Daily Activity Level and Wearing an Activity Tracker

Jimbolaya64
Jimbolaya64 Posts: 7 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
My diet profile asks me to select an activity level. I have a desk job so I selected sedentary. I would assume that any activity I have during the day, either walking to pick up the office mail or a planned exercise session, would be recorded by my activity tracker and the appropriate burned calories uploaded to MFP. If I had a job with a higher level of activity I would have selected a different option in my diet profile which would then in turn increase my calories to eat for the day. However, won't my activity tracker also count that higher level of activity and upload those burned calories to MFP? That would be doubly counting my activity. It seems I should always pick a sedentary activity level if I'm wearing an activity tracker that uploads burned calories to MFP. Is my thinking off?

Replies

  • leooftheyear
    leooftheyear Posts: 429 Member
    Do you have negative calories enabled?
  • deluxmary2000
    deluxmary2000 Posts: 981 Member
    There is a set-point for steps based on activity level. I'm not sure what it is for each, but I know that I have mine set at "lightly active" and it doesn't start adding calories to my daily allowance until I hit around 6,000-7,000 steps for the day. I think when I had it set at sedentary it started giving me extra calories at around 2,000 steps. You can also "enable negative calorie adjustments". So if you say you're active and it gives you a higher calorie allowance, but then you spend a day sitting around doing nothing, it will deduct calories from your allowance for the day.
    Hope that answers your question!
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    With an activity tracker synced, you only get adjustments when you exceed the amount of movement estimated for your activity level. So it would never double-count your activity.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    Most people with a tracker do indeed pick sedentary and let the syncing do the work.

    If you were more active and chose a higher level, MFP would "know" this and not add calories until you hit the appropriate level over that activity setting. If someone chose the wrong activity level but had negative adjustments turned on, calories would be deducted.

    So regardless, there should be no double dipping if the device and app are working together correctly.
  • Rusty740
    Rusty740 Posts: 749 Member
    No, you're right. Whatever your calorie goal is, MFP will take the calories from your tracker and add them on. This is one of the reasons MFP makes "turning exercise calories off" a premium feature...because it's a good idea.

    Your far better off not looking at the "Remaining" number and eat to the "Goal" number and adjusting if you have a big calorie expenditure day.
  • MrsSeager
    MrsSeager Posts: 82 Member
    I never thought of it like that! I work a desk job and have my activity level set to sedentary. I wear an Apple Watch and all my steps and exercise is automatically uploaded to MFP. I think you logic makes sense...curious to see what other posters think.
  • PikaJoyJoy
    PikaJoyJoy Posts: 280 Member
    If you have negative calories enabled, it won't matter which activity you pick to be honest.

    If you click on your fitbit entry in your diary (on the app, I think - unless it has changed) or go to your exercise diary on the website and click on the "i" icon. It will show you that MFP has a set calorie burn for the day.

    So for example, say you pick lightly active and MFP sets the calorie burn for the day at 2000. (this is the burn, not your food calorie goal - just to be clear)

    The two websites work together to keep that amount in check. So if you end up burning 2050 calories that day, Fitbit sends a +50 to your food log.

    Now with negative calories enabled - if you came in at 1950, then Fitbit would send a -50 amount to your food log.
  • PikaJoyJoy
    PikaJoyJoy Posts: 280 Member
    edited May 2017
    Rusty740 wrote: »
    No, you're right. Whatever your calorie goal is, MFP will take the calories from your tracker and add them on. This is one of the reasons MFP makes "turning exercise calories off" a premium feature...because it's a good idea.

    Your far better off not looking at the "Remaining" number and eat to the "Goal" number and adjusting if you have a big calorie expenditure day.

    A way to get around having to pay for that is not connecting your fitbit and manually editing the calorie burn to any exercises logged to "1". A lot of people who follow TDEE -20-30% method tend to do this.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    I played with this a bit a while back.

    I'm normally between sedentary and lightly active, before recording exercise. I have a Garmin, synced to here and have negative adjustments turned on.

    If I set my activity level to sedentary, I gain a couple hundred calories over the base during a normal day.
    If I set my activity to lightly active, I gain 300 calories over sedentary, but I get ~ 100 deducted by the end of the day. The net should really not be any different (I don't remember exact numbers, but they were very close when I did play with it).

    In the end, I'd rather have a lower base and see the added calories than a higher base and lose calories. It really doesn't matter, but it just looks better to me.
  • tklivory
    tklivory Posts: 46 Member
    edited May 2017
    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    In the end, I'd rather have a lower base and see the added calories than a higher base and lose calories. It really doesn't matter, but it just looks better to me.

    That's exactly how I track with my activity tracker, too. I walk ~10k steps most days, but sometimes I walk as many as 16k and sometimes I just let it go at 3k (such as on rest days). It took me a while to trust the numbers given to me by my tracker (since I'm still not sure how Jawbone calculates them), and I still tend to leave a few (though never all!) of my exercise calories on the table if I'm not hungry, but when I need those calories it's nice to have them automagically added to my daily goal.

    But I also don't have negative calories enabled. I do not want to eat under my NEAT goal even if I don't move as much as even the Sedentary level on a particular day, mainly because I know that it's 95% likely I'll have calories 'left over' from another day of the week and it will all balance out in the end.

  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    tklivory wrote: »
    But I also don't have negative calories enabled. I do not want to eat under my NEAT goal even if I don't move as much as even the Sedentary level on a particular day, mainly because I know that it's 95% likely I'll have calories 'left over' from another day of the week and it will all balance out in the end.

    I keep it enabled just to see where I land. I decided a while back to eat 2000 cals and let the weight loss fall where it may.

  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    tklivory wrote: »
    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    In the end, I'd rather have a lower base and see the added calories than a higher base and lose calories. It really doesn't matter, but it just looks better to me.

    That's exactly how I track with my activity tracker, too. I walk ~10k steps most days, but sometimes I walk as many as 16k and sometimes I just let it go at 3k (such as on rest days). It took me a while to trust the numbers given to me by my tracker (since I'm still not sure how Jawbone calculates them), and I still tend to leave a few (though never all!) of my exercise calories on the table if I'm not hungry, but when I need those calories it's nice to have them automagically added to my daily goal.

    But I also don't have negative calories enabled. I do not want to eat under my NEAT goal even if I don't move as much as even the Sedentary level on a particular day, mainly because I know that it's 95% likely I'll have calories 'left over' from another day of the week and it will all balance out in the end.

    I used to have it enabled but the numbers were way off. My steps calories are also super lowballed for some reason. I've played around with the settings with Garmin but no change. But it's not a big deal as the exercise calories are correct and I truly am sedentary most of the time so step adjustments aren't a big deal for me.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    If you have a tracker connected, the end of day result will be the same no matter what activity level you select.

    Example (note I am at maintenance)

    a. I select sedentary and MFP tells me to eat 1650. My tracker says I burn 1800 so I get +150 to eat 1800.

    b. I select lightly active and MFP tells me to eat 1900. My activity tracker says I burn 1800 so I get -100 to eat 1800.

    MFP gets the actual calories burned data from your tracker and compares that to the calories MFP predicted based on your stated activity level. THe adjustment is + or - (unless you do not have negatives enabled, then + or 0) based on the actual vs expected.
  • SusanMFindlay
    SusanMFindlay Posts: 1,804 Member
    I use a fitness tracker and still have my activity level set to Active. It doesn't double count.

    Whereas sedentary people start to see positive adjustments at 2,000-3,000 steps, I get negative adjustments until about 8,000 steps then start to see positive adjustments.

    Why not just pick "sedentary" then? I could. It would make no difference. Psychologically, it works better for me to pick "active" since that means the unadjusted goal is a bit closer to reality (though I still typically get several hundred calories added over and above the "active" level). That's just a personal thing and will be different for different people. It would mess with my head to see "1200" at the beginning of the day when I know it's going to end up over 2000.

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