fluctuating "extra calores from exercise"

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meltedsno
meltedsno Posts: 208 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
*You've earned 164 extra calories from exercise today"

This is the message that I had on MFP after logging all my food for the day yesterday.... EXCEPT, this is the message that appeared this morning after I rechecked my log from yesterday -- when I went to bed (quite early--7:15pm-- I have to get up at 3:30am for work), the message said "You've earned 333 extra calories from exercise today". so between 7:15pm and midnight, I suddenly lost 169 extra calories??? I do not eat back the extra calories.... had I done so when I was told that I earned 333 extra calories from exercise, I would have actually over eaten 169 calories by the end of the day, correct??? I have seen this work in reverse also -- will have one amount telling me I earned x amount of extra calories from exercise --- and then the next day, that number has changed to xxx amount..... For this reason, I do not eat back extra calories because I do not want to end up over eating.

I should mention that I use a fitbit one and do NOT manually enter any exercise into MFP -- I allow the Fitbit to do so..... so can someone explain to me why my earned extra calories fluctuate throughout the day? I pretty much understand how MFP and Fitbit work together except for this part.... and for what it's worth.... from July 1 to Nov 21, I have lost 52 pounds, so I know I am doing something right. I do not weigh myself on a regular basis -- last weigh in was Nov 21 and that was only because of a doctor appt. next weigh in will probably be April....

Replies

  • pinkiemarie252
    pinkiemarie252 Posts: 222 Member
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    I don't have a fitbit so I'm just going by what I've read on the forums, but I think it logs calories for you based on what it thinks you're burning over a certain time period including all that good stuff like breathing, brain and heartbeat, so you should have your MFP goals set to sedentary. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken on that point.
  • crumbtinies
    crumbtinies Posts: 29 Member
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    I don't have my fitbit synced to MFP, but from what I've read on the forums (and played around with on my own) there is a setting on fitbit that uses your past activity history to estimate your calories burned for the day. If the actual amount is different from this estimate, it will fluctuate at the end of the day as you're describing. If you go into your fitbit dashboard and go to the food tab, under "food plan" there is a little gear for settings, click that and you have two options: Personalized is the one that uses past activity to estimate your daily calorie burn, and sedentary just goes by what you've actually done that day.

    I think changing this setting may help with what you are describing, but I could be wrong, since I don't link my accounts.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    One of the reasons I don't sync my fitbit to MFP! Fitbit's total varies a lot, and it still goes on until midnight. Sometimes I assumes it's going to add 200 calories to my total after I go to bed, but it only adds 100, and it would totally mess up my MFP goal.

    Bottom line is... fitbit isn't accurate. Sometimes the numbers it gives make no sense whatsoever. Personally, I'd use it as a guideline to pick a goal (say... take the average of the last two weeks and eat that minus 500, or 20%, whatever you like), but I wouldn't sync it.
  • editorgrrl
    editorgrrl Posts: 7,060 Member
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    MFP has a "Fitbit Users" group: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/forums/show/1307-fitbit-users

    Here's how Fitbit calorie adjustments work:

    When you set up your MFP account, you specified an activity level: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided MFP used your answer, plus your age, sex & height, to estimate how many calories you burn every day (your TDEE). Then you set your weight-loss goal, and MFP subtracted the appropriate deficit to calculate your daily calorie goal.

    Once you link an activity tracker to your MFP account (via the "Apps" tab at the top of every page), you start getting calorie adjustments. If your tracker says you burned more calories than MFP estimated, you get a positive adjustment (meaning more calories to eat). If you enable negative calorie adjustments and you burn less than the MFP estimate, you will lose calories. (But negative calorie adjustments will never drop your daily calories below 1,200.)

    Log food & drink in MFP. No need to log step based activity. Log non-step based exercise (like swimming or spinning) either in Fitbit or in MFP--never both. If you choose to log in MFP, you'll be asked for start & end times. Then MFP will override your step data during that time.

    It will take trial & error to find what settings work best for you.
  • meltedsno
    meltedsno Posts: 208 Member
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    thanks for all the responses! I did go back into the settings on the Fitbit and noticed there was an option for "estimating calories", which was enabled... I disabled that setting and will see if this makes a difference... am thinking that enabling "estimating calories" is the default setting. I got a Fitbit One for Christmas-- had a Fitbit Ultra prior to that and do not recall having this issue with the Ultra.... If it works, great! If not, I've managed to work around the fluctuation... would make me sick, though, if I were to inadvertently eat back my exercise calories come to find out that they are not accurate!!! thanks again...

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