Negative Calorie Adjustment

Tumbles617
Tumbles617 Posts: 16 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I’ve searched these boards for info on this. I cannot wrap my head around it’s I understand but I also don’t lol
So basically I’m set to not very active (work from home desk job) but I do exercise after work and do some things throughout my workday.

Right now it’s early and I haven’t moved much. I have a negative calorie adjustment.

I guess my question is, if it is negative why is adding the extra 50 calories to my day?

I normally ignore them and don’t eat the calories burned unless I’m starving anyway but I’m confused

Basically mfp gave me 1500 cals per day. So if mfp thinks I burn 1800 cals per day just to survive and Fitbit is showing I’ve only burned 1750 then why is mfp giving me an additional 50 calories to eat if mfp is wrong?

Maybe I need someone to explain this to me like I’m 5 lol
Please help I’m so confused lol

Replies

  • glxxyz
    glxxyz Posts: 1 Member
    I'm glad it's not just me who's confused by this.

    Also, if I walk 5,000 steps to work and back, the calorie adjustment sees the steps and gives me like 20 calories. If I tell my Apple watch I'm walking then the app sees the steps then credits me something like 200 calories. Surely it should be adding on the 200 whether or not I say I'm walking, as it's the same number of steps?
  • Tumbles617
    Tumbles617 Posts: 16 Member
    I have noticed that the sync is slow. Mine would say something like 40 but after a little while it will catch up.

    I think I figured it out. So I get 1500 calories and I ate 317 when I first wrote this
    Since it was the morning I did no activity so it was negative. But later in the day after I moved it switched to plus the calories I burned.

    So basically your Fitbit is super accurate and MFP is not so the numbers you get from mfp could be off. So having the negative adjustment turned on makes it more accurate and jen mfp will add or minus the calories you can have the rest of the day

    I think I’m right someone tell me if I’m wrong lol
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    I turned the adjustment off. I wasn't checking until late in the day so it never subtracted calories anyway so why bother?
  • MidlifeCrisisFitness
    MidlifeCrisisFitness Posts: 1,106 Member
    A little bit ago I added the step counter and it screwed everything up. MFP started telling me I could eat a ton and still be caloric deficient. The next day I turned it off and continued losing weight. I keep the step counter seperate from MFP. Also I would suggest you only take calorie credit for cardio. Don't add calorie gains for strength training.

    Doesn't sound very accurate but over the last two years it has worked for me. I've made excellent progress towards my 10 % bf goal will building muscle.
  • Tumbles617
    Tumbles617 Posts: 16 Member
    I very rarely eat my exercise calories. I just click the exercise button on my Fitbit when I start my gym session and then end it when I’m done and it syncs and I see how many calories I’ve burned. It is nice to know that should I have an event or something going on that I can eat more calories if I need OR if I have an intense workout and I’m hungry I listen to my body. It took me days to figure out what the negative calorie adjustment even is lol
  • MidlifeCrisisFitness
    MidlifeCrisisFitness Posts: 1,106 Member
    Tumbles617 wrote: »
    I very rarely eat my exercise calories. I just click the exercise button on my Fitbit when I start my gym session and then end it when I’m done and it syncs and I see how many calories I’ve burned. It is nice to know that should I have an event or something going on that I can eat more calories if I need OR if I have an intense workout and I’m hungry I listen to my body. It took me days to figure out what the negative calorie adjustment even is lol

    Great approach!
  • MidlifeCrisisFitness
    MidlifeCrisisFitness Posts: 1,106 Member
    To me MFP helped me learn appropriate portion size and proper carb/fat/protien balance. And that's about it.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    You can't depend on this number each hour of every day. There are some projections in there. See the 3rd post down in the thread linked below "FitBit Calorie Adjustment"

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-amp-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy/p1

    If you got your calorie goal from My Fitness Pal you should be able to eat 100% of your exercise calories back and lose at the rate you signed up for. That's how the program is designed.

    However, logging food accurately and getting accurate calorie burns isn't easy. It's why most people start by eating back just a % of exercise calories. It's worth it to figure everything out, but it is going to take some time.

    I'm not good at "listening to my body"......that's been broken for some time, and one of the reasons I'm here.
  • Katmary71
    Katmary71 Posts: 7,082 Member
    I also turned off negative adjustments when I synced my Fitbit. The exercise calories added are weird, I get 3000-4000 steps in the mornings and my watch says I burned between 150-200 calories while MFP gave me 20. I'd better have burned more than that!
  • autumnblade75
    autumnblade75 Posts: 1,661 Member
    Katmary71 wrote: »
    I also turned off negative adjustments when I synced my Fitbit. The exercise calories added are weird, I get 3000-4000 steps in the mornings and my watch says I burned between 150-200 calories while MFP gave me 20. I'd better have burned more than that!

    You did burn more than that, but your activity level accounts for a portion of that. The adjustment corrects for activity above what your activity level on MFP is set for. Negative adjustments correct for when you aren't as active as the setting you've chosen (to a point - they won't subtract below 1200 for women, and I'm guessing similarly 1500 for men.)
  • TotesCray658
    TotesCray658 Posts: 1 Member
    Hi all, new to using MFP so I was just wondering, was the question answered? Cause I turned on negative calories too since i own an apple watch but not it seems to be more confusing that it needs to be
  • Katmary71
    Katmary71 Posts: 7,082 Member
    autumnblade75 wrote: »
    Katmary71 wrote: »
    I also turned off negative adjustments when I synced my Fitbit. The exercise calories added are weird, I get 3000-4000 steps in the mornings and my watch says I burned between 150-200 calories while MFP gave me 20. I'd better have burned more than that!

    You did burn more than that, but your activity level accounts for a portion of that. The adjustment corrects for activity above what your activity level on MFP is set for. Negative adjustments correct for when you aren't as active as the setting you've chosen (to a point - they won't subtract below 1200 for women, and I'm guessing similarly 1500 for men.)

    Thanks for explaining, I got under 50 calories for yoga then strength training the other day!

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