Step Count

With mfp, when you set up your account you select your activity level... and that will include your daily steps.

If you use a tracker (fitbit, garmin, not sure about Samsung health) ... it will give you extra calories when your steps go ABOVE the level expected for the activity level you have yourself set at.

Ie, if you set it to sedentary you'll get bonus calories after 4500 steps... if you set it for lightly active you wont get bonus calories until you get over 10,000 steps.

Big note: if you're using a tracker to estimate your calories ... you need to enable "negative calorie adjustments" so on the days you are sedentary, itll give you less calories.

Hope this helps.

I'm sorry to be contrarian, @heybales ... and perhaps I misunderstand...

But mfp as synched to my garmin most certainly does use the step count to adjust caloric intake. And the adjustment is based on the discrepancy between the expected activity level as set, and my actual activity level as report by Garmin.

And it not only displays the steps, but it does adjust the embedded calorie goals as a function of more or less steps taken.

As for if the math for how many calories each step is worth is being done on the garmin side or the mfp side is inconsequential. If you were just splitting those hairs then I at least understand what you mean.

But the caloric adjustment is absolutely a function of steps vs expected steps... such that if I set a custom calorie goal .. be it 1200 or 1800 cals, i always get additional calories automatically added at a specific step count ... NOT at a given calorie burn as estimated by the tracker. If I do heavy weight lifting and rowing my garmin says i Burned 3200 cals . . I still don't get extra calories added to my mfp account until I hit 4500 steps.

Just splitting hairs - because of MFP's choice to put steps near the calorie adjustment - many think it has totally to do on # of steps - not the tracker getting calories on distance from those steps.

You will frequently find questions as to why the adjustment was different for almost the exact # of steps.
Because steps does not equal calories directly, and not by MFP anyway.

MFP has NO expected steps per activity level - it has expected daily calorie burn for your profile. That's it.
It receives from trackers (except Apple and some cheaper ones) the value of daily calories burned.
It does math on that.

Oh, since Garmin is a replace only system, not add-to system - you would just log your lifting straight out from their database, or from MFP for that matter (because Garmin's is a high estimate) - and don't worry about the BMR being removed.
The lifting NET burn and the BMR together replace what Garmin would have had as just the BMR. So it's correct to add the gross burn.

If you want to see what the math actually is - it is detailed in the 2nd section here, and though specific to Fitbit it's the exact same process for them all (except Apple not reporting TDEE figure).

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy

For your situation - if you aren't receiving calorie Adjustment when Garmin calories go up - you are not syncing between accounts (or syncing issue), you are merely telling MFP app to use your Garmin as a step source while not having the sync setup between accounts.

That is a different setup with it's own gotcha's and there is general confusion when people do that compared to true account sync.

You'll need to keep reading the topic posts to discover what you think is absolutely true is absolutely not except for the not often used only-step source setup.

Just keep in mind 2 methods - yours (from what it sounds like) is the much rarer setup, and advice for it based on observation doesn't apply to the vast majority.

You can attempt to do what MFP would have done if it received the expected figure from S-Health, if there is a bug sending it right now.

Take your base eating goal, add on the deficit you selected (1 lb = 500 cal, 1.5 = 750, ect) = that's what MFP thinks your non-exercise daily base burn is.

Take whatever S-Health says your daily burn is near the end of the day, perhaps after all workouts and before dinner.
Subtract that MFP estimated daily burn.

That difference is how many additional calories to eat.

So say MFP eating goal is 1600, with 1 lb deficit or 500 cal daily - MFP has 2100 as daily burn.
S-Health reports before dinner you have burned 2400 calories.
2400-2100 = 300 extra to eat.

You may burn for rest of the evening and sleeping until midnight say 320 more - you can discover this amount after a few days.
Add that to the S-Health reported and account for it too.

You could create a workout custom named to extra activity calories and say 1 cal per min, or anything really.
Then just add on those calories when you calculate it.

Probably won't change much from dinner to midnight, and that gets you close enough perhaps.