Exercise calories

amculver1

Why does one day my exercise calories are 17 and another day they are 400 and my calories and exercise for both days are the same?

AnnPT77

There's additional info that would help me give you an answer, but I'll make some assumptions. You can reply to tell me if the assumptions are wrong.

I'm assuming you have a fitness tracker synced to MFP, and that that's where the 17 or 400 are coming from. When you say the exercise was the same, I'm going to assume you did the same type of intentional exercise for the same amount of time at the same intensity (such as speed), or that your fitness tracker told you that the calories burned during the 2 different days exercise sessions were the same, or very close.

When you say your calories for both days are the same, I'm assuming you mean that when you logged everything you ate for the day, the calories logged on each of the days were the same or very close. I'm assuming you wear your fitness tracker all day every day except for some short time periods when you're charging it, or showering, or something like that.

That last assumption is really important. If you have a tracker synced to MFP, and there are meaningful blocks of time where you don't wear it, you can't possibly get a believable calorie adjustment in MFP. It will be wrong. Therefore, if you don't wear the tracker close to 24x7, the likely major reason it's 400 some days and 7 others is that it always . . . isn't correct.

If you do wear it all of the time (or nearly), then the probable explanation is that some other aspect of your day - non-exercise activities - varied. Behind the scenes, MFP and the tracker are comparing the number of calories MFP expected you to burn all day in all ways (your weight maintenance calories) to the number of calories the tracker saw you as burning all day in all ways.

While the day is happening, there may be up and down adjustments: I'm talking about how it is by end of day.

When MFP and the tracker compare, MFP will add calories to your goal when the tracker said you were more active (in all ways) than MFP expected based on the activity level setting in your MFP profile. Assuming you have negative adjustments turned on in MFP (which I'd recommend), it will also subtract calories from your goal if your tracker says you were less active than MFP expected.

The obvious implication is that even with the same exercise calories, you'll get a bigger calorie adjustment on a busy day (errands, job, chores, whatever), and a smaller calorie adjustment if more of the day is spent resting, sitting or just moving less vigorously when doing those things.

In all cases, if your profile says you're trying to lose weight - also an assumption, since you didn't say - MFP will keep the same calorie deficit in place each day. If all the estimates are correct, and you're a statistically average person in your calorie needs, you'd lose weight at the rate you asked for, on average over 4-6 weeks.

I hope that makes sense. If any of the assumptions are wrong, please reply with more information.