MFP negative calorie adjustment settings for 1lb a week loss

babymunkey69
babymunkey69 Posts: 11 Member
in Getting Started
Hey there. Could anyone help?

I have been using MFP in conjunction with an activity tracker on and off for a few years now. I have recently been trying to figure out the right settings to make sense of my daily allowance.

I have set my MFP account as sedentary so that it sits at a baseline effectively of 0 allowance for any movement or exercise.
I use RunKeeper to track exercise, either using GPS for runs/walks or manual entry for other activities.
I use a Withings tracker on a daily basis.
I have set my MFP to allow negative calorie adjustments.

So my question is that by setting my calorie calculation using the activity level of sedentary, and using the negative calorie adjustment, it feels like I am double counting "negative" activity? Is that true? Any advice?

H

Replies

  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    With a fitbit the negative calorie adjustments (if enabled) only come into play if Fitbit's opinion of your energy expenditure is less than MFPs - so if you set MFP to sedentary and leave the Fitbit on the shelf I would probably see a negative calorie adjustment.

    What (if any) negative calorie adjustments do you see ?
  • babymunkey69
    babymunkey69 Posts: 11 Member
    edited February 2015
    Thanks for the reply. Here's some examples..

    Starting from a daily calorie goal of 1500. I am genuinely mostly sedentary as I work full time office based.


    Withings Calorie Adjustment (8,187 steps) - adjustment of minus 311kcal
    RunKeeper Feed 41 minute run - adjustment of 401kcal
    Adjusted allowance 1590


    Withings Calorie Adjustment (10,205 steps) - adjustment of minus 400kcal
    RunKeeper Feed 41 minute run - adjustment of 473kcal
    Adjusted allowance 1573


    Withings Calorie Adjustment (3111 steps) - adjustment of minus 98kcal
    No exercise
    Adjusted allowance 1402

    It seems worse on days I exercise - I do a 5/6k run, and it seems to be netting off most of the steps/calorie benefit. In reality, I'm better off for it as it keeps me in check and stops me from eating back all the calories from exercise, but I was interested in the logic behind it if you can shed any light?

    Maybe I should do a test like you said and leave it at home one day...

    H
  • NikkyT30
    NikkyT30 Posts: 91 Member
    I use my fit bit and it syncs to mfp nicely. That way I don't have to worry about double tracking cause it does it for me.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    edited February 2015
    I don't know what the Withings is, but it looks like it's tracking your run as well as runkeeper ? I don't understand why the Withings is doing a negative adjustment at all TBH as you're doing quite a lot of steps.

    I would expect the Withings adjustment to be positive, with the possible exception of the no exercise -98 cal adjustment. I have negative adjustments on my fitbit turned off, but if I do say 10,000 steps it'll add a few hundred calories in the way your RunKeeper is.

    http://blog.withings.com/2013/12/10/myfitnesspal-and-the-withings-pulse-the-integration-is-now-complete-2/ might help ??
  • babymunkey69
    babymunkey69 Posts: 11 Member
    It's the same as a Fitbit - if you keep it on while running it synchs with run keeper and will account for the double count of the calories based on the time stamps for each activity period matching up.

    But seems to net off all those calories as opposed to some of them. As I said, really I'm better off as at my current weight a 1500 kcal intake even with exercise is a reasonable target, I just wondered about the numbers behind it.
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited February 2015
    I use Fitbit... and I assume the context of the way it works is similar to most trackers. The negative adjustment is the difference between Fitbit calories out and MFP daily planned calories.

    The negative adjustment for me, changes. I may have 550 calories extra, but by 7:00 p.m. the adjustment may be down to 350.

    But this is how I setup the software for Fitbit Charge. Perhaps there is a forum in MFP for RunKeeper like they have for Fitbit Users.

    But in short, there is no doubling of anything. It is a split difference between the two. But I usually have extra calories I could eat back if I choose to.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    edited February 2015
    Sedentary is not 0 activity ..it's about 1.2 of BMR so allows for general movement...I reach sedentary after tracking around 2.5 to 4000 steps

    Negative adjustment hits before I reach the minimum that sedentary is

    I generally earn about 350 calories for 10K day

    I log workouts with my HRM and can see my fitbit drop its allowance in line with that

    I don't sweat it ..it all seems to work out over time
  • babymunkey69
    babymunkey69 Posts: 11 Member
    Thanks rabbitjb - the info that sedentary is about 1.2 of BMR makes sense and accounts for some of what I'm seeing. Last few days have been telling though...

    Yesterday - no exercise, but quite a bit of walking with the kids, and to the pub last night and back. Total of 11,442 steps and only 97 calories added back. Tough eh?

    Today - total steps 5,505 steps, 250 calories from exercise (this time a BodyPump class recorded with my HR monitor). And -342 negative calories. Double tough!!

    I think I understand it a little more now, thanks all. Still seems a bit harsh, but as you all say, it works out in the end, and I would rather it was tougher on me than giving me more than I should.
  • discnjh
    discnjh Posts: 33 Member
    Something seems off. I have MFP set to active and 10k steps put me right about break-even on the calorie adjustment from fitbit. Is your profile information (weight/age/gender) set the same on MFP and withings?

  • babymunkey69
    babymunkey69 Posts: 11 Member
    edited February 2015
    I'll check - tbh I don't update them regularly - obviously my age and gender don't require updating (!) and my weight is synched from Withings scales.

    Maybe you are right and I should check with tech support, but today was complete madness. I ran this morning, so the run should have synched from RunKeeper. Also did loads of walking and pottering in the garden - recorded a total of 10.600 steps.

    For some wierd reason, MFP reported the run 3 times over, and didnt record it as having come from RK. gave me this...

    Run 442 kcal
    Run 478 kcal
    Run 423 kcal
    Withings Adjustment - minus 1123 kcal.

    Clearly something wrong today. I might try a week with taking the Activite off while exercising and see what happens....
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,151 Member
    Yes, sedentary and negative calorie adjustments enabled, is how you do it.
  • kp1979
    kp1979 Posts: 2 Member
    edited March 2015
    I have run into the same issue. Unfortunately, the math in MFP is flawed. The negative adjustments accounts for activities which the Pulse simply cannot measure. For example, i take off my Pulse while weight lifting as it does not register the 500-550 cal/hr which i burn from lifting. Therefore, if i were to enter Weight Lifting 500 calories into the Exercise tab in MFP, the Withings Adjusted Exercise would included those calories into the MFP BMR adjustment (even though i wasn't even wearing it (Adustment = Pulse Burn Projection - [MFP BMR + Logged Activity). The assumption that the Logged Activities were registered by Pulse is flawed.
    Example, my Withing Projected Burn could be 2230, my MFP estimated BMR could be 2200, but i logged an hour of Lifting that day (500). So i need to eat 2700 to Maintain my weight. But if i were to eat 2700, my MFP (and Health Mate) would say that i over-ate by 470 calories.

    The most effective way to accurately 'trick' MFP is to enter your Additional activities into MFP as a custom Food with negative calories. I have Weight Lifting as -10 calories/min (min is a serving). So lifting for 55 mins is 55 servings, or -550 calories of Food Consumption. This will subtract those exercise calories from your daily consumption. And the values in MFP and Health Mate will both have an accurate representations of my calories balance.
    Note: the MFP iPhone app WILL NOT show Foods with negative calories and the Daily Consumption will be incorrectly tallied; however, the MFP website will show it correctly, as will Health Mate (both website and app).
  • PneumaVision
    PneumaVision Posts: 44 Member
    I don't want MFP to keep adding to my calorie goal, so I enabled negative calories adjustments from Fitbit. I do record weightlifting as a cardio activity, though, so for that period of time MFP would be higher in calories expended than Fitbit. Any way I do it, it seems a bit off. I would prefer my daily calorie goal to be absolutely fixed.
  • weird_me2
    weird_me2 Posts: 716 Member
    babymunkey69 wrote: »
    I'll check - tbh I don't update them regularly - obviously my age and gender don't require updating (!) and my weight is synched from Withings scales.

    Maybe you are right and I should check with tech support, but today was complete madness. I ran this morning, so the run should have synched from RunKeeper. Also did loads of walking and pottering in the garden - recorded a total of 10.600 steps.

    For some wierd reason, MFP reported the run 3 times over, and didnt record it as having come from RK. gave me this...

    Run 442 kcal
    Run 478 kcal
    Run 423 kcal
    Withings Adjustment - minus 1123 kcal.

    Clearly something wrong today. I might try a week with taking the Activite off while exercising and see what happens....

    I think there were some system glitches yesterday that caused double posts, so that may be the case with the triple posting for your exercise. Definitely check your MFP and tracking app settings. It sounds like you are set to "active" and not "sedentary" because I've noticed that MFP seems to start making positive adjustments for sedentary for steps above 3000-4000 per day. I do get the negative adjustments from Fitbit if I log an exercise itself, but that's to be expected because it is accounting for TDEE.

    How are your losses matching up with your deficit? Mine seems to be pretty spot on for deficit vs. loss with all of the adjustments it does. I also have both MFP and my Fitbit set to lightly active instead of sedentary because I pretty much never get below 6000 steps per day and I find it motivating that if I happen to have a very sedentary day, I am reminded to move my butt because I start getting calories taken away.

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