Exercise calories and activity level

xabix2018

Hi, so I connect my garmin Vivomove watch with MFP. I can burn anywhere between 250-500 cals as sometimes I’ll run on treadmill, do hiit workouts or a combination of them both. I’ve only realised today that my activity was set to barely any activity so I’ve changed it to lightly active as I’ll only do 20-30 mins a day. Today I’ve notice I’ve only gained 148 exercise calories back? But have ran 3 miles, gone for an extra long all and done hiit exercise, so it doesn’t add up at all!? Is this because I’ve changed my activity level? Any help appreciated as I’m lost in the technology clearly! Thanks

harper16

Your activity level is before you add exercise.

Lietchi

As harper16 has said, your activity level includes everything except intentional exercise.

Also, since you've synced your device, you can just leave the activity setting at sedentary and any activity exceeding that (for example active job, gardening etc) and any exercise you do will give you extra calories. If you choose a higher activity level, you should activate negative calorie adjustments for those days when you're less active.

xabix2018

Thank you. So does that mean the activity level only adjusts the calories I should eat, as I noticed they had gone up? But the exercise calories earned had gone down today even though I did more than usual! I don’t actually add exercises into my garmin app but I know it sense when you walk, run etc and it’s usually been pretty accurate, so just seems strange that since I’ve changed my activity level it’s pretty much halved my earned exercise calories. Totally thought I had the swing of things until today!!

AnnPT77

Fundamentally, if you have your device synched MFP and the device should be exchanging data, so that MFP then adjusts your total calorie goal to keep you at what it estimates will give you the weight loss rate (or other weight management goal) that you put in your MFP profile. It's not just about the device's view of your exercise calories, but also about your daily life activity as seen by your device, and comparing the total of those to MFP's expectations.

I'd expect your total full-day post-adjustment calorie goal to be about the same for the same amount of exercise and actual daily activity, regardless of your MFP setting . . . but the adjustment will be bigger or smaller, because you've told MFP (via activity level) to have different expectations.

Duck_Puddle

You can view the details of the exercise calorie calculation by clicking that entry in the app (the click again) or clicking the “i” by the entry on the website.

You will see what Garmin estimates as your total calories burned for the day. Below that you’ll see what mfp expects you to burn for he day (this includes what it expects you to burn for your activity level plus any workouts showing in your mfp diary). The difference is your adjustment.

What Ann said is correct-that raising your activity level setting on mfp will increase what it expects you to burn in a day. That will decrease the adjustment amount, and increase your base calorie allowance-usually by the same amount. So the total allowed calories are the same-they are just showing in a different place.

This can break down a bit if your calories goal involves 1200 (for women/1500 for men) and/or you don’t have negative adjustments enabled (And you have a day with activity lower than your mfp setting).

But otherwise, the overall total will be the same.

Example:
At sedentary:
Garmin estimates you burned 2500
MFP sedentary thinks you’d burn 2000
Exercise calories 2500-2000=500
Sedentary calorie goal: 1500
Total calories: 1500+500=2000

At lightly active:
Garmin estimates you burned 2500
MFP sedentary thinks you’d burn 2300
Exercise calories 2500-2300=200
Lightly active calorie goal: 1800
Total calories: 1800+200=2000

Either way you have 2000 to eat.