Exercise calories inaccurate?
centaine91
Posts: 4 Member
I have MFP linked up to my Fitbit so it's syncing my exercise. I understand the process of calculating my exercise calories but I just don't feel like it's accurate. On Monday I did 9446 steps and MFP has given me exercise calories of 2452! Surely I'm not meant to eat back 2452?! So everyday I'm thousands of calories in deficit. Sometimes it's up to 4000. Has anyone else had this issue or know what I can do about it? I've unlinked and relinked Fitbit multiple times to no avail.
Thank you in advance
Thank you in advance
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Replies
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Are you also entering exercise / steps manually to MFP?0
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Double check that all your stats on both MFP and Fitbit are correct and that they're set to the same goals1
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Have you linked any other apps to MFP?
I did something similar and linked Google Fit, so MFP was recording steps from Fitbit and Google Fit on my phone.
I just disconnected Google Fit in the MFP settings.
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Check your exercise diary and see if your getting multiple adjustments.0
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Your actual burn is usually half what any device would like you to believe.
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Thank you all for your replies.
I'm not entering any exercise or steps manually into MFP, I'm letting it all sync automatically.
My goals and stats are the same in both apps and its syncing my weight loss and calorie intake accurately.
No other apps linked to MFP.
Even when I do a work out, which records in Fitbit, nothing except my steps syncs across to MFP.0 -
centaine91 wrote: »Thank you all for your replies.
I'm not entering any exercise or steps manually into MFP, I'm letting it all sync automatically.
My goals and stats are the same in both apps and its syncing my weight loss and calorie intake accurately.
No other apps linked to MFP.
Even when I do a work out, which records in Fitbit, nothing except my steps syncs across to MFP.
Fitbit sends MFP:
- # steps
- total calories burned as of last sync
- weight (if logged there)*
- sleep minutes*
- bf % (I think)*
* These will be found under "Check In" on the website or under "Progress" on the app
Fitbit adjustments are to correct MFPs estimated calorie burn. If you set your activity level to low you will see a large adjustment.
That said I would check to make sure MFP hasn't added multiple adjustments to your day. There was a glitch I remember seeing posts about were people had 3-4 fitbit adjustments. This was causing what should be say 200 calories added to become 600-800.0 -
First - are you mobidly obese? Second - do you have a FitBit that measures HR?
I'm in the morbidly obese range. As I lose weight and become more fit, this is going to change, but I was ready to throw my Charge HR out because I swore it was giving me way too many calories. Then I remembered exercise afterburn. I realized my FitBit was counting it. Combined with my sedentary setting on MFP (I have an 8 hour a day desk job) I found that any time I exercised, I was earning far more than I thought I should, but metabolically speaking, probably reasonably correct.
Unless I'm super hungry, I only eat back about half of the calories earned, just in case, but it's my best theory to explain the numbers.0 -
Either you are extremely active and possibly fairly heavy in which case a TDEE of 4000 Calories IS possible, or you are getting multiple Fitbit adjustments.
Click on the little "i" in the exercise section. it will expand and tell you something along the lines of: we think you will spend 10000 calories till the end of day based on the 7021 calories you've spent by 19:03
The 7021 number should match your calories spent to the same time on Fitbit.com
Or under exercise you will see two or three fitbit adjustments... which means that the integration is glitching.2 -
Either you are extremely active and possibly fairly heavy in which case a TDEE of 4000 Calories IS possible, or you are getting multiple Fitbit adjustments.
Click on the little "i" in the exercise section. it will expand and tell you something along the lines of: we think you will spend 10000 calories till the end of day based on the 7021 calories you've spent by 19:03
The 7021 number should match your calories spent to the same time on Fitbit.com
Or under exercise you will see two or three fitbit adjustments... which means that the integration is glitching.
Those numbers do match right now... Interesting. I don't see any multiple adjustments.
I am fairly overweight and also pretty active. I do between 12k-15k steps a day (I have a very active job) as well as work out everyday.
So these calorie adjustments could actually be correct?
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@centaine91 strangely enough, I was just thinking that
I've set Myfitnesspal to lose 2lbs per week and active
It tells me I need to eat 2120 cals to lose 2lbs per week
Now, if I complete the day with no earned calories from exercising, it will say I will lose 10lbs in 5 weeks
However, if I add calories burnt from exercising, it will say I will lose more than 10lbs in 5 weeks
So basically the more it says you have left, the more you are under eating
I.e. You set a loss of 2lbs per week, and your daily allowance is 2000, you then eat 2000 that would mean you lose 2lbs per week, now if you exercise and earn 2000 calories and do not eat back those 2000 calories, you will be losing more than 2lbs per week
What worries me though, like yourself, a lot of the time it says I have several thousand calories to eat, which would mean I am eating way too little calories, I am already eating less calories to lose 2lbs per week, so for it to say I still have several thousand to eat.....0 -
At 12 to 15k you are walking (in broad terms) at the approximate very active setting of Fitness Pal.
Fitbit and MFP are performing a TDEE adjustment. They are incorrectly calling it an "exercise" adjustment for lack of better term.
All that is happening is that MFP's guess as to how much you will burn gets replaced by Fitbit's guess as to how much you did burn.
12K to 15K steps a day is (broadly speaking) the MFP very active activity level.
IF you were to setup MFP as very active and perform 12K to 15K steps at the end of the day you would have a very small (if any) adjustment.
IF you were to do this, it might help you budget your food better throughout the day.
Having said that, you would also probably want to enable negative adjustments which would reduce your calories available on days where you might not move around as much.
(note that with negative adjustments enabled you will start your day with a negative adjustment and you will also lose "exercise" calories in the evening if you become less active before midnight. this has all got to do with accounting and with the fact that MFP expects you to burn the same amount of calories per minute of the day, whereas fitbit's calories vary based on your activity.).3 -
At 12 to 15k you are walking (in broad terms) at the approximate very active setting of Fitness Pal.
Fitbit and MFP are performing a TDEE adjustment. They are incorrectly calling it an "exercise" adjustment for lack of better term.
All that is happening is that MFP's guess as to how much you will burn gets replaced by Fitbit's guess as to how much you did burn.
12K to 15K steps a day is (broadly speaking) the MFP very active activity level.
IF you were to setup MFP as very active and perform 12K to 15K steps at the end of the day you would have a very small (if any) adjustment.
IF you were to do this, it might help you budget your food better throughout the day.
Having said that, you would also probably want to enable negative adjustments which would reduce your calories available on days where you might not move around as much.
(note that with negative adjustments enabled you will start your day with a negative adjustment and you will also lose "exercise" calories in the evening if you become less active before midnight. this has all got to do with accounting and with the fact that MFP expects you to burn the same amount of calories per minute of the day, whereas fitbit's calories vary based on your activity.).
That's super helpful, thank you. I'll try setting my activity to active and turning on negative calories. I had it on lightly active as I didn't realize I would be classified as active.
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It seems obvious to me! MFP doubles counts calories expended by failing to account for TIME. You end up receiving credit for the calories you would’ve burned had you done nothing PLUS the calories you burned for the activity you actually did. This can become a BIG PROBLEM for those individuals who need to lose only 10 to 30 pounds. It could even lead to stagnation or worse, weight gain. Fitday is much more accurate in this regard; however fitday has a much smaller food selection...althg the inaccuracies and redundancies in MFP’s food are many. I really like MFD weekly digest, as I was doing this by hand on fitday, however given MFP’s exercise is gravely inaccurate, moreso with higher time entries, it’s more/less useless. I will add one possible caveat—I set my own daily calorie limit (MFP’s suggestion is too high), so it’s possible by me changing my settings it impacted the app’s ability to correctly set my net calories—which is still a BIG FAIL ON MFP’s END.8
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are you set to kilo-joules instead of calories?0
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I turned mine off because i cant sync it all and its adding to my calorie issues.0
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My Fitbit is reasonably accurate with calories it gives me for walking - but it will give me only a small amount of additional calories. I regularly walk 10000 steps a day, and that gives me about 320 or so calories on top of the sedentary setting, bringing my total maintenance allowance from about 1620 to about 1950. I’m a 5’5” woman maintaining 138 lbs.0
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OpulentSin wrote: »It seems obvious to me! MFP doubles counts calories expended by failing to account for TIME. You end up receiving credit for the calories you would’ve burned had you done nothing PLUS the calories you burned for the activity you actually did. This can become a BIG PROBLEM for those individuals who need to lose only 10 to 30 pounds. It could even lead to stagnation or worse, weight gain. Fitday is much more accurate in this regard; however fitday has a much smaller food selection...althg the inaccuracies and redundancies in MFP’s food are many. I really like MFD weekly digest, as I was doing this by hand on fitday, however given MFP’s exercise is gravely inaccurate, moreso with higher time entries, it’s more/less useless. I will add one possible caveat—I set my own daily calorie limit (MFP’s suggestion is too high), so it’s possible by me changing my settings it impacted the app’s ability to correctly set my net calories—which is still a BIG FAIL ON MFP’s END.
MFP calorie adjustments based on Fitbit do account for this.3 -
Not true. I have an Apple Watch and I've found the TDEE it calculates, which is my move calories and resting calories is pretty accurate. I'm losing just about on target based on that calculated TDEE and my food intake. Yes, heart rate monitors can be somewhat inaccurate for calculating burns of non-cardio exercise, but I've found mine to be close enough for my goals. If I only regularly ate back half of my exercise calories that it gives me, I'd be losing weight a lot more rapidly than I am currently.Your actual burn is usually half what any device would like you to believe.
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