Negative calorie adjustments

lolaandbehold
lolaandbehold Posts: 9 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
i have set up negative calorie adjustments for my fitness pal, linked up with my Polar Loop. However I'm regularly doing exercise sessions and burning 500+ calories - should I log these exercise sessions or will these be covered by the steps my polar loop has recognised? I don't want to lose out on calories burned but I also don't want to double up. Any help would be greatly appreciated. :)

Replies

  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    are they step-based?

    can you override the polar loop by time of exercise?

    do you wear your polar loop during it?

    how are you judging these 500 calorie burns - give me an example of the exercise, length and intensity
  • Keiko385
    Keiko385 Posts: 514 Member
    edited April 2015
    The only time my polar loop syncs actual exercise is if I am wearing a heart rate monitor or I use Polar Beat to log my exercises. The exercises don't come over MFP correctly sometimes but the calories burn do

    If you are just using the loop it will only bring over the calories burned up to the time of sync. You will be double counting if you record them here as exercise
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    edited April 2015
    The negative calorie adjustment will only 'show' if your actual activity level is below your MFP stated activity level.

    Lets say you tell MFP you're active, and MFP thinks you're going to burn 2500 calories total a day between BMR & regular daily activity. You sit around much of the day, only take about 3500 steps and the Polar shows your total daily burn to be 1900. If you did not have negative calories enabled - MFP would not show you that you burned 600 less than you were supposed to. So if you were eating at 2000 thru MFP for a 1 pound loss per week, you would not actually be at a deficit. With negative calories enabled, you'd see the -600 and MFP would tell you to eat 1400 instead of 2000. On the other hand, if you do have an active day - and Polar reports your total daily burn as 2700, MFP will show you an extra 200 earned regardless of whether you've enabled negative adjustments.

    Negative adjustments off: you only see the adjustment if you earn calories extra. If you have it off and you never earn extra calories, you might want to lower your activity level. You're not moving as much as you think.

    If your activity is recorded by the Polar Loop, just let it communicate with MFP. If you are like me and get a lot of activity in the evenings - it will be normal to see a negative adjustment early in the day, and then it will right itself after you're active.
  • lolaandbehold
    lolaandbehold Posts: 9 Member
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    are they step-based?

    can you override the polar loop by time of exercise?

    do you wear your polar loop during it?

    how are you judging these 500 calorie burns - give me an example of the exercise, length and intensity

    Hi, thanks for your reply. I wear the Polar Loop all day long until I go to bed. I wear the Polar Loop during exercise, but as well as that I've been using a Polar FT7 with a heart rate monitor specifically for gym sessions/runs etc, so that it's more accurate. For instance today was a HIIT run and some weights. I don't know whether to just count that as some of my daily steps (it worked up to about 6000 steps) or add it as well as my steps?
  • lolaandbehold
    lolaandbehold Posts: 9 Member
    StaciMarie1974 wrote: »
    The negative calorie adjustment will only 'show' if your actual activity level is below your MFP stated activity level.

    Lets say you tell MFP you're active, and MFP thinks you're going to burn 2500 calories total a day between BMR & regular daily activity. You sit around much of the day, only take about 3500 steps and the Polar shows your total daily burn to be 1900. If you did not have negative calories enabled - MFP would not show you that you burned 600 less than you were supposed to. So if you were eating at 2000 thru MFP for a 1 pound loss per week, you would not actually be at a deficit. With negative calories enabled, you'd see the -600 and MFP would tell you to eat 1400 instead of 2000. On the other hand, if you do have an active day - and Polar reports your total daily burn as 2700, MFP will show you an extra 200 earned regardless of whether you've enabled negative adjustments.

    Negative adjustments off: you only see the adjustment if you earn calories extra. If you have it off and you never earn extra calories, you might want to lower your activity level. You're not moving as much as you think.

    If your activity is recorded by the Polar Loop, just let it communicate with MFP. If you are like me and get a lot of activity in the evenings - it will be normal to see a negative adjustment early in the day, and then it will right itself after you're active.

    Thanks for your explanation - I have just about got my head round the negative adjustments now! The problem is with my exercise sessions when I use my Polar Loop band to count steps, as well as the Polar FT7 with heart rate monitor to accurately measure calories burned. I'm not sure whether to deduct those calories from my exercise session, or just not bother because it would be counting my steps as part of my exercise, AS WELL AS my daily steps. Does that make sense?! I'm thinking it's prob best to not bother adding the calories I've burned, because then I'm more likely to be at a deficit. confused.com!
  • Keiko385
    Keiko385 Posts: 514 Member
    Does the ft 7 have a chest strap? If it does the Loop should be able to detect it. You may have to pair it first and then scroll thru the loop to see if it picks it up. You'll see a pulsing heart with your heart rate next to it
  • deathninja82
    deathninja82 Posts: 108 Member
    Seeing as I'm on Android there's zero support, and using multiple devices screwed everything up (plus I can't stand the way it handles negatives (wake up to MFP telling you you can eat -1000 Cal today, yay!).

    I log through Polar flow web, so everyday I manually adjust using a 1min custom exercise. Doesn't allow for -ve adjustment, but having a day below that in terms of activity is thankfully rare.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    If you choose to go with the FT7: If you log it in MFP, it should ask for a start/stop time for your workout. MFP will only count one set of data. If you don't log anything, it goes by the Polar from midnight to midnight. If you log an activity, say from 1:00-1:45, for that period of time it ignores the Polar Loop and goes by what you entered.

    Keep in mind heart rate monitors are not effective at counting burn for weight sessions. Only steady state cardio, where you are constantly moving. Stopping/starting is not the same thing.

    Ultimately: judge by your results. Try a method for 4-8 weeks and compare your actual results to what you expected. If you're losing slower than you think you should, then you're overcounting calories burned. (Assuming your intake is accurate of course.)
  • lolaandbehold
    lolaandbehold Posts: 9 Member
    Keiko385 wrote: »
    Does the ft 7 have a chest strap? If it does the Loop should be able to detect it. You may have to pair it first and then scroll thru the loop to see if it picks it up. You'll see a pulsing heart with your heart rate next to it

    The ft7 does have a chest strap but unfortunately it's not compatible with the loop.
  • lolaandbehold
    lolaandbehold Posts: 9 Member
    StaciMarie1974 wrote: »
    If you choose to go with the FT7: If you log it in MFP, it should ask for a start/stop time for your workout. MFP will only count one set of data. If you don't log anything, it goes by the Polar from midnight to midnight. If you log an activity, say from 1:00-1:45, for that period of time it ignores the Polar Loop and goes by what you entered.

    Keep in mind heart rate monitors are not effective at counting burn for weight sessions. Only steady state cardio, where you are constantly moving. Stopping/starting is not the same thing.

    Ultimately: judge by your results. Try a method for 4-8 weeks and compare your actual results to what you expected. If you're losing slower than you think you should, then you're overcounting calories burned. (Assuming your intake is accurate of course.)

    I didn't realise it would only count one set of data - that's really helpful! In that case I will log the exercise for a couple of weeks and see how I'm getting on. Like you say if no results, I need to stop counting it. Thanks for the helpful advice :)
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,131 Member
    I don't have Polar stuff; but, I do have a good understanding on how this works with other products, and I have no reason to think it wouldn't work the same with Polar Flow!
    :smiley:

    Negative calorie adjustment is irrelevant for your question.
    What it does is tell MFP: "I don't trust your daily caloric burn figure"; "I trust that other app more!" If the other app says I've burned more than what you think I have, give me more food. If it says I've burned less than what you think I've burned, give me less food! The settings I've entered MFP are not really relevant: I am basing my caloric burn on what the other app says!

    My advice (so as to avoid chasing your exercise calories all day long), is to pick a level of activity for MFP such that you burn that kind of calories 80%+ of the time.

    On the few occasions you move less than normal, adjust a bit on the fly by eating a lighter supper. On most other occasions you will get a positive adjustment towards the end of the day; but it would be smaller and easier to handle than if you set yourself up as sedentary in MFP.

    Now, how to deal with activity trackers and even multiple trackers.
    What I would do is enter all my exercise through Polar's Flow.
    One has to assume that Polar is aware that people sometimes have the Loop plus another of their products, and their site will probably be equipped to figure out duplicate exercises and to only credit you with calories once. If you enter all your Calorie Out activities on their web site, they will eventually come up with your TDEE number for the day and send it to MFP. MFP will compare that number to the number it thinks you will burn based on your activity level and give you some extra calories or not.

    Now if you've collected all your Calorie In activities in MFP, you've got both sides of the ledger covered!

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