Problems with negative adjustment and syncing from FitBit

amyoliver85

Hi all,

I searched the forums to see if anyone else had had this problem but it doesn't seem so, so I am hoping to see if anyone can provide clarity. This has happened multiple times but I am just using yesterday as an example.

Monday, October 14, 2013--My FitBit burned calories were 2501 according to the FitBit web site and my monitor. I worked out and burned 689 calories. In MFP it did a negative adjustment for -400 calories from FitBit. I couldn't understand why as the discrepancy between MFP and FitBit for the day should have been less than 100 calories. I clicked on the information bobble next to the negative adjustment and MFP is showing my FitBit calories at only 2190. And that is why it is creating the -400 negative adjustment.

The only way I can see to even come close to repairing this problem is to stop posting my exercise into MFP all together and to put it into FitBit instead. But that really defeats the purpose of using MFP at all. If I'm going to have to log in FitBit then I will end up just logging everything there. I bought a FitBit because it could sync with MFP but clearly it is not syncing with MFP at all!

Update: So I have checked several times. It looks like the exercise is NOT transferring over to my FitBit account. Totally ridiculous problem to have!~

amyoliver85

New Update: After all the spitting fire, I deleted all the exercise and everything from the day yesterday, put all of my food and exercise back in and now it works. Ugh!

shadow2soul

My husband has had a few issues recently where when he logs exercise (doesn't matter if it's logged on MFP or Fitbit), he gets an adjustment of -600 calories. It' is honestly the weirdest thing. For whatever reason, on those days Fitbit is telling MFP that he only burned sedentary calories (even though the fitbit dashboard says he burned more).

Kimsied

I don't watch my MFP exercise diary that closely anymore because I actually either let fitbit track my activity or track it directly to fitbit. But this morning I checked yesterdays exercise log and saw I had a negative adjustment even though I was quite active (a gym weight lifting workout and 10,000 steps outside of my gym time). I looked at the comparison, and MFP thought my fitbit calorie burn was 1300 calories. Well I looked again a little later today and saw it had updated, self-corrected and I had a positive adjustment. My guess is the two sites were not synching at some point yesterday, but are fixed now. That does happen from time to time and is part of the reason I log activity to fitbit when I log it. Was it yesterday that you were having this issue?

Shadowm re your husbands issue... Does it self correct? I read on the fitbit forum that some people were having a problem where they would log an activity and it would decrease their calorie burn (and not because they were logging a smaller calorie burn which would be correct). Though it sounds like this issue typically self corrects, I am not sure how long it takes. I really haven't noticed it. The activity that I log to fitbit is actually logged through a third party app Digifit that automatically logs to fitbit. I don't look at my fitbit stats until I get home from the gym or later in the day and it has been fine for me. It could be I just never see the temporary issue. It didn't use to do this though, so I guess I would suggest he notify fitbit's customer service.

pinkraynedropjacki

It played up the other day for me as well. On a fasting day when I dont eat anything & I went for a run for 30 mins, burnt 330cals and MFP said I'd eaten 400... took about 30 mins for it to all workout again.

MontrealFitbitGirl

I'm so confused with this adjustment thing. I did 17, 000 steps so it said I had an adjustment of about a few hundred at around 7:45 pm (I pick sedentary and negative adjustments and disabled estimating so it gives me a low adjustment and works its way up during the day). Then I did the 30 day shred picking circuit training on MFP (left fitbit on my bed while doing it). When I logged the time of 7:45 (which was when I started) fitbit gave me an adjustment instead of -200 calories. So suddenly I go from having extra calories before my exercise, to suddenly having overate by hundreds when I only ate 1500 for the day? I just don't really get it. I had to lie and switch the time by 15 minutes for it to give me a positive amount again...

Both have the same time zones and setting so I dunno what I'm supposed to do instead when logging an exercise where I'm not wearing a fitbit. I don't like the idea of suddenly losing hundreds of extra calories because I decided to exercise for half an hour. Me just lying in bed would not have me at a negative like that...

Shouldn't I be getting more imstead of taking away?

Purplebunnysarah

I've been getting this for a few weeks now. Once I log my workout, my Fitbit adjustment changes so my exercise calories are ALWAYS -310 calories. It's the same number every single day, no matter what my adjustment was before or what my exercise burn is.

If I leave my Fitbit connected and syncing, or if I resync a bit later, it corrects itself. If I don't resync, it stays like that until when I sync the next day.

It's starting to get irritating, to be honest.

annekka

Same problem here. I did some weights last night and did body combat. Of course forgot my fitbit at home. Entered in the items with appropriate start times and all of a sudden I was UNDER calories as fitbit went into negative calories. I had to delete the fitbit calories for it make sense (still ate more than I should have...oops). Hope this gets fixed soon.

Kimsied

I'm so confused with this adjustment thing. I did 17, 000 steps so it said I had an adjustment of about a few hundred at around 7:45 pm (I pick sedentary and negative adjustments and disabled estimating so it gives me a low adjustment and works its way up during the day). Then I did the 30 day shred picking circuit training on MFP (left fitbit on my bed while doing it). When I logged the time of 7:45 (which was when I started) fitbit gave me an adjustment instead of -200 calories. So suddenly I go from having extra calories before my exercise, to suddenly having overate by hundreds when I only ate 1500 for the day? I just don't really get it. I had to lie and switch the time by 15 minutes for it to give me a positive amount again...

MFP calculates the fitbit adjustment so technically it isn't fitbit taking away the adjustment. MFP compares the fitbit calorie burn to what it expects you to have burned. What MFP expects is based on a portion of your BMR and activity level so far in the day plus any exercise you log on MFP so far. So with what you are doing, even if all was working well you would probably see a decrease in your adjustment when you log your workout. Since you left your fitbit sitting on the bed, it would have a calorie burn like you were asleep in that time. There often is a delay between when you log an activity to MFP and when MFP later logs it to fitbit, so if it syncs before that happens you will have burned less than MFP expects by whatever calorie burn your workout was. This should self correct next time they sync assuming MFP logs your workout to fitbit. When I use to log to MFP I would delete the fitbit adjustment right after I logged a workout because there was often some issue with it--in my case I wear the fitbit during exercise so some of my activity calories were already credited to me in the adjustment if my fitbit synched during my workout. It always self corrected, but I just found it less confusing to assume whatever it said at that moment was wrong so I deleted it. It would typically come back the correct amount.

I mentioned Monday my MFP and Fitbit accounts didn't seem to sync for some reason. I had the calorie burn on fitbit--but MFP just thought I burned 1300 which is a little more than my BMR for the day. I am guessing it must have been my all day BMR plus some activity in the morning it was counting. I had a negative Tuesday morning which seemed really strange until I saw what it was doing. But it did correct itself. I am guessing whatever issue is further complicated by some occasional synching issues between MFP and fitbit. I haven't been watching closely enough to see how frequent these issues are but I definitely had it on Monday morning to Tuesday morning this week.

I haven't observed the possible fitbit issue I saw mentioned on the forum at all. But it also sounds like some sort of temporary self-correcting issue. If you are getting it it probably doesn't hurt to email customer servie so they know people are noticing and annoyed--maybe it will prompt them to fix it faster. Or maybe it is happening to certain accounts and not others and they may be able to fix it for you. ???

Kimsied

Oh, I just remembered I had a weird little issue yesterday.... This was definitely a fitbit issue. I was synching my device through the IOS app but for some reason it wasn't updating my fitbit.com account. Every time I would sync the app it would for a second show a very low calorie burn (no activity) then it would show my device stats. The website did not update until I plugged in my synching dongle into my laptop. I actually left it in and it has been updating frequently when I am at home anyway. I guess I should unplug it to see if this issue is still happening. If so that can also cause undeserved negative adjustments as anything that effects the calorie burn listed on our fitbit.com accounts effects this for better or worse.

TheMelephant

Sorry, haha made a new account. Liking this new name.

No, it did not refresh and sync afterwards. It was when it was syncing that it would originally mess up. The MOMENT it was put in, it was correct. But then like one second later after syncing it was incorrect FOREVER. Ugh. I had to actually put a different time for it to work. Which makes no sense, because I had to log it when I was doing some minor walking instead, but whatever. It finally worked then, though I assume it's not 100% accurate. I did tell Fitbit and they said they're aware of the issue with some of their users... so I guess it's something they working out on an individual basis. I don't know if it's worth the trouble.

Sinay99

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but this is the exact problem that I have been experiencing and there doesn't seem to be a solution posted here even though there are lot of people impacted by it - does anyone know why the negative adjustment ends up cancelling any exercise you put in??

editorgrrl

Do not log any step-based activity. Your Fitbit is already tracking it for you.

Log non-step exercise (like biking or swimming) in Fitbit—never MFP.

Enable negative calorie adjustments: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

Set your activity level to sedentary: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided & set your goal to .5 lb. per week for each 25 lbs. you need to lose.

Follow your MFP goal, eating back your Fitbit adjustments.

Your Fitbit burn is your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). If you follow my instructions you'll be eating at TDEE minus an appropriate deficit. I lost the weight & have maintained for 6 months using these settings.