No calorie adjustment for walking?

DragonRider17

Hi,

I'm slightly confused and wondering if anyone can shed light! Yesterday I walked quite a long way and my Fitbit synced with MFP and adjusted my calories accordingly. It said I'd burned something like an extra 350 cals through exercise and added them to my allowance, as well as showing an accurate step count. That all seemed normal.

Today's the same in structure - earlier I went for a brisk 15-minute walk to dust off the cobwebs and get a bit of exercise. But although my Fitbit has synced and MFP does show the correct step count, beside 'exercise' it says zero calories. Now, today's walk was a lot shorter than yesterday, only about a mile, so I wouldn't expect it to burn many calories, but it can't be zero! Any idea why it isn't giving me any credit for my walk? Does it have to be over a certain distance or time before it 'counts' as exercise?

Thanks in advance for any insight!

AnnPT77

Your Fitbit adjustment, by the end of the day, intends to reconcile all the movement the Fitbit saw - not just official exercise, but also daily life stuff like job and home chores - with what MFP expects based on your activity level setting.

If the day isn't over yet, you're not seeing the whole picture. If the day is over, it's important to realize that your walk isn't the only thing that matters.

Based on your MFP profile activity level setting (sedentary/not very active, lightly active, etc.), MFP assumes you'll burn a certain number of calories. Fitbit watches your movements, and from them estimates the calories you actually burn (this includes the calories from just being alive with a heartbeat and breathing and such, plus your daily life routine of job and chores and whatnot, plus any intentional exercise). They compare notes during the day, and make adjustments by assuming you'll do about the same the rest of the day that you did so far, which may or may not be true.

By midnight, they should have the full picture. If the total of your activity (just being alive stuff + daily life + exercise) exceeds what MFP expected based on your activity level setting in your profile, you'll get some calories added. If the total is less than what MFP expected, and you have the negative calorie adjustment enabled (hint: you should), you'll get calories subtracted. If what Fitbit sees in total is what MFP expected, you'll get zero adjustment.

Bottom line: You can do more exercise on Tuesday vs. Monday, but if you do more resting or fewer home chores or something on Tuesday, you may still get a bigger calorie adjustment Monday than Tuesday.

I hope that makes sense!

Antiopelle

@DragonRider17: it depends from your personal settings, mine starts to add up exercise calories as from +- 3.000 steps. Everything less will be considered as your normal daily (sedentary) routine. As soon as you will be over this threshold, your calories will start to show.

DragonRider17

Thanks both - very helpful and makes sense!