diary but it's not just or may not even be exercise at all) - what's the distance for the day?

    Pick a prior at-home day with some workout done - what's the distance for that day?

    What's the exercise you are doing that it's estimating for?
    And are you logging your workouts manually into Fitbit from it's database for some reason?

    If a lot of your travel is faster walking you wouldn't normally do - the HR may be high enough for the device to start doing HR-based calorie burn - which would be inflated at walking pace no matter how high HR is getting.
    Distance would be better then, but you would have to disable HR, which may not be much of a loss during the day.
  • SlayLikeAWarrior
    SlayLikeAWarrior Posts: 89 Member
    Hi all,

    I am travelling this week for work and I’m not logging food on fitness pal. I know, I know! Anyway, I am eating healthily though and exercising daily. That said, my calories burned from exercise on my fitness pal is insane though. It must be incorrect, I’m just confused as to why it’s way off? For example, it’s saying I’ve burned 2000 calories so far today (it’s almost 9pm) just from exercise. Any idea why it seems so high?

    Found this thread in the community. Not sure this helps, but I hope so. I use Garmin and never had this problem. My Garmin combines both the total daily active and non active calories burned and only report calories burn via exercise to mfp. Then mfp does its thing.

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10727483/too-many-exercise-calories
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    It’s tracked from my Fitbit. Which I understand isn’t always that accurate but these same way off.

    You do understand that it's not just exercise I hope?
  • bdonahue12188
    bdonahue12188 Posts: 8 Member
    edited November 2019
    What else would it be? It normally is just standard exercise that is is tracked. I didn’t burn 2500 calories exercising. Lol. Why is it so high?
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    What else would it be? It normally is just standard exercise that is is tracked. I didn’t burn 2500 calories exercising. Lol. Why is it so high?

    Because it's your total calories so far that day and not just your exercise.
    You really do need to understand how the two tools interact or you would do better to unsync them.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    What else would it be? It normally is just standard exercise that is is tracked. I didn’t burn 2500 calories exercising. Lol. Why is it so high?

    don't just read the last post - you are missing things in prior posts