MFP calculated deficit wrong
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swimmchick87
Posts: 458 Member
It took me a long time to figure out 1200 calories just doesn't work for me- I can't stick to it. So in January I decided to try again and this time set my weight loss goal to just 1 pound per week, figuring it's much better to go slower and actually be successful. This gave me tons of extra calories, 1690 per day, which I've had no problem sticking to.
I assumed that based on that calorie amount, MFP assumes my TDEE is close to 2200 calories per day. I have myself set as "lightly active." Somehow it took me until now to notice that on my fitbit, I don't hit that 2200 number unless I have a minimum of 10,000 steps for the day. Yet MFP gives me extra calories for hitting those steps and doesn't take away calories (I have negative adjustments enabled) unless I have less than around 7,000.
So I did some digging and figured out how to check how MFP does the adjustment, and figured out they have my TDEE set at 2048. That means that since they gave me a calorie goal of 1690, my deficit is actually only 358 calories per day when it should be 500. Why?? That's a pretty big number to be off by- almost 150 calories per day! And yes, I double checked and my goal definitely says I want to lose 1 pound per week.
I figure the only reason it's been still working for me is that the vast majority of days, I do hit 10,000 steps and I don't eat the extra exercise calories. I also tend to eat more like 1400-1500 calories most week days and only eat right at that 1690 number on weekends. But I'm a little upset that I've been lied to about the amount of calories I really need all of these months. Now, I'm at a much higher weight so it's going to obviously be easier to lose even with mistakes. What if I hadn't figured this out when I got much closer to goal weight? And why on earth would they be off so much on a simple calculation, -500 per day? Pretty frustrating!
I assumed that based on that calorie amount, MFP assumes my TDEE is close to 2200 calories per day. I have myself set as "lightly active." Somehow it took me until now to notice that on my fitbit, I don't hit that 2200 number unless I have a minimum of 10,000 steps for the day. Yet MFP gives me extra calories for hitting those steps and doesn't take away calories (I have negative adjustments enabled) unless I have less than around 7,000.
So I did some digging and figured out how to check how MFP does the adjustment, and figured out they have my TDEE set at 2048. That means that since they gave me a calorie goal of 1690, my deficit is actually only 358 calories per day when it should be 500. Why?? That's a pretty big number to be off by- almost 150 calories per day! And yes, I double checked and my goal definitely says I want to lose 1 pound per week.
I figure the only reason it's been still working for me is that the vast majority of days, I do hit 10,000 steps and I don't eat the extra exercise calories. I also tend to eat more like 1400-1500 calories most week days and only eat right at that 1690 number on weekends. But I'm a little upset that I've been lied to about the amount of calories I really need all of these months. Now, I'm at a much higher weight so it's going to obviously be easier to lose even with mistakes. What if I hadn't figured this out when I got much closer to goal weight? And why on earth would they be off so much on a simple calculation, -500 per day? Pretty frustrating!
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Replies
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It's not "lying," which implies intent to deceive. It's just a metric based on population health statistics and some kind of rough calculation of how much your stated activity might burn - in other words, a guesstimate informed by science but not individually calculated. Your own data form the best platform to base your calories-in calculation.11
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After it makes its guess it's up to us as individuals to make the adjustments needed for the results we seek.10
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MFP is making an estimate based on data from a larger population. Nobody is "lying" to you. You simply have determined, like some people do, that the estimate needs to be adjusted based on the individual data you have. Some people need to adjust down. Some people need to adjust up.
If you want an individually validated number, no free app on earth is going to provide that. It's the kind of service you'd have to pay for.11 -
MFP also isn't a TDEE calculator....
PICNIC.6 -
I don't think this is MFP necessarily, but the combination of MFP with activity trackers (and perhaps also depending on the activity level chosen).
In my case, I'm syned with Garmin and Garmin actually gives me more calories than MFP (nothing huge, a few dozen). I've set my activity level at sedentary though, I let my calorie adjustment do the rest, even if I know I'll exceed sedentary on most days.1 -
Bad news: Even fitness trackers - even good ones - can be incorrect for some people (high or low), because it's still producing an estimate (not a measurement). It's a more personalized/individualized estimate, but still just an estimate. Nothing outside a metabolic research lab actually measures your calorie burn, so don't expect that.
My very well-regarded tracker, a brand/model that others have reported here on MFP to be quite valid for them for all-day calories, is wildly inaccurate for me (as is MFP, BTW), as compared with nearly 5 years of experience with careful daily logging on MFP. And when I say "inaccurate", I don't mean off by 150 calories per day. I mean more like 500 calories per day wrong, which is about 25-30% of my estimated TDEE.
So, like they all said: Track carefully, use your experience data (from a rational time period of careful logging, at least a couple of months), then keep monitoring and adjusting, if needed.7 -
You guys aren't getting it. It's simple math that MFP has majorly screwed up. It has nothing to do with the fitbit, that's just how I noticed it was wrong. Say I didn't have the fitbit linked at all. MFP says my TDEE is 2048. I get that the number isn't going to be perfectly accurate, but that's what they came up with. Based on THEIR NUMBER, they gave me a deficit of only 358 calories per day when to lose 1 pound per week, it should be 500. That's almost 150 off per day-that's a HUGE mistake and if someone was trusting that and seeing they weren't losing weight as expected, they might give up. The calorie limit they should have given me is around 1550 rather than 1690- that's a huge difference. I'm just lucky I wasn't eating that 1690 number most days anyway. What if I were trying to maintain and eating an extra 150 calories every single day because I'm trusting the number MFP gives me? That leads to a weight gain of almost 15 pounds per year!
I have to assume I'm not the only case where they've screwed up and would suggest other people check their calorie amounts to see if they're right. Think how many people post here saying they're eating what MFP says but not losing- everyone is so quick to say they must not be tracking accurately. Maybe they are tracking accurately and MFP has screwed up the number of calories they should be eating!1 -
swimmchick87 wrote: »You guys aren't getting it. It's simple math that MFP has majorly screwed up. It has nothing to do with the fitbit, that's just how I noticed it was wrong. Say I didn't have the fitbit linked at all. MFP says my TDEE is 2048. I get that the number isn't going to be perfectly accurate, but that's what they came up with. Based on THEIR NUMBER, they gave me a deficit of only 358 calories per day when to lose 1 pound per week, when it should be 500. That's almost 150 off per day-that's a HUGE mistake and if someone was trusting that and seeing they weren't losing weight as expected, they might give up. The calorie limit they should have given me is around 1550 rather than 1690- that's a huge difference. I'm just lucky I wasn't eating that 1690 number most days anyway.
I have to assume I'm not the only case where they've screwed up and would suggest other people check their calorie amounts to see if they're right. Think how many people post here saying they're eating what MFP says but not losing- everyone is so quick to say they must not be tracking accurately. Maybe they are tracking accurately and MFP has screwed up the number of calories they should be eating!
Since MFP does not calculate TDEE, there is absolutely no chance that MFP is saying that your TDEE is 2048.9 -
Okay, don't call it TDEE. The number they are basing my deficit on. They estimate that my calories burned for the day based on my weight and activity level is 2048. They gave me 1690 calories. 2048-1690= 348. Do you understand that???? Simple math? I don't see why this is so hard. 3500 calorie deficit is needed to lose a pound. I have my weight loss goal set to lose one pound per week. 3500 divided by 7 is 500, so a 500 calorie daily deficit is needed. 2048-500=1548. Why are they so off? I am not arguing that there are variations in actual TDEE or saying MFP's estimate of that number should be perfect. I am arguing that they can't subtract 500 correctly.1
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swimmchick87 wrote: »Okay, don't call it TDEE. The number they are basing my deficit on. They estimate that my calories burned for the day based on my weight and activity level is 2048. They gave me 1690 calories. 2048-1690= 348. Do you understand that???? Simple math? I don't see why this is so hard. 3500 calorie deficit is needed to lose a pound. I have my weight loss goal set to lose one pound per week. 3500 divided by 7 is 500, so a 500 calorie daily deficit is needed. 2048-500=1548. Why are they so off? I am not arguing that there are variations in actual TDEE or saying MFP's estimate of that number should be perfect. I am arguing that they can't subtract 500 correctly.
Not arguing but where are you getting the 2048 from? I'm not seeing any number like that in my profile.4 -
swimmchick87 wrote: »Okay, don't call it TDEE. The number they are basing my deficit on. They estimate that my calories burned for the day based on my weight and activity level is 2048. They gave me 1690 calories. 2048-1690= 348. Do you understand that???? Simple math? I don't see why this is so hard. 3500 calorie deficit is needed to lose a pound. I have my weight loss goal set to lose one pound per week. 3500 divided by 7 is 500, so a 500 calorie daily deficit is needed. 2048-500=1548. Why are they so off? I am not arguing that there are variations in actual TDEE or saying MFP's estimate of that number should be perfect. I am arguing that they can't subtract 500 correctly.
Not arguing but where are you getting the 2048 from? I'm not seeing any number like that in my profile.
It's in the "exercise" tab. I'm not sure if it will show up if you don't have any exercise logged. I have my fitbit linked so under cardiovascular it says "fitbit calorie adjustment" and there is a little blue "i" underneath that. Click on that, and it will show fitbit calories burned and mfp calories burned. Mine says "Myfitness Pal Calories Burned 2048." Since I've walked more, my fitbit calorie burn is 2173, so mfp has given me 125 extra calories today. They're showing you how they calculate your exercise calories. That 2048 number from MFP is the same every day- that's what they think my calorie burn should be based on my settings. So today, they gave me an extra 125 calories for my calorie goal based on that. But the whole premise is wrong because their original calorie goal is wrong.
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swimmchick87 wrote: »swimmchick87 wrote: »Okay, don't call it TDEE. The number they are basing my deficit on. They estimate that my calories burned for the day based on my weight and activity level is 2048. They gave me 1690 calories. 2048-1690= 348. Do you understand that???? Simple math? I don't see why this is so hard. 3500 calorie deficit is needed to lose a pound. I have my weight loss goal set to lose one pound per week. 3500 divided by 7 is 500, so a 500 calorie daily deficit is needed. 2048-500=1548. Why are they so off? I am not arguing that there are variations in actual TDEE or saying MFP's estimate of that number should be perfect. I am arguing that they can't subtract 500 correctly.
Not arguing but where are you getting the 2048 from? I'm not seeing any number like that in my profile.
It's in the "exercise" tab. I'm not sure if it will show up if you don't have any exercise logged. I have my fitbit linked so under cardiovascular it says "fitbit calorie adjustment" and there is a little blue "i" underneath that. Click on that, and it will show fitbit calories burned and mfp calories burned. Mine says "Myfitness Pal Calories Burned 2048." Since I've walked more, my fitbit calorie burn is 2173, so mfp has given me 125 extra calories today. They're showing you how they calculate your exercise calories. That 2048 number from MFP is the same every day- that's what they think my calorie burn should be based on my settings. So today, they gave me an extra 125 calories for my calorie goal based on that. But the whole premise is wrong because their original calorie goal is wrong.
Mine doesn't show any number, but thank you. I hope your own adjustments help you reach your goals.0 -
I have a potential explanation. You have lost weight since starting, right?
And your calorie goal has stayed the same from then till now?
MFP is supposed to update your calorie goal to fit your weight regularly, but for many it doesn't. So while your calorie expenditure has been going down, because your body is getting smaller, your calorie goal has stayed the same and your deficit has shrunk.
Solution, if this is the source of the problem: go back to your goal set-up and run through it again, updating (confirming) your weight, activity level and desired weight loss rate. That should give you a new, lower calorie goal.
I have this issue and I go through my setting after every few lbs lost to update my calorie goal downwards.5 -
I have a potential explanation. You have lost weight since starting, right?
And your calorie goal has stayed the same from then till now?
MFP is supposed to update your calorie goal to fit your weight regularly, but for many it doesn't. So while your calorie expenditure has been going down, because your body is getting smaller, your calorie goal has stayed the same and your deficit has shrunk.
Solution, if this is the source of the problem: go back to your goal set-up and run through it again, updating (confirming) your weight, activity level and desired weight loss rate. That should give you a new, lower calorie goal.
I have this issue and I go through my setting after every few lbs lost to update my calorie goal downwards.
This. It doesn't always update you weight even when you enter it in. Reset your goal with your actual current weight, it will probably change your calorie goal.1 -
swimmchick87 wrote: »Okay, don't call it TDEE. The number they are basing my deficit on. They estimate that my calories burned for the day based on my weight and activity level is 2048. They gave me 1690 calories. 2048-1690= 348. Do you understand that???? Simple math? I don't see why this is so hard. 3500 calorie deficit is needed to lose a pound. I have my weight loss goal set to lose one pound per week. 3500 divided by 7 is 500, so a 500 calorie daily deficit is needed. 2048-500=1548. Why are they so off? I am not arguing that there are variations in actual TDEE or saying MFP's estimate of that number should be perfect. I am arguing that they can't subtract 500 correctly.
I don't use a fitbit, but I do know that fitbit and MFP could quite possibly be using different calculations to come up with your before-exercise calories. They use multipliers and the two may use different multipliers. Using fitbit's number to apply to MFP's calculation doesn't seem to be a correlation that will hold up.
Why don't you go to the fitbit Group and ask your question. I know @heybales could likely give you the answer. Or maybe @PAV888. (tagging them so maybe they'll answer here)
I could be wrong. I just lost all my weight using my own numbers after starting with MFP's. Regardless of a device or not, we all have to do that.3 -
@swimmchick87 -
Look at tomorrow's eating goal - what is it?
Add 500 since set to 1 lb weekly loss.
Should be what MFP is using as NEAT value.
That divided by 1.4 (since you selected Lightly-Active) should be your BMR, at the time the goal was created.
Does that match what MFP app for BMR says with your stats?
Has your weight changed?
As commented above, not only is there a 5 (or is it 10 for decent change?) lb loss needed before MFP adjusts the eating goal based on your new weight, that has gotten stuck before.
Now - to your point of the expected burn that is used with Fitbit stats - that is current weight and always changing.
Just doesn't update your eating goal all the time, or even when it's supposed to.
Additionally - in web app (maybe mobile too) go to Home - Goals and that should show the eating goal too.
So it's either the expected issue that can flare up, the known effect that does occur, or something totally new.4 -
As commented above, not only is there a 5 (or is it 10 for decent change?) lb loss needed before MFP adjusts the eating goal based on your new weight, that has gotten stuck before.
Yes, so go to "Goals > View guided setup" check that your weight is correct, clickety "save changes" - then your weight and calorie goal will be synced up. I had to manually do that when I was losing. The tool used to prompt you, "Do you want MFP to update your Goals?" - don't know if it still does that. I haven't lost any significant weight in almost ten years so I wouldn't know.5 -
The problem with the assertion is that it assumes your calorie intake is correct. For most people that is not the case. Even though I weigh my food and check nutrition labels and the USDA site for confirmation even my logging is not 100 percent correct.
However, because I log with very consistent habits I can rely on it enough to adjust the other side of the equation to fit my scheme. In my spreadsheet my TDEE is recalculated daily based on my results. The TDEE I use for management adjusts each day based on my projected loss. Even still I don't actually know if 3544 calories is my actual TDEE or if it is just a number that works against my logging style. Since all I care about is predictable results I do not care if it is off just that it works.4 -
swimmchick87 wrote: »swimmchick87 wrote: »Okay, don't call it TDEE. The number they are basing my deficit on. They estimate that my calories burned for the day based on my weight and activity level is 2048. They gave me 1690 calories. 2048-1690= 348. Do you understand that???? Simple math? I don't see why this is so hard. 3500 calorie deficit is needed to lose a pound. I have my weight loss goal set to lose one pound per week. 3500 divided by 7 is 500, so a 500 calorie daily deficit is needed. 2048-500=1548. Why are they so off? I am not arguing that there are variations in actual TDEE or saying MFP's estimate of that number should be perfect. I am arguing that they can't subtract 500 correctly.
Not arguing but where are you getting the 2048 from? I'm not seeing any number like that in my profile.
It's in the "exercise" tab. I'm not sure if it will show up if you don't have any exercise logged. I have my fitbit linked so under cardiovascular it says "fitbit calorie adjustment" and there is a little blue "i" underneath that. Click on that, and it will show fitbit calories burned and mfp calories burned. Mine says "Myfitness Pal Calories Burned 2048." Since I've walked more, my fitbit calorie burn is 2173, so mfp has given me 125 extra calories today. They're showing you how they calculate your exercise calories. That 2048 number from MFP is the same every day- that's what they think my calorie burn should be based on my settings. So today, they gave me an extra 125 calories for my calorie goal based on that. But the whole premise is wrong because their original calorie goal is wrong.
I personally think the disconnect with the math here is solely due to fitbit using tdee and mfp using NEAT.
They're projecting a guesstimate on your daily burn and giving you a calorie adjustment but I bet if you changed your weight loss settings from 1lbs per week to maintenance it wouldnt be that number listed in the exercise tab.
It's probably higher.
The lower number in the exercise tab is likely lower because they are taking into account that your activity level through the day on fitbit is going to be included in that total, where as you've already selected lightly active or something similar on mfp, they are trying to make up for potential double dipping for calories based on non purposeful exercise
Tdee is your entire existence for the day including any exercise
Neat is based solely on just your basic living, getting up, working, groceries, cooking, cleaning.
That's why we have to log treadmill workouts or bike rides separately.
Since your tdee already includes living and so does your mfp goal, they dont wanna award you those calories twice
The calorie adjustment just means that you exceeded their expectations for your daily living calories burned (like walking 15000 steps) so they add more calories to make up for that.2 -
KrissCanDoThis wrote: »
The lower number in the exercise tab is likely lower because they are taking into account that your activity level through the day on fitbit is going to be included in that total, where as you've already selected lightly active or something similar on mfp, they are trying to make up for potential double dipping for calories based on non purposeful exercise
If she's talking about the number MFP shows when we look at our calorie adjustment, then she is correct.
That's the page where MFP compares its calculation for daily calorie burn (NEAT based on personal stats entered and activity level +exercise burn if exercise has been logged) with an extrapolation of the total calories burned according to the tracker. And then gives us more or less calories to consume according to the difference between the two.
That lower number in her example (2048 calories) is her NEAT calculated by MFP, which has nothing to do with Fitbit.
(And I think that's where the problem lies, that this number hasn't been adjusted downwards automatically by MFP, but we'll have to wait from news from the OP)2
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