Calories burned

LWunsch

I exercise with my Apple Watch. Wondering, when adding exercise to MFP do we enter active calories or total calories?

Lietchi

This is an educated guess, since I don't use Apple but Garmin uses similar vocabulary:
- total calories probably means that it includes what you would have burned just doing nothing (basic bodily functions such as breathing, heart beat, digestion...)
- active calories probably means just those calories used for exercising, not counting basic bodily functions

Since MFP already includes calories for basic bodily functions (and non exercise activity at the chosen setting), it's the active calories you should enter, to avoid double counting.

TwistedSassette

I have my Apple Watch synced with MFP, and it brings across the active calories only
As mentioned above, this is the amount of calories you've burned from the exercising itself.

janejellyroll

If you are manually adding exercise to MFP, you need to make sure you aren't double-counting. When you set up your MFP account, you choose your activity level. As part of that activity level, MFP is assuming you're moving a certain amount each day so if you enter your TOTAL calorie burn as well, then you'll be double-dipping into your calories.

heybales

TwistedSassette wrote: »

I have my Apple Watch synced with MFP, and it brings across the active calories only
As mentioned above, this is the amount of calories you've burned from the exercising itself.

Be aware if you have them synced as method of getting the workout, Apple does not send a total daily calorie burn (TDEE) that includes the workout.

So when MFP does the math to not double count the workout - it ends up removing it in reality.
Meaning you are actually getting no credit for the workout.
Unless there's been a fix in the last month.

You can put screenshot of prior day Apple Adjustment from Exercise diary, the details when you press and hold on it, to confirm what has happened.

I'll bet the Daily Calorie burn it shows is about equal to Sedentary on MFP.

TwistedSassette

heybales wrote: »

TwistedSassette wrote: »

I have my Apple Watch synced with MFP, and it brings across the active calories only
As mentioned above, this is the amount of calories you've burned from the exercising itself.

Be aware if you have them synced as method of getting the workout, Apple does not send a total daily calorie burn (TDEE) that includes the workout.

So when MFP does the math to not double count the workout - it ends up removing it in reality.
Meaning you are actually getting no credit for the workout.
Unless there's been a fix in the last month.

You can put screenshot of prior day Apple Adjustment from Exercise diary, the details when you press and hold on it, to confirm what has happened.

I'll bet the Daily Calorie burn it shows is about equal to Sedentary on MFP.

I've never really had any problem with how Apple syncs with MFP. I've read others having this issue but mine's always seemed to work fine.
E.g. for Monday, exercise tracked via Apple Watch (I don't enter the exercises in MFP, it just bring across from Apple):


No iOS adjustment, this is what shows when I click on that:

Apple amount seems to be including the exercise calories.

And in my food diary, which is set to 1,900 calories/day before adjustment for exercise:


So while there's no iOS adjustment (and I don't allow negative adjustment), I'm still getting credit for the 243 calories I burned from exercise. I think this is working as it should be, right?

heybales

Ah - you have setup MFP to get steps from your Watch, I'm guessing running the MFP app, and workouts are synced over.

The calorie burn from the steps is MFP's rough calculation not knowing distance.
And it doesn't know when the steps come from the workout - or extra daily activity.

This is different setup than having MFP account linked and syncing with your Apple Health account.
When people talked about messed up sync - that's when.
Where yours says MFP iOS Calories Burned - the other method says like Apple Watch or Health account calories burned.
That is the scenario where Apple sends what is basically the same as MFP Sedentary burn value as the total daily burn, so it's not like 48 calories, it's your sedentary burn value up to that point in time for the day, in your case that could be around 2500 perhaps.
So Full Day Projection at midnight would say 2500.
MFP calories burned would be the almost same 2500 + workouts like 243, so 2743.

If you had extra daily activity you'd get no credit for it - Apple sends only the sedentary burn amount, and workouts.
If you had negative enabled with above example, you'd get neg 243.
Plus 243 workout.
0 credit for exercise and extra activity.

So using the MFP Apple watch app is their way of getting around Apple refusing to send correct info.
But now it's not Apple's estimate of your daily burn, it's MFP based on steps but no distance (which is where the accuracy comes in), and inability to tell if steps belonged to a workout or other activity.

TwistedSassette

heybales wrote: »

Ah - you have setup MFP to get steps from your Watch, I'm guessing running the MFP app, and workouts are synced over.

The calorie burn from the steps is MFP's rough calculation not knowing distance.
And it doesn't know when the steps come from the workout - or extra daily activity.

This is different setup than having MFP account linked and syncing with your Apple Health account.
When people talked about messed up sync - that's when.
Where yours says MFP iOS Calories Burned - the other method says like Apple Watch or Health account calories burned.
That is the scenario where Apple sends what is basically the same as MFP Sedentary burn value as the total daily burn, so it's not like 48 calories, it's your sedentary burn value up to that point in time for the day, in your case that could be around 2500 perhaps.
So Full Day Projection at midnight would say 2500.
MFP calories burned would be the almost same 2500 + workouts like 243, so 2743.

If you had extra daily activity you'd get no credit for it - Apple sends only the sedentary burn amount, and workouts.
If you had negative enabled with above example, you'd get neg 243.
Plus 243 workout.
0 credit for exercise and extra activity.

So using the MFP Apple watch app is their way of getting around Apple refusing to send correct info.
But now it's not Apple's estimate of your daily burn, it's MFP based on steps but no distance (which is where the accuracy comes in), and inability to tell if steps belonged to a workout or other activity.

Gotcha. I'm fine with that setup - if I'm more active on a particular day apart from intentional exercise, I don't really want MFP to give me extra calories in my target. I find that Apple overestimates my passive calorie burn anyway, the MFP estimates seem more accurate based on my tracking history. Thanks for the info