Confused about negative adjustment

PrimeSuspect87
PrimeSuspect87 Posts: 20 Member
edited December 20 in Health and Weight Loss
I'm confused about how negative adjustment works.

I'm 5ft 8" weighing at 184lbs. My daily calorie goal is 1624 to lose 1lb per week. For lunch I consumed 526 calories and helped clearing a shed and walking 9294 steps inclusive I burnt 424 calories.

What i dont understand is my remaining calories only shows 674.

Shouldn't it be 1624 - 526 = 1098 + 424 from activity = 1522?

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Can someone please help me understand this?

Replies

  • Maxematics
    Maxematics Posts: 2,287 Member
    What tracker do you use?
  • PrimeSuspect87
    PrimeSuspect87 Posts: 20 Member
    edited April 2019
    Maxematics wrote: »
    What tracker do you use?

    I am using Fitbit blaze to track my activity. The calorie burn seems to be accurate but I dont understand the negative adjustment. Am I only allowed to eat 674 calories for dinner and snack?
  • pierinifitness
    pierinifitness Posts: 2,226 Member
    My take on a negative adjustment is that you've set an activity level that's greater than how your day went. I get positive adjustments because my activity level is let to sedentary and sometimes I exceed that. Haven't had a negative day yet.
  • Maxematics
    Maxematics Posts: 2,287 Member
    PrimeSuspect87 wrote: »
    Maxematics wrote: »
    What tracker do you use?

    I am using Fitbit blaze to track my activity. The calorie burn seems to be accurate but I dont understand the negative adjustment. Am I only allowed to eat 674 calories for dinner and snack?

    I'm going to echo what @pierinifitness is saying. I asked because there have been known bugs with MFP syncing with the Apple Watch and subtracting exercise calories from your total allowance instead of adding them.
    Since you're using a Fitbit, this is a non-issue. You've most likely set your activity level to one you're not meeting, so your Fitbit adjustment is negative to make up for this.

    It may be possible that since the negative adjustment matches exactly what you've said you burned at that time, it's subtracting those calories because you've added them to MFP manually. Usually Fitbit overwrites the adjustment when users do this so I don't think this is the case, but we'll have to see.

    What activity level are you set to on MFP? Could you possibly provide a screenshot of your exercise window on MFP and the adjustment from Fitbit?
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    edited April 2019
    Maxematics wrote: »
    PrimeSuspect87 wrote: »
    Maxematics wrote: »
    What tracker do you use?

    I am using Fitbit blaze to track my activity. The calorie burn seems to be accurate but I dont understand the negative adjustment. Am I only allowed to eat 674 calories for dinner and snack?

    I'm going to echo what @pierinifitness is saying. I asked because there have been known bugs with MFP syncing with the Apple Watch and subtracting exercise calories from your total allowance instead of adding them.
    Since you're using a Fitbit, this is a non-issue. You've most likely set your activity level to one you're not meeting, so your Fitbit adjustment is negative to make up for this.

    It may be possible that since the negative adjustment matches exactly what you've said you burned at that time, it's subtracting those calories because you've added them to MFP manually. Usually Fitbit overwrites the adjustment when users do this so I don't think this is the case, but we'll have to see.

    What activity level are you set to on MFP? Could you possibly provide a screenshot of your exercise window on MFP and the adjustment from Fitbit?

    Still seems weird to me that MFP would adjust their goal to be less than 1200 since it will normally not go any lower than that, no matter your size and activity level.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,311 Member
    Further down you will see the part where you list your steps for the day. if you click on it you will see what information is using for the adjustment.

    Your interpretation of how the math would be EXPECTED to work is correct. You are not seeing the correct adjustment. Seeing what MFP is doing might be of benefit (might be that your device has not synchronized for hours, might be that you have double and triple values being exchanged)

    If you've entered any exercise manually in either Fitbit or MFP I would delete it just to give the "automated" systems the best chance of success without manual 'distortion' -- at least till you figure out what's going on.
  • PrimeSuspect87
    PrimeSuspect87 Posts: 20 Member
    Maxematics wrote: »
    PrimeSuspect87 wrote: »
    Maxematics wrote: »
    What tracker do you use?

    I am using Fitbit blaze to track my activity. The calorie burn seems to be accurate but I dont understand the negative adjustment. Am I only allowed to eat 674 calories for dinner and snack?

    I'm going to echo what @pierinifitness is saying. I asked because there have been known bugs with MFP syncing with the Apple Watch and subtracting exercise calories from your total allowance instead of adding them.
    Since you're using a Fitbit, this is a non-issue. You've most likely set your activity level to one you're not meeting, so your Fitbit adjustment is negative to make up for this.

    It may be possible that since the negative adjustment matches exactly what you've said you burned at that time, it's subtracting those calories because you've added them to MFP manually. Usually Fitbit overwrites the adjustment when users do this so I don't think this is the case, but we'll have to see.

    What activity level are you set to on MFP? Could you possibly provide a screenshot of your exercise window on MFP and the adjustment from Fitbit?

    I had it set to very active, do you reckon I got this wrong?

    I have now changed this to sedentary. I will track my activity today and see if it's still giving me in incorrect calories to eat.
  • Maxematics
    Maxematics Posts: 2,287 Member
    PrimeSuspect87 wrote: »
    Maxematics wrote: »
    PrimeSuspect87 wrote: »
    Maxematics wrote: »
    What tracker do you use?

    I am using Fitbit blaze to track my activity. The calorie burn seems to be accurate but I dont understand the negative adjustment. Am I only allowed to eat 674 calories for dinner and snack?

    I'm going to echo what @pierinifitness is saying. I asked because there have been known bugs with MFP syncing with the Apple Watch and subtracting exercise calories from your total allowance instead of adding them.
    Since you're using a Fitbit, this is a non-issue. You've most likely set your activity level to one you're not meeting, so your Fitbit adjustment is negative to make up for this.

    It may be possible that since the negative adjustment matches exactly what you've said you burned at that time, it's subtracting those calories because you've added them to MFP manually. Usually Fitbit overwrites the adjustment when users do this so I don't think this is the case, but we'll have to see.

    What activity level are you set to on MFP? Could you possibly provide a screenshot of your exercise window on MFP and the adjustment from Fitbit?

    I had it set to very active, do you reckon I got this wrong?

    I have now changed this to sedentary. I will track my activity today and see if it's still giving me in incorrect calories to eat.

    Yup, that's what it is. You don't meet the MFP requirements of being very active, so calories are being deducted from your allowance. As you said, keep it at sedentary and observe your adjustments from there.
  • PrimeSuspect87
    PrimeSuspect87 Posts: 20 Member
    Thank you so much, appreciate everyone's input. I will track at sedentary for few days and provide an update.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,311 Member
    And apparently I can not read negative signs. Sounds like activity level was the root cause.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    What is your TYPICAL activity like? There’s a big difference between Sedentary and Very Active.

    At the end of the day if the tools are set to sync and the negative adjustments are enabled you should have the same outcome regarding how many calories you should eat but some people choose Sedentary when they aren’t and are mistrustful of the large adjustments . Some people (like you) choose very active and when negative adjustments take cals away on days you don’t meet the basic threshold are concerned and distrustful that things are working.

    Maybe instead of looking at a single day look at your average step count from the last weeks/months and choose an activity level from that?
  • emilysusana
    emilysusana Posts: 416 Member
    I personally like having MFP set to sedentary and then to let Fitbit give me added calories as adjustment every single day because I’m not actually sedentary. It just feels nice to see it go up as I move throughout the day.
  • mlinci
    mlinci Posts: 402 Member
    It doesn’t really make sense and likely something is syncing wrong. At your height and weight and activity level, your target calories of 1200 don’t seem right unless your goal is to lose 2 or 3 or more lbs a week?
This discussion has been closed.

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