Calorie/step adjustment disappears after treadmill entry. Grrrr

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DoctorScary
DoctorScary Posts: 4 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hello all! Is there a way to stop the app from wiping out my calories for steps burned after I enter a treadmill entry? I understand that the app thinks that it's a substitute but it's NOT. Its an ADDITION to. My phone is not with me on the treadmill. Therefore when I enter a 1000 calorie burn in the evening it's in ADDITION to what I walked all day. Not a substitute for it. Thanks in advance!

Replies

  • lemonychild
    lemonychild Posts: 654 Member
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    Are you putting in the RIGHT time of that excercise? Also a 1000 cal burn is a number that is pretty high for treadmill burn unless u on it a few hours
  • RuNaRoUnDaFiEld
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld Posts: 5,864 Member
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    How is it picking up your steps? Fitbit?
  • CyberTone
    CyberTone Posts: 7,337 Member
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    MFP is designed to overwrite the Calories from steps from a synced step tracker during the time period you log a step-based activity such as treadmill. If you want to continue to log the treadmill separately in MFP, maybe you should keep your phone with you when you use the treadmill. That way you will earn step Calories from the phone tracking, then when you log treadmill in MFP, it will replace the extra steps. Just a suggestion.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
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    depending on device, the device software will look at your total step info and calculate what it thinks your total calorie expenditure is. MFP will compare it's estimate (including logged exercise) to the device software's and add a correction number. Anything not seen by the tracker (either because you weren't wearing it or because it is an activity not measurable by a step tracker) will wind up getting negated.
  • DoctorScary
    DoctorScary Posts: 4 Member
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    ritzvin wrote: »
    depending on device, the device software will look at your total step info and calculate what it thinks your total calorie expenditure is. MFP will compare it's estimate (including logged exercise) to the device software's and add a correction number. Anything not seen by the tracker (either because you weren't wearing it or because it is an activity not measurable by a step tracker) will wind up getting negated.


    I don't want it to estimate. I'm on my feet all day long. If I burn 250 calories (roughly) throughout the day and then get on the treadmill at night. I want it to add them. Not "guess what it thinks I did". The stepper won't calculate what I do on the treadmill because I jog for an hour on the highest incline. The app only sees that I stepped. Not how quickly or that I'm on a drastic incline. I'm usually between 1000-1200 calories on the treadmill that should be ADDED to my daily total. Frustrating that it will not work this way.
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    I've found, over the last couple of years using MFP, that MFP will in fact start giving you calories again for steps after a point. When you enter a lot of exercise it'll overwrite the steps but if you continue to accumulate steps at some point it'll start giving you credit for them. For instance, I'll go on long walks sometimes in the tune of 5 miles or so. Any step calories I had before that is entered is negated. Because otherwise I would be double dipping the steps from the walk. It seems like I missed out on calories, but with most apps over-inflating calories burned anyway it works out for me, and actually makes the exercise calories more accurate. If, however, I continue to get steps and start to hit the 13-15k steps range that day I'll notice it start to add calories back for those steps.
  • RuNaRoUnDaFiEld
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld Posts: 5,864 Member
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    I do trail hill runs and I don't log it. My fitbit estimates my calorie burn really well. It wasn't very accurate the first month.

    How long are you running to burn 1200? That is some burn.
  • DoctorScary
    DoctorScary Posts: 4 Member
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    I'm only jogging. I do it for an hour about 4-5 days a week. I use the highest incline

  • DoctorScary
    DoctorScary Posts: 4 Member
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    Spliner1969 wrote: »
    For instance, I'll go on long walks sometimes in the tune of 5 miles or so. Any step calories I had before that is entered is negated. Because otherwise I would be double dipping the steps from the walk.

    But I'm not. It's the last thing I do for the day. It's not a double dip. It's an addition to. It'd be great and probably more helpful if MFP asked you when you entered your cardio "is this an addition to steps already walked for the day?"



  • MelanieCN77
    MelanieCN77 Posts: 4,047 Member
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    MFP takes away my step allowance for the day any time I log a workout. I just let it be, as I believe that the casual steps I take during my day even if they add up to 10k or whatever don't really count for much.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    edited February 2017
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    I would create a negative food entry to account for it and call it a day. Go to Food/My Foods/Create Food/. Fill in the blanks (I entered Running and Manual Adjustment) and click Continue. Click Nope, This Is Not A Duplicate. Enter 1 in Serving Size and Servings per container and -1 in Calories. Click Save. Then you can add it to your diary. Yes, it will be in your food but in the end all the numbers net together. Just add the number of servings equal to your calorie burn.
  • CyberTone
    CyberTone Posts: 7,337 Member
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    DoctorScary wrote: »
    Spliner1969 wrote: »
    For instance, I'll go on long walks sometimes in the tune of 5 miles or so. Any step calories I had before that is entered is negated. Because otherwise I would be double dipping the steps from the walk.

    But I'm not. It's the last thing I do for the day. It's not a double dip. It's an addition to. It'd be great and probably more helpful if MFP asked you when you entered your cardio "is this an addition to steps already walked for the day?"



    Until MFP actually programs something like that (which I doubt they will), you could stop having the phone steps automatically give you Calories by going to Steps and select "Don't track steps."

    As you noted above, the treadmill Calories are significantly more than the Calories earned from daily steps above your MFP Activity Level setting, so the daily Calories earned are not as important as the treadmill Calories.

    You could note the daily step Calories then add the time/Calories manually from those in the MFP Exercise Diary as Walking 3.0 mph. After adding those; if you do a treadmill workout, add time/Calories separately for the treadmill.
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    DoctorScary wrote: »
    But I'm not. It's the last thing I do for the day. It's not a double dip. It's an addition to. It'd be great and probably more helpful if MFP asked you when you entered your cardio "is this an addition to steps already walked for the day?"

    You're right, it would be nice. I'd put it in the suggestion forum for the future. Until then, if it's a significant amount of calories and you feel that you are actually being short changed, I'd suggest re-running the wizard and increasing your activity level (assuming you picked Sedentary) to Lightly Active so that more calories are given to you by default. Then it won't matter if those calories are taken away. Just be sure to keep an eye out to see if your weight loss slows over the period of the next month or so, if it does, you'll need to change that back. Of course that will mean that deducting those step calories was the accurate thing to do at that point. For me, MFP is more accurate because it deducts the step calories when I add a lot of exercise, but I do realize that some people have a more active lifestyle than me, and it may actually put them in a higher deficit.

  • jstonedotorg
    jstonedotorg Posts: 3 Member
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    Same thing happens to me. It removes steps calories when I enter my stationary bike ride.

    When I enter my stationary bike ride it recorded the end time when I enter it, or I can correct it to an earlier time.

    It should just override steps that occurred during the duration of the exercise and nothing else. (And maybe that should be a setting.). It already knows the start and end times of the exercise.
  • jstonedotorg
    jstonedotorg Posts: 3 Member
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    I posted it to suggestions. Please vote it up.

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10854380/dont-cancel-calorie-burn-from-step-after-entering-activity/p1?new=1
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited January 2022
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    bummer - new posting view format missed the zombie thread from 2017 being brought back!!!!
    oh well.

    So I noticed the very important question was not answered yet.

    When the exercise is logged - is there a Start time and Duration?

    I'm guessing not because of the effect described.
    But sometimes people misunderstand what is happening and calories really aren't lost, merely moved from one line to another - the total for the day stays the same.

    The latter is what happens if you have a tracker ACCOUNT linked to MFP, and in that case workouts manually entered are with a Start/Duration time.
    There is no loss of calories.

    But this sounds like merely a device MFP can get a step count from.
    It has no idea when those steps happened without an incredible increase to their programming that would basically make them into an activity tracker account.
    Cost for that being handled by a free service? Eh, I'd be very doubtful.

    There is no other way around this except allowing people to perhaps check a box on manual entry to add the calories, don't replace.
    And then for every person that understands the implications of just how wrong that can go - would be tons of people using it wrong and wondering why they have so many calories to the day as they create double-logging usage.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    jstonedotorg wrote: »
    Same thing happens to me. It removes steps calories when I enter my stationary bike ride.

    When I enter my stationary bike ride it recorded the end time when I enter it, or I can correct it to an earlier time.

    It should just override steps that occurred during the duration of the exercise and nothing else. (And maybe that should be a setting.). It already knows the start and end times of the exercise.

    If you are adding a Start/Duration time - you have a tracker account linked.

    What is happening is correct then, you are misunderstanding.

    You aren't losing step calories in this case - steps is a figure like glasses of water, sent by the tracker - no math is done with it, merely for display.

    Total Daily Burn is also a figure sent by the tracker - math is done with it.

    If you tell MFP here's a 200 cal workout, MFP assumes correctly the Total Daily Burn from the tracker already has that 200 in it (total is total afterall) - so it has to remove it from the tracker (like Fitbit Calorie Adjustment) math so it's not double counted.

    If you want to understand, post an MFP app pic for a prior day of your Exercise Diary screen, and then the details on the Adjustment line when you tap and hold to view it.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,675 Member
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    One solution is to not sync your phone to MFP. If your daily work includes 10,000 steps, then list highly active as your activity level. If you then do an hour on the TM, manually enter Running Uphill as your activity and enter the time spent or the calories given by the TM if you think they are accurate. (My TM thinks I weigh 150 lbs. and there is no place to change that, so the burn given is always too high.)

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