Help with Apple watch synced to MFP through Pacer app - giving me too many calories

LaurenAOK

Hi everyone, I recently started syncing my Apple watch to MFP. At first it was only taking my steps from my watch, not total calorie burn, so it was only adding a few calories (example, a day with 10k steps only gave me 40 calories even though I am set to sedentary). I searched the forums and found this is a common problem, and people recommended to fix it by using the Pacer app.

I download Pacer, set it to sync with my apple watch, and then set Pacer to sync with MFP. But now I have the opposite problem, it is giving me too many calories. What seems to be happening is Pacer takes all of my "move" calories from my apple watch and adds them back as exercise calories, even if some of those Move calories should have just been included in my base rate for the day.

Example, here are a couple of screenshots from yesterday. You can see that Pacer had my calories so far for the day at 1,616, but my apple watch shows my total calories at that point at only 1,479. Pacer added my 276 "move" calories as exercise calories on top of my daily MFP goal.




By the end of the day yesterday, MFP had my calorie allowance at 1,656 (1350 base + 306 exercise cals from Pacer), but apple watch shows my TDEE for the day was only 1,774. I'm set to lose .5 pounds a week, so the deficit there is too low.

Any ideas? Is there a setting or something where I can fix this?

Side note, but Pacer also isn't automatically syncing with MFP even though I have automatically synced check off. I have to do it manually throughout the day. Anyone else have this problem?

heybales

Are you sure Apple said TDEE was only 1774, with 276 move calories as of that 8pm, or 306 Exercise @ end of day?

I don't believe that.

As of that about 8 pm in screen shots - 1479 Total calories shown, but Apple doesn't give TDEE very well - that was their problem with MFP - they sent a TDEE figure of only a sedentary burn figure. not actually TDEE.

Pacer sent 1616 TDEE.
Apple says 1479 Total.
Diff of 137.

Even that's not enough for 276 cals for Move, or 14 min of Exercise.
That would work for Move calories over decent chunk of time, so the 276 contained within it the sedentary burn rate already assumed to have been done.
So Pacer removed it.

The MFP calorie allowance also has deficit removed already, so 1600 daily burn for sedentary (1350 + 250 deficit, or 1596 shown), plus 306 exercise = 1906 daily burn.

That 306 is extra daily Movement and Exercise combined.

Already at that 8pm you had 276 Move calories, so hitting 306 with whatever the 14 min of Exercise gave also is not unreasonable.

I think it's more correct than you believe - unless you think the Apple figures are just off.
But it appears MFP is correctly using those passed on from Pacer.

LaurenAOK

heybales wrote: »

Are you sure Apple said TDEE was only 1774, with 276 move calories as of that 8pm, or 306 Exercise @ end of day?

I don't believe that.

Hi, thanks for your response. Yes, Apple says total calories burned yesterday was only 1774 and that includes 339 Move calories. (I made a mistake in the post sorry, I thought it was 306 calories.) But 339 is also the exact amount that was added to my MFP allowance yesterday. Here's a screenshot of watch and MFP from yesterday:




So Apple watch says 1774 total burn but MFP tells me 1689 total to eat to lose .5/wk.

I'm 5'4", 125lbs and pretty sedentary for context.

The weird thing to me is that the extra calories added by Pacer are always the same as my Move calories. For example, at this moment Apple shows my Move calories for the day at 173. MFP through Pacer has given me 172 extra calories. (This is actually the first time it's been off by even one calorie - the past 3 days the numbers have always been the exact same). Here are screenshots taken now:




Something doesn't seem right to me that my "move" calories would always be the exact same amount that gets added back in.

heybales

MFP is making those adjustments.

The math is very simple.

Tracker TDEE minus (MFP estimated daily burn plus any known workouts) = adjustment.

So you think 1179 Total calories shown by Apple includes 173 Move calories?
Think about that.

Because Apple starts with a sedentary figure almost matching MFP's sedentary figure - yes the difference would be your Move calories almost exactly - some rounding errors perhaps for a few.

So that is correct.

Again - you are reading an Apple figure you think is TDEE and it is not.

Better to figure out the Pacer total and what figures together from Apple equal that.
Base, Move, Exercise should be it.

LaurenAOK

heybales wrote: »

MFP is making those adjustments.

Again - you are reading an Apple figure you think is TDEE and it is not.

You know, that does make sense, and I feel silly now. I definitely read on a different thread about this that the apple "total calories" in the Move section is supposed to be your TDEE for the day, and I assumed that was correct since it says, y'know, "TOTAL calories." I guess it means total calories not including exercise? What a dumb way to word that on Apple's part!

But you're right, if I add the Apple "move" calories to "total" calories it's pretty close to the pacer estimate for the day, give or take a few. Just based on what I saw on other threads I didn't think the move calories should be identical to the exercise cals. But I guess it is!

Thanks for your help, I'll leave this thread up as a warning to others that Apple is dumb (and maybe I'm dumb...)

heybales

No, you were reading words that mean certain things everywhere else you read them.
Except to Apple, who has their own idea what it means.

MFP's API's ask for Daily Total Calories Burned and a time stamp (so TDEE up to that point) to finish doing math with.

Apple sends the sedentary base calories at that point, instead.

Sadly MFP was likely so thrilled Apple finally did something after years, they either didn't, or couldn't, get them to correct it.


Now, normally workouts would sync over on their own too, and be a part of the Pacer total that is sent over, and MFP would still handle the math correctly.
So maybe your exercise is not being tagged as a workout to sync over, or something flaky is also going on.