anytime i do any exercise, it shows as negative towards my calories

slickmickey
slickmickey Posts: 113 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
i dont know whats going on, it happened yesterday too and suddenly fixed itself around dinner time, but if i do any sort of exercise, all of a sudden the exercise calories i was getting back from my steps suddenly goes negative (like a lot!). i'm not exercising a lot either, like yesterday was 5 minutes on the elliptical and today was 7 and i was suddenly negative 250 calories. should i just turn off negative calorie adjustment since i hardly get back any to begin with (dealing with plantar fasciitis so i'm hardly hitting 5000 steps, and just slowly adding in the elliptical until i can actually walk). i just dont get whats making it go negative if there is any additional exercise added in

Replies

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    You're getting negative calorie adjustments because your actual activity is less than what is stated as your activity level in MFP.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    There are 2 possibilities.

    1. MFP is working as it's supposed to, and you need to eat those calories
    2. You've overestimated your activity level and your base calories/activity are too high.
  • slickmickey
    slickmickey Posts: 113 Member
    i have my stuff set at 1lb a week, sedentary, 0 days of exercise (i get 1450ish calories a day).
  • slickmickey
    slickmickey Posts: 113 Member
    just as an example - it's not even 11:30am today, i decided to run down to the elliptical since i am killing time until lunch, did 51 calories on the treadmill, but am suddenly showing exercise of -199 (like it's taking it away from my food! ). it did the same thing yesterday until about 6:30pm and suddenly went back to positive for no reason other than i keep refreshing the app
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    A screenshot would help, but it sounds like it's doing what it's supposed to.




  • angelsja
    angelsja Posts: 859 Member
    What's your activity level set at?
  • slickmickey
    slickmickey Posts: 113 Member
    i guess i'm just confused - i thought if you exercise you should get calories BACK, not have more taken away
  • slickmickey
    slickmickey Posts: 113 Member
    wxrtostkz3p6.png
  • slickmickey
    slickmickey Posts: 113 Member
    thats really strange that it shows i only have 2000 steps, i have 3100 and that shows on the home page... i guess i'll just eat to 1450 and forget about the exercise stuff. whats an extra 25-50 calories!?
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    MFP and whatever is providing your step calories have norming and smoothing functions and assume that your activity level will not be spikey(which is ridiculous, because life/activity is spikey). So your step tracker passes MFP a calorie estimate that may be for the whole day, or may be just up till 1130. MFP then plugs that number into formulas that smooth out the number and estimate against the whole day(or maybe just up till 1130)

    You'll note that since both the step tracker and MFP use proprietary formulae, until midnight, they'll be adjusting and revising based on your activity.

  • Go_Deskercise
    Go_Deskercise Posts: 1,630 Member
    edited July 2018
    It might help you understand that when you have negative calories enabled, it is calculating your anticipated progress for the ENTIRE day even before you do it depending how active you told MFP you are daily. As you go about your day and sync in activity, the negative should start going away slowly as you burn the calories it has anticipated for you. If you are still left with a negative towards the end of the the day, then two things may have occurred... Malfunction in syncing your activity correctly or you are not as active as you told MFP you are daily. This would be an indication to decrease your activity level in MFP or better yet, move more.

    Hope that helps :)

    edit: punctuation and spelling
  • slickmickey
    slickmickey Posts: 113 Member
    either way i'm eating 1450. i sit at my desk all day, told it i did that when i set up my goals. now it's going to make me feel bad i went down 4 flights of steps and got on the elliptical. it should be proud of me! haha
  • manderson27
    manderson27 Posts: 3,510 Member
    I am not very active due to health issues so I switched off the negative calorie adjustment for this very reason. I find it a bit depressing to be reminded throughout the day that I haven't moved much.

    I do like it when I have a good day and have moved a bit more than expected and it gives me extra calories :)
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    IF the number bothers you, by all means turn it off.

    Understand though, that by turning it off you're making it harder to get good weekly estimates.

    Ideally, while you input data throughout the day/week you shouldn't be concerned with the output except on a weekly or monthly basis for determining whether or not your progress and estimates are consistent.
  • slickmickey
    slickmickey Posts: 113 Member
    pv4m47qcbrq3.png
    It just fixed itself like last night... I don’t understand lol
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    slickmickey wrote: »
    pv4m47qcbrq3.png
    It just fixed itself like last night... I don’t understand lol

    Look at the post @stanmann571 made above in regards to smoothing.

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    stanmann571 wrote: »
    MFP and whatever is providing your step calories have norming and smoothing functions and assume that your activity level will not be spikey(which is ridiculous, because life/activity is spikey). So your step tracker passes MFP a calorie estimate that may be for the whole day, or may be just up till 1130. MFP then plugs that number into formulas that smooth out the number and estimate against the whole day(or maybe just up till 1130)

    You'll note that since both the step tracker and MFP use proprietary formulae, until midnight, they'll be adjusting and revising based on your activity.

    Read this OP...this explains why it "fixed" itself...
  • gobonas99
    gobonas99 Posts: 1,049 Member
    slickmickey wrote: »
    thats really strange that it shows i only have 2000 steps, i have 3100 and that shows on the home page...

    try going into garmin or fitbit or whatever app you use to track your steps and syncing. When my MFP steps are out of whack, usually syncing the original app and my watch fixes it. :smile:

  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    gobonas99 wrote: »
    slickmickey wrote: »
    thats really strange that it shows i only have 2000 steps, i have 3100 and that shows on the home page...

    try going into garmin or fitbit or whatever app you use to track your steps and syncing. When my MFP steps are out of whack, usually syncing the original app and my watch fixes it. :smile:
    While you can constantly or repeatedly sync, the devices/apps aren't actually best used in that manner, when the goal is weight/fat loss.

    You will encounter discrepencies as you've seen because even though some of the data appears to sync, it's not actually syncing in near real time. At best it's syncing every 15 minutes(which isn't to say that it's only syncing on the 15s-0/15/30/45 but rather that if it's been less than 15 minutes, it's probably going to show you cached data) . If you're continuously syncing the apps and devices, the primary result is going to be continued frustration, and your data isn't going to be higher quality or more useful)
  • gobonas99
    gobonas99 Posts: 1,049 Member
    stanmann571 wrote: »
    gobonas99 wrote: »
    slickmickey wrote: »
    thats really strange that it shows i only have 2000 steps, i have 3100 and that shows on the home page...

    try going into garmin or fitbit or whatever app you use to track your steps and syncing. When my MFP steps are out of whack, usually syncing the original app and my watch fixes it. :smile:
    While you can constantly or repeatedly sync, the devices/apps aren't actually best used in that manner, when the goal is weight/fat loss.

    You will encounter discrepencies as you've seen because even though some of the data appears to sync, it's not actually syncing in near real time. At best it's syncing every 15 minutes(which isn't to say that it's only syncing on the 15s-0/15/30/45 but rather that if it's been less than 15 minutes, it's probably going to show you cached data) . If you're continuously syncing the apps and devices, the primary result is going to be continued frustration, and your data isn't going to be higher quality or more useful)

    Not saying to "constantly sync", just sharing an observation. I might manually sync once a day, if that, and it's usually because I see in MFP that it's missing my workout (but my "daily calorie adjustment" is showing calories that equate to my workout), and also notice that my steps are off. So I go manually sync my watch in Garmin Connect, and boom, my workout is now in MFP and my steps/daily calorie adjustment are correct.
  • agoofynut
    agoofynut Posts: 101 Member
    edited July 2018
    OP - In the screenshot you posted where you said it fixed it, look at your steps and see how out to the right it gave you a 10 calorie "credit" and then next to the elliptical it says 51. Add the 10 and 51 and that's the 61 calorie credit that shows at the top (giving you more calories to eat, if you wish). MFP has a number of steps that it thinks you should be getting a day (even being marked as sedentary), because barring a medical condition everyone gets in some steps a day. So earlier in the day when it was "broken" it was taking 250 calories away for your steps because you weren't even getting as many steps in the entire day as it expected for a sedentary person. Once your day caught up, it adjusted. (It showed -199 in the "broken" screen shot because the -250(for steps)+51(for elliptical) equals -199)

    Personally, I'd turn it off but keep in mind that if you don't have at least 3000 steps, that you may not want to eat all 1450 calories since it looks like that's about where MFP expects you to be for 1450 to be effective for your goals.

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