Garmin Negative calorie doesnt ADD up....HELP!!!

Minhq215
Minhq215 Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So i have set my activity level as "Light active" to maintain my weight i need to eat 2580 cal per day. I want to lose 1lb per week so my settings through MFP is 2080. I also wear the garmin vivoactive HR and have enabled negative calories.
From my understanding the garmin is tracking my activty through the day and is an "exact" number of calories I actually burn. So i understand if I am less active than what is on MFP I get negative calories and if I am more active I get a positive adjustment of calories. And this is all just daily tracking, independent of an exercise logged through the garmin device.

What I am having an issue in is that there seems to be a discrepancy between what garmin shows on its mobile app with what MFP is adjusting for.

For example, on the garmin connect mobile app it syncs with MFP and shows the daily calories as well an "active calories" page. for example it will show my 2080 calories + 276 active calories for a total of 2356 calories. But on MFP it doesnt show these active calories anywhere. it only shows a -149 calorie adjustment. Isnt the active calories what the garmin device is tracking? so why wouldnt that be reflected into MFP??? and why are there 2 different numbers???

I would think that whatever garmin is tracking would be transferred over to MFP and the adjustment would be made accordingly. For example on garmin connect it shows the 2080 calories + 276 active calories=2356 calories for the day. On MFP I have set 2080 calories so you would think that the active calories from garmin would transfer over as a + calorie adjustment instead of this random -149. Is this -149 saying I am 149 calories less active than what my MFP is calculated the 2080 or the 2580 for maintenance? bc if the garmin is tracking that my daily activity burns 2356 than it doesnt make any sense why there is a negative adjustment. Especially when i consume usually right around 2000-2100 calories (less than what the MFP has calculated) so the negative calorie adjustment doesnt make sense at all. How can it be negative if I am already under-eating.

Another thing I am having an issue with is that on 2 back to back days where I walked 11,911 steps and 11,921 steps the calorie adjustment is +572 calories and +170 calories respectively. How in the world can i have basically the same light active day and have such a drastic calorie adjustment??? Wth is wrong with this calorie adjustment?

Replies

  • jeanstudies
    jeanstudies Posts: 81 Member
    I don't understand what MFP is trying to accomplish with negative calorie adjustment, but I turned it off because it was negating the value of the exercise calories I'd burned. You can, by going to My Home, Diary Settings, and then unchecked "Enable negative calorie adjustment."

    Regarding the difference in calories for similar step counts, maybe you walked faster one day than the other?
  • JigglyPig
    JigglyPig Posts: 231 Member
    I am in the EXACT same boat as you, and I am equally as baffled.
  • thunder1982
    thunder1982 Posts: 280 Member
    Have you checked they are actually syncing? I sometimes check the exercise adj info to see if it has the current time or 11:59pm for the date in question. I discovered one of the updates (not sure if it was fitbit, iphone or MFP) changed my syncing pref to use my steps on my phone instead of my fitbit. (I think it was in apps/steps as now thats where I have fitbit selected over iphone).

    Also I have found people seem to have less issues if they use set themselves up as sedentary in MFP. If you are set to active and have a slow day then you'll get negative adj. If you start off sedentary it will generally only add calories. Again I sometimes see a negative adj midmorning because I havent synced my fitbit since its auto sync @ midnight so MFP thinks I am still in bed. Once I sync and it see yes I have been moving around it corrects itself.
  • adinterim
    adinterim Posts: 18 Member
    Your device says you burned 2350 calories a day.
    MFP expects you to burn 2500. When you don't, it gives you a negative adjustment of 150.
    To keep your 500 calorie deficit up, you take your burned calories (2350) minus 500, which is 1850.

    I suggest changing your activity level to sedentary. It might initially give you less calories, but you'll see more positive adjustments and those are easier to deal with.

    Sorry about the rounded numbers. On my phone, but wanted to offer my explanation anyway.

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