Confused about the exercise calories earned

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CindyB97
CindyB97 Posts: 146 Member
Hi everybody! I searched and found a few other posts about this, but I'm still confused and not really sure what to do. I hope someone can help me out.

I have an UP24 and sync it with the MFP app on my iPhone. Have been doing so for months. But I've noticed something weird about the extra calories I've "earned" and it's gotten more noticeable the last few days, I think since I set it to "Slightly Active" instead of "Sedentary", and it made the issue more severe.

I exercise first thing in the morning, run or walk several miles. Obviously I earn a lot of steps on my UP band/app and they transfer over to MFP so that I have extra calories to eat. But as the day wears on, those extra calories start disappearing. I have that "Enable Negative Adjustments" checkbox blank. I have tried checking it too, but obviously that didn't work either.

For example, yesterday morning I ran several miles and when I got back I had earned almost 200 extra calories. So you would think in the course of the day as I went about my daily activities, that I would earn more calories, or at least stay the same. When I was done eating for the day I still had about 120 calories left to eat but I left them on the table. Now this evening I happened to look back at yesterday's log, and I was over 250 calories in the red! WTH??

Is it the fact that I'm exercising in the morning? So I can earn those calories but for some reason they "expire" as the day wears on? So if that's the case, I can never eat back my exercise calories!

Thanks in advance for any help you may have, and thanks for reading my rant.

Replies

  • oonga
    oonga Posts: 336 Member
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    Ok that sounds really weird!
    I don't get it either would love to hear feedback about it from experienced users too
  • send2thea
    send2thea Posts: 34 Member
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    You probably know this but just in case: If you click on the blue circled( I ) beside the UP reported exercise in MFP it should open up and tell you what the up band has reported versus what MFP has calculated your burn to be, it's only when you burn more than MFP's calculations that it gives you the extra calories back. Most likely the change from sedentary to lightly active changed your expected burn to be higher than it was previously. You can also see this info when you go into setting your goals in MFP.
    If it shows no credit at all than perhaps it didn't sync properly? I know whenever the app seems to update I have to disconnect and reconnect them to get the sync resynced.
    Or it could be something totally different, but there's some things to consider at least. :-) Hope you figure it out!
  • raymiles
    raymiles Posts: 13 Member
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    Like you, and most people, I mainly exercise in the morning. This is where I think the app throws things out. If you have burned say 500 calories in your workout, it thinks you will be burning at a similar rate for the rest of the day and adjusts accordingly. So as the day wears on, your calorie allowance will keep reducing. If this indeed is the case, it really is a bit of a nuisance. However, I think I read somewhere that over time the app learns your pattern of exercise and adjusts accordingly. I am not sure if that's been the case for me, but I am. to too concerned at present as I am not really trying to lose wight any more. Good luck.
  • calamarione
    calamarione Posts: 16 Member
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    I've had a similar difficulty.

    I did a run last night. It showed 328 cal burned. However, it also says I only did 1.74 miles, whereas my MapMyRun app says I did 1.97 miles. That's a big difference as my pace is much closer to 10min/mi vs 11 min/mi.

    Anyways, when MFP synced it only transferred over 137 cal. It uses 2941 cal burned from UP based on a Full Day Projection of 2659 cal. Then it says my MFP cal burned s 2804, so it makes an adjustment based on the difference.

    I don't really get it.
  • calamarione
    calamarione Posts: 16 Member
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    Oh, I just did the negative calorie adjustment and it moved over the calories from the work out. All good now!
    :drinker: