Food diary calorie question

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ethelruns
ethelruns Posts: 6 Member
in Food and Nutrition
As I log my food for the day, I always check to see how many calories I have left and how many extra calories I earned from exercise. I have noticed that calories left and calories earned decrease by the next time I log in. Why would calories earned from exercise done in the morning disappear or decrease by the evening?

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  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
    edited October 2015
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    If you have a fitness tracker enabled (Fitbit, etc.), it adjusts the calories earned every time you sync. What you see is what MFP estimates you'll burn For the entire day after seeing what the tracker shows as your burn up to that point. Move more than they expect between the last sync and the next one, you get more calories. Move less, it takes them away.
  • ethelruns
    ethelruns Posts: 6 Member
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    Thanks for the info. I understand what you're saying, but seems that if I burn 300 calories walking in the morning, the calories were burned and the number should stay the same.
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    MFP is estimating that you'll burn 300 calories over maintenance for the day at that time that you synced your tracker.

    I have a very active job and work in the mornings on weekends. Last Sunday I came home with over 14,000 steps according to my Fitbit, which gave me, say, a 750-calorie adjustment (I don't know what the actual number was) because that's what it expects that I'm going to burn. Since I didn't do much physical activity for the rest of the day, at the end of the day I only burned 600 over maintenance. I didn't meet what MFP assumed, so it had to take those extra calories off to ensure I didn't overeat.
  • ethelruns
    ethelruns Posts: 6 Member
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    Thanks for the example. I understand better now.

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