confused (I haven't burned these calories yet)!

Sleaterkitty

I am a new FitBit One user.. and so far so good. I was able to sync everything with my MFP, but this morning I noticed something weird. As I was logging in my food, it said that I had already earned 200+ calories from exercise today which is totally not accurate.

I just started my day, logged my driving, and walked to get some tea. I haven't done nearly enough to constitute exercise to count towards my day. Is this one of those things where I have to wait until the first time I synced it? Or what's going on? Why is it calculating calories I have clearly not burned yet? It's throwing me off while logging my food.

Thanks for any help!

malibu927

MFP estimates your burn for the day according to what you have burned up to your last sync. If you move more early, you'll get a higher number. If you don't move so much and have negative calories enabled (which you should), it will take away calories.

heybales

I am a new FitBit One user.. and so far so good. I was able to sync everything with my MFP, but this morning I noticed something weird. As I was logging in my food, it said that I had already earned 200+ calories from exercise today which is totally not accurate.

I just started my day, logged my driving, and walked to get some tea. I haven't done nearly enough to constitute exercise to count towards my day. Is this one of those things where I have to wait until the first time I synced it? Or what's going on? Why is it calculating calories I have clearly not burned yet? It's throwing me off while logging my food.

Thanks for any help!

You could also have Fitbit reporting inflated numbers for MFP to do it's math with.

Fitbit - Settings - Calorie Estimation is default enabled.

If you are prone to forgetting your device or not syncing until late, and everyday is about the same activity, that setting might be useful. It uses historical data for the daily burn, and that's what is assumed per minute as the day goes on, correct at sync time higher or lower.

Disabled it assumes and starts with sedentary, and increases daily burn assumption as you actually go over that value.

In both cases, Fitbit reports to MFP where it thinks you are. And MFP's simple math can be thrown way off.


The other part, could be that you have MFP set to Sedentary, so X amount of calories expected to be burned at any certain hour.
But actually, you are more active than Sedentary, so you have burned Y amount of calories, and get the increase.

Sleaterkitty

MFP estimates your burn for the day according to what you have burned up to your last sync. If you move more early, you'll get a higher number. If you don't move so much and have negative calories enabled (which you should), it will take away calories.

Thanks for your reply! I definitely have the negative calories enabled. However, last night was the first night I tried to track my sleep... and kept it on all morning while I got ready as opposed to just putting it on before I walked out the door. Do you think this might have been part of the issue?

Sleaterkitty

I am a new FitBit One user.. and so far so good. I was able to sync everything with my MFP, but this morning I noticed something weird. As I was logging in my food, it said that I had already earned 200+ calories from exercise today which is totally not accurate.

I just started my day, logged my driving, and walked to get some tea. I haven't done nearly enough to constitute exercise to count towards my day. Is this one of those things where I have to wait until the first time I synced it? Or what's going on? Why is it calculating calories I have clearly not burned yet? It's throwing me off while logging my food.

Thanks for any help!

You could also have Fitbit reporting inflated numbers for MFP to do it's math with.

Fitbit - Settings - Calorie Estimation is default enabled.

If you are prone to forgetting your device or not syncing until late, and everyday is about the same activity, that setting might be useful. It uses historical data for the daily burn, and that's what is assumed per minute as the day goes on, correct at sync time higher or lower.

Disabled it assumes and starts with sedentary, and increases daily burn assumption as you actually go over that value.

In both cases, Fitbit reports to MFP where it thinks you are. And MFP's simple math can be thrown way off.


The other part, could be that you have MFP set to Sedentary, so X amount of calories expected to be burned at any certain hour.
But actually, you are more active than Sedentary, so you have burned Y amount of calories, and get the increase.

Thanks this was helpful! I believe I do have MFP set to Sedentary. So should I change that setting to the next higher up? Maybe that coupled with "Disabled" on FItBit would make it more accurate? I appreciate the help. Trying to get a hang of this!

heybales

I am a new FitBit One user.. and so far so good. I was able to sync everything with my MFP, but this morning I noticed something weird. As I was logging in my food, it said that I had already earned 200+ calories from exercise today which is totally not accurate.

I just started my day, logged my driving, and walked to get some tea. I haven't done nearly enough to constitute exercise to count towards my day. Is this one of those things where I have to wait until the first time I synced it? Or what's going on? Why is it calculating calories I have clearly not burned yet? It's throwing me off while logging my food.

Thanks for any help!

You could also have Fitbit reporting inflated numbers for MFP to do it's math with.

Fitbit - Settings - Calorie Estimation is default enabled.

If you are prone to forgetting your device or not syncing until late, and everyday is about the same activity, that setting might be useful. It uses historical data for the daily burn, and that's what is assumed per minute as the day goes on, correct at sync time higher or lower.

Disabled it assumes and starts with sedentary, and increases daily burn assumption as you actually go over that value.

In both cases, Fitbit reports to MFP where it thinks you are. And MFP's simple math can be thrown way off.


The other part, could be that you have MFP set to Sedentary, so X amount of calories expected to be burned at any certain hour.
But actually, you are more active than Sedentary, so you have burned Y amount of calories, and get the increase.

Thanks this was helpful! I believe I do have MFP set to Sedentary. So should I change that setting to the next higher up? Maybe that coupled with "Disabled" on FItBit would make it more accurate? I appreciate the help. Trying to get a hang of this!

Wait until you have several days of normal activity but no exercise.
Look at what your Fitbit daily burn was then.

Then change MFP to Lightly Active, on the resulting Goals page it'll say what it is estimating your daily calorie burn to be.
If it's about right, correct setting.
If a tad lower, you'll get slight to bigger on exercise day positive adjustments.
If a tad higher, you'll get negative adjustments on non-exercise days, and not so big on exercise days. Usually easiest to plan your meals to.

heybales

MFP estimates your burn for the day according to what you have burned up to your last sync. If you move more early, you'll get a higher number. If you don't move so much and have negative calories enabled (which you should), it will take away calories.

Thanks for your reply! I definitely have the negative calories enabled. However, last night was the first night I tried to track my sleep... and kept it on all morning while I got ready as opposed to just putting it on before I walked out the door. Do you think this might have been part of the issue?

That's not an issue, that's the correct way of doing it - first thing on.

Sleaterkitty

MFP estimates your burn for the day according to what you have burned up to your last sync. If you move more early, you'll get a higher number. If you don't move so much and have negative calories enabled (which you should), it will take away calories.

Thanks for your reply! I definitely have the negative calories enabled. However, last night was the first night I tried to track my sleep... and kept it on all morning while I got ready as opposed to just putting it on before I walked out the door. Do you think this might have been part of the issue?

That's not an issue, that's the correct way of doing it - first thing on.

Good to know! I'll try your suggestions. Thanks so much.