Confused about exercise calories
michta68
Posts: 4 Member
I feel like I should be able to figure this out but so far no luck. I've read some other posts with similar questions but I'm still confused. I use a Garmin Vivofit to track steps and it is linked to MFP where I log food. I weigh 137 pounds and have my goal to lose .5 pound per week. I have my activity level set to active. My calorie goal is 1750 which seems reasonable to me. Yesterday I walked over 25000 steps. I didn't record any of it as exercise. I consumed about 1700 calories. This morning when I synced everything up it shows that I have -65 exercise calories?! How is that possible? I need help understanding this please! I've been using MPG for months and have successfully lost 26 pounds. This issue with negative exercise calories is new. As little as 2 weeks ago when I had that many steps, I would earn positive exercise calories. Can anyone help? This seems wrong to me. Thanks!
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Replies
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Did you adjust your activity level in MFP?0
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Set MFP to sedentary and 0.5 lbs/week weight loss. Garmin will track your activity and increase your calories as needed.
Do you mean you have -65 for today, not yesterday? If so, that is because you have not moved yet, so garmin is saying you don't need that many calories since you haven't done anything yet. It should increase by the end of the day when you have done more. You can also turn off the negative calorie adjustments on the computer by going home, diary settings, and unchecking the enable negative calorie adjustments box.1 -
I have a Fitbit and I generally wake up with negative calories myself. That goes away once I get up and start moving.1
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I did change my activity level to active because I am consistently getting 20000 steps per day. I like seeing my calories up front and completely understand that I need more steps before any positive exercise calories kick in. And to clarify, the -65 calories was from yesterday. I guess my ultimate question is how can 25000 steps ever result in losing calories? That doesn't make any sense to me.0
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did you get on the garmin connect site to see what the device said you burned yesterday total?0
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I did change my activity level to active because I am consistently getting 20000 steps per day. I like seeing my calories up front and completely understand that I need more steps before any positive exercise calories kick in. And to clarify, the -65 calories was from yesterday. I guess my ultimate question is how can 25000 steps ever result in losing calories? That doesn't make any sense to me.
That's the difference.
MFP tries to balance your activity setting with your activity tracker. So if you're set to active in MFP, but your tracker shows you as inactive for a given day/time, MFP will give you a negative calorie adjustment because you didn't do what MFP expected you to do. Does that make sense?
As for why/how 25,000 steps leads to a negative adjustment... Because 25000 steps isn't quite up to the activity level MFP expects from someone who sets their activity level as active. IME, steps don't automatically equal cals burned, which is what MFP is ultimately based on.1 -
4legsRbetterthan2 wrote: »did you get on the garmin connect site to see what the device said you burned yesterday total?
Yes, Garmin says I have 450 activity calories and that I have 493 calories left. That seems extreme in the other direction!0 -
4legsRbetterthan2 wrote: »did you get on the garmin connect site to see what the device said you burned yesterday total?
Yes, Garmin says I have 450 activity calories and that I have 493 calories left. That seems extreme in the other direction!
IMO, pick 1 and use it. Either go by MFP's recommendations, or use Garmin's numbers. Not both. If you have 2 watches, you'll never know what time it is.
Do people even still wear watches, or just me? Maybe I'm old. Whatever, it's a good analogy.1 -
I did change my activity level to active because I am consistently getting 20000 steps per day. I like seeing my calories up front and completely understand that I need more steps before any positive exercise calories kick in. And to clarify, the -65 calories was from yesterday. I guess my ultimate question is how can 25000 steps ever result in losing calories? That doesn't make any sense to me.
That's the difference.
MFP tries to balance your activity setting with your activity tracker. So if you're set to active in MFP, but your tracker shows you as inactive for a given day/time, MFP will give you a negative calorie adjustment because you didn't do what MFP expected you to do. Does that make sense?
As for why/how 25,000 steps leads to a negative adjustment... Because 25000 steps isn't quite up to the activity level MFP expects from someone who sets their activity level as active. IME, steps don't automatically equal cals burned, which is what MFP is ultimately based on.
I guess I understand the math but not the logic. I spend about 2 hours walking at a pretty good pace most mornings (usually 12000-15000 steps). I then get usually 5000-10000 more steps over the course of my regular day. I don't log any of it as exercise. I find it hard to see any world where that would not be considered active. I do appreciate the explanation:)0 -
I did change my activity level to active because I am consistently getting 20000 steps per day. I like seeing my calories up front and completely understand that I need more steps before any positive exercise calories kick in. And to clarify, the -65 calories was from yesterday. I guess my ultimate question is how can 25000 steps ever result in losing calories? That doesn't make any sense to me.
That's the difference.
MFP tries to balance your activity setting with your activity tracker. So if you're set to active in MFP, but your tracker shows you as inactive for a given day/time, MFP will give you a negative calorie adjustment because you didn't do what MFP expected you to do. Does that make sense?
As for why/how 25,000 steps leads to a negative adjustment... Because 25000 steps isn't quite up to the activity level MFP expects from someone who sets their activity level as active. IME, steps don't automatically equal cals burned, which is what MFP is ultimately based on.
I guess I understand the math but not the logic. I spend about 2 hours walking at a pretty good pace most mornings (usually 12000-15000 steps). I then get usually 5000-10000 more steps over the course of my regular day. I don't log any of it as exercise. I find it hard to see any world where that would not be considered active. I do appreciate the explanation:)
Active is a subjective term and, to me, more about how much you move. How much you move may or may not equate to a significant increase in calories burned. For example, I get about 300 more cals burned from 15k steps when those 15k steps include a 5mi run vs when it is strictly walking around/being on my feet. To MFP, which is focused on calories, that's meaningful.
Don't take it as indicative of how active you are or aren't. If anything, take it as an indicator of how strenuous your active time is (but even that might be a stretch).
And just to throw this out there... 65 calories is NOTHING. So if you're thread is more based on understanding the method/principle, great. If it's because you're worried about 65 cals... oish.0 -
I did change my activity level to active because I am consistently getting 20000 steps per day. I like seeing my calories up front and completely understand that I need more steps before any positive exercise calories kick in. And to clarify, the -65 calories was from yesterday. I guess my ultimate question is how can 25000 steps ever result in losing calories? That doesn't make any sense to me.
That's the difference.
MFP tries to balance your activity setting with your activity tracker. So if you're set to active in MFP, but your tracker shows you as inactive for a given day/time, MFP will give you a negative calorie adjustment because you didn't do what MFP expected you to do. Does that make sense?
As for why/how 25,000 steps leads to a negative adjustment... Because 25000 steps isn't quite up to the activity level MFP expects from someone who sets their activity level as active. IME, steps don't automatically equal cals burned, which is what MFP is ultimately based on.
I guess I understand the math but not the logic. I spend about 2 hours walking at a pretty good pace most mornings (usually 12000-15000 steps). I then get usually 5000-10000 more steps over the course of my regular day. I don't log any of it as exercise. I find it hard to see any world where that would not be considered active. I do appreciate the explanation:)
"Active" in MFP terms is someone who spends the majority of their day walking and on their feet due to their job. Two hours of walking is a good amount of activity, but it doesn't necessarily meet the standard that MFP has for active. Don't think of it as a judgment on your lifestyle -- many people who get enough activity to support health and fitness don't meet MFP's standard for "active."
You can choose whether or not you want to keep it at "active" and sometimes see negative adjustments (like you did yesterday) or you can choose a lower activity level.1 -
You were active, almost enough that your amount of steps equaled what MFP has for acitve. If you took another 1000 or so steps you probably would have had no adjustment, if were set as sedentary, your calorie goal would have been lower (say 1400 calories) and the sync would have added an extra 300 cals to get you to 1700, six of one, half a dozen of the other. you ended up in the same place as you would have
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With MFP I like to set it to sedentary, and it will give me my extra activity calories as I go. I like seeing what I need each new day. Like everyone said, pick one.0
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