Struggling to understand calorie adjustment?

carolyng98

So I haven’t used MFP in a while, especially not since I’ve had my Apple watch. Yesterday I went for two walks, which were “workouts” on my Apple watch. They both synced to the MFP app correctly and gave me a positive calorie adjustment.

The thing that I am confused by is steps. My steps are syncing correctly to the app, but I don’t receive any positive calorie adjustment for them. My activity level is set to “Lightly Active” and my step goal is set to 10,000. Someone had mentioned that a certain baseline of calories is worked into your overall goal based on your activity level, so you’re assumed to take a certain number of steps throughout the day, so unless your steps go beyond your set activity level you won’t see an adjustment.

However, like I mentioned, I’m set at “Lightly Active” which I assumed would be somewhere around 10,000-12,000 steps. Yesterday my Apple watch showed that I nearly doubled my step goal (18,500) as well as my move goal (nearly 900 move calories). I feel like I should be getting a positive calorie adjustment for this, even slightly? Or is it just because only workouts count?

durden

Please note your device is not tracking individual exercise calories, it is tracking a complete day burn. Because of this, reaching your steps goal for the day may or may not guarantee a calories adjustment.

Your device must estimate a higher number of calories burned compared to the set daily burn from MyFitnessPal in order for an adjustment to be earned. If the number from your device is lower than the number from MyFitnessPal, then the adjustment will show as 0, or if you have enabled the negative adjustment option, then it will show as a negative amount earned and then deduct calories from your goal. When you do see a positive number adjustment, that number represents the amount of calories burned above your MFP goal, and not the amount of calories burned for you workouts. This update appears in your diary as a Calorie Adjustment. The details of the adjustment's calculation can be viewed online by clicking the "i" on the adjustment line, or within the app by tapping on the adjustment.

Additional information on calorie adjustments can be found here : https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032623871-What-is-the-Calorie-Adjustment-in-my-Exercise-Diary-

When adding in manual exercises, or syncing single workouts from other app partners, those calories are automatically added to your set daily burn total on your MFP account and nutritional adjustments are immediately given.
For additional information on how exercise impacts your nutritional goals, please see this article: https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032623851-Why-do-my-daily-nutrient-values-and-my-calorie-goal-change-when-I-log-exercise-

This can cause confusion when looking at your device adjustment because that number will lower or possibly zero out. This is normal because the number that your device compares its calories to (set daily burn from MFP) has now increased with the addition of new workout data and the distance between the two calories counts will be further apart.

Only when the Device number is greater than the MyFitnessPal number will you then earn the extra difference between the two as a positive adjustment.