fitbit calorie adjustment problem. seriously confused

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jbug5j
jbug5j Posts: 277 Member
in Motivation and Support
i have noticed that a few times this past week that my calories left have changed. one day i was under by 51 calories, i stayed up after midnight and that number was the same. then the next day i checked again and it said i had gone over by 28. another day, again after i was done eating, i had gone over by 48 calories. and again, the next day when i checked that number had gone up to 248! i dont understand what is gong on. another day it did this as well, i was under for the day and the next day it showed i was a couple hundred over. all of this without me changing anything. it looks like im losing my "extra calories from exercise" as well. the number is in the hundreds and the next day its less than 100. im so confused!

Replies

  • mygrl4meee
    mygrl4meee Posts: 943 Member
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    Hope someone answers your question. I have the same issue.
  • jbug5j
    jbug5j Posts: 277 Member
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    i got this answer on the help board.

    Hi,
    Thank you for taking the time to post your question.
    The reason why this is happening is because your Fitbit adjustment throughout the day is a projection. It is not official until the day is over.
    For that reason we recommend syncing your tracker as often as possible in order to make it as accurate as possible.
    Hope this helps.
    Cheers,
    Justin
    MyFitnessPal Staff

    it makes sense kind of... but seriously BS if thats what it is. *shrug* oh well. i had 400 calories left today so lets hope, if there IS an adjustment it isnt that big of one. *sigh*
  • jaz050465
    jaz050465 Posts: 3,508 Member
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    i got this answer on the help board.

    Hi,
    Thank you for taking the time to post your question.
    The reason why this is happening is because your Fitbit adjustment throughout the day is a projection. It is not official until the day is over.
    For that reason we recommend syncing your tracker as often as possible in order to make it as accurate as possible.
    Hope this helps.
    Cheers,
    Justin
    MyFitnessPal Staff


    it makes sense kind of... but seriously BS if thats what it is. *shrug* oh well. i had 400 calories left today so lets hope, if there IS an adjustment it isnt that big of one. *sigh*

    But that doesn't make sense it it is changing after 12. I presume you syn it at 12.
  • jaz050465
    jaz050465 Posts: 3,508 Member
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    Here is info from the MFP help section, does this help:

    How exactly is my Fitbit Calorie Adjustment calculated?

    To understand your Fitbit Calorie Adjustment for any completed day, take your "Calories burned from normal daily activity" on your goals page (http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/my_goals)

    Add to it any exercise calories you've burned as shown in your exercise diary, but don't include your Fitbit Adjustment

    Compare that total to your calories burned on your Fitbit (only if it's an entire day's worth of calories)

    The difference between the two is your Fitbit adjustment

    The adjustment that you see during the course of an incomplete day is a projection made for the entire day, based on the amount of activity currently reported by Fitbit. Your adjustment will become more accurate of the course of the day, each time your Fitbit has a chance to update with your account on fitbit.com.

    If you are less active than our MyFitnessPal calculations have estimated, you may receive a "negative" adjustment to keep you closer to your intended Net Calorie goal. If you are more active than our estimates expect, you will receive additional calories in the form of a "positive" adjustment.

    Details about the calculation of any adjustment can be viewed by clicking the small "i" next to the adjustment in your Exercise Diary (on the full website).

    By default, MyFitnessPal will show you only positive calorie adjustments. To permit negative adjustments, log in to the full MyFitnessPal site at http://www.myfitnesspal.com and click "My Home" then "Settings" then "Diary Settings" then click "Enable Negative Adjustments" then "Save Changes."

    If you are typically unable to sync your device until late in the day, you may wish to leave negative adjustments "off."

    Here is a more detailed explanation of the way we calculate the projected adjustment before a day is over:

    If you only have a partial day's worth of calories on your Fitbit, we calculate how many minutes are left in the day, and we use that to create a projection for how many calories you'll burn today.

    The calculation is: Fitbit calories so far for the day + (minutes left in the day / total minutes in a day) * (calories burned from normal daily activity)

    So for example, if it's 12 noon, you've burned 1200 calories so far today according to Fitbit, and your calories burned from normal daily activity on MFP is 2000, the projection is:

    1200 + (720 / 1440) * 2000 =
    1200 + (1/2) * 2000 =
    1200 + 1000=
    2200
    so the adjustment becomes
    2200 - 2000 (mfp calories burned from normal daily activity)=
    200
  • jbug5j
    jbug5j Posts: 277 Member
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    it makes sense now... its just really REALLY stupid. i workout and eat small so i can eat what i want if a yummy option becomes available. it is very deceptive.... i have been going to bed thinking ive been under all these times... then i wake up and nope. :( im not looking forward to saturdays weigh in at all. i REALLY hope i at least havent gained anything. :/
  • jbug5j
    jbug5j Posts: 277 Member
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    i think... i may have found a thing to fix the bitbit issue! i was looking around my dashboard and found a hidden-ish setting. under the food section where you log, there is a "food plan" box. in that box is a little settings gear looking thing. i changed mine to sedentary. if im understanding this correctly it will give me real time calories burned, instead of an estimate. how many calories i have left will start out low but increase over the day as i earn them. and since im using mfp that just means it will stay at 1200 (or whatever yours is) until i start burning enough to matter. I THINK! :D hope this helps!
  • eaglegrl76
    eaglegrl76 Posts: 2 Member
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    Just got my force last night...

    Sheesh that was hidden! Took my a bit to realize I have to close the box in order to see the cog!
    I shall give that a whirl.

    To be honest I'm a bit confused how it all works - integrating into MFP. Maybe I'm over thinking it, maybe they have tried to make it so dead simple that I'm not getting it! Instructions are a wee bit vague.

    Until then I shall walk and see how my exercise comes thru to MFP...and maybe tonight I will both track my zzzzz AND not remove the thing in my sleep ;)
  • jaz050465
    jaz050465 Posts: 3,508 Member
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    i think... i may have found a thing to fix the bitbit issue! i was looking around my dashboard and found a hidden-ish setting. under the food section where you log, there is a "food plan" box. in that box is a little settings gear looking thing. i changed mine to sedentary. if im understanding this correctly it will give me real time calories burned, instead of an estimate. how many calories i have left will start out low but increase over the day as i earn them. and since im using mfp that just means it will stay at 1200 (or whatever yours is) until i start burning enough to matter. I THINK! :D hope this helps!

    Not sure what you mean by the cog but if you set your MFP activity level to sedentary, it will start off expecting you to do very little in the day ( it's about 5000 steps). MFP will give you a lower number of cals. If you then move more, it will add on the extra cals as an adjustment. If you set MFP to active, you will get more cals to start but if you don't do enough activity, if you have negative cals enabled, it will then give you a negative adjustment. Either way, the overall cals will be the same though.
  • jbug5j
    jbug5j Posts: 277 Member
    Options
    i think... i may have found a thing to fix the bitbit issue! i was looking around my dashboard and found a hidden-ish setting. under the food section where you log, there is a "food plan" box. in that box is a little settings gear looking thing. i changed mine to sedentary. if im understanding this correctly it will give me real time calories burned, instead of an estimate. how many calories i have left will start out low but increase over the day as i earn them. and since im using mfp that just means it will stay at 1200 (or whatever yours is) until i start burning enough to matter. I THINK! :D hope this helps!

    Not sure what you mean by the cog but if you set your MFP activity level to sedentary, it will start off expecting you to do very little in the day ( it's about 5000 steps). MFP will give you a lower number of cals. If you then move more, it will add on the extra cals as an adjustment. If you set MFP to active, you will get more cals to start but if you don't do enough activity, if you have negative cals enabled, it will then give you a negative adjustment. Either way, the overall cals will be the same though.

    im talking about on the fitbit dashboard. not mfp :)
  • jaz050465
    jaz050465 Posts: 3,508 Member
    Options
    i think... i may have found a thing to fix the bitbit issue! i was looking around my dashboard and found a hidden-ish setting. under the food section where you log, there is a "food plan" box. in that box is a little settings gear looking thing. i changed mine to sedentary. if im understanding this correctly it will give me real time calories burned, instead of an estimate. how many calories i have left will start out low but increase over the day as i earn them. and since im using mfp that just means it will stay at 1200 (or whatever yours is) until i start burning enough to matter. I THINK! :D hope this helps!

    Not sure what you mean by the cog but if you set your MFP activity level to sedentary, it will start off expecting you to do very little in the day ( it's about 5000 steps). MFP will give you a lower number of cals. If you then move more, it will add on the extra cals as an adjustment. If you set MFP to active, you will get more cals to start but if you don't do enough activity, if you have negative cals enabled, it will then give you a negative adjustment. Either way, the overall cals will be the same though.

    im talking about on the fitbit dashboard. not mfp :)

    Ah- ok. I wouldn't worry about fitbit website. Just use the MFP one and do as I suggested above.
  • jbug5j
    jbug5j Posts: 277 Member
    Options
    i think... i may have found a thing to fix the bitbit issue! i was looking around my dashboard and found a hidden-ish setting. under the food section where you log, there is a "food plan" box. in that box is a little settings gear looking thing. i changed mine to sedentary. if im understanding this correctly it will give me real time calories burned, instead of an estimate. how many calories i have left will start out low but increase over the day as i earn them. and since im using mfp that just means it will stay at 1200 (or whatever yours is) until i start burning enough to matter. I THINK! :D hope this helps!

    Not sure what you mean by the cog but if you set your MFP activity level to sedentary, it will start off expecting you to do very little in the day ( it's about 5000 steps). MFP will give you a lower number of cals. If you then move more, it will add on the extra cals as an adjustment. If you set MFP to active, you will get more cals to start but if you don't do enough activity, if you have negative cals enabled, it will then give you a negative adjustment. Either way, the overall cals will be the same though.

    im talking about on the fitbit dashboard. not mfp :)

    Ah- ok. I wouldn't worry about fitbit website. Just use the MFP one and do as I suggested above.

    thats what i am doing :) im just saying, that this little setting on fitbit dashboard will make the calories it gives you more stable. thats all. its for the few of us who were waking up the next day and the remaining calories we had, were changed or gone. or we were over when we thought we were fine. :)
  • ohiofreebird
    ohiofreebird Posts: 7 Member
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    Thanks for the explanation! I enabled the negative adjustment too.
  • CaitlinW19
    CaitlinW19 Posts: 431 Member
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    i think... i may have found a thing to fix the bitbit issue! i was looking around my dashboard and found a hidden-ish setting. under the food section where you log, there is a "food plan" box. in that box is a little settings gear looking thing. i changed mine to sedentary. if im understanding this correctly it will give me real time calories burned, instead of an estimate. how many calories i have left will start out low but increase over the day as i earn them. and since im using mfp that just means it will stay at 1200 (or whatever yours is) until i start burning enough to matter. I THINK! :D hope this helps!

    Thanks for this! Just got my fitbit yesterday and I've been searching a good part of the day for some answers to what is going on. (doesn't seem right that I should get 60 exercise calories first thing in the morning when all I've done is get up, go to the bathroom and go back and forth between the kitchen and the couch for coffee refills). I set up my plan in fitbit and had a bit of trouble finding the sedentary radio button, but I finally did so I think I'm at least better set up. Got this to have a more accurate idea of how many calories I should be eating not more confusion on it! :-) Thanks for sharing this tidbit.
  • vickytoria82
    vickytoria82 Posts: 3
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    I have myfitnesspal set to sedentary and then I sync my fitbit at the end of the day. I generally know I am going to have earned extra calories as I walk a lot in my job but I do like to leave finding this out later in the evening. (stops me going over then) at the weekend it's slightly different as i'm less active.
    It seems to work for me but you do have to set your activity level to sedentary other wise you are gaining extra calories that you haven't actually burned.
  • tay0709
    tay0709 Posts: 36 Member
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    Thankyou for posting this question... It's been driving me insane thinking I have enough after dinner to then get to just going to bed and having nothing or negative calories left. I'm hoping this makes it easier now! :)

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