Apple Watch users- does this sound about right?

emilysusana
emilysusana Posts: 416 Member
edited December 21 in Health and Weight Loss
So I’ve read the threads about AW not interacting well with MFP. I was a Fitbit user till I got an AW for Mother’s Day. Fitbit gave me an adjustment that I was able to eat back and lose at the predicted rate. When I used Fitbit, I set my activity level to sedentary even though I was getting 12,000+ steps a day. I enjoyed seeing the adjustment I earned by being active.

Now that I’m using AW instead, I have turned off negative calorie adjustment, bumped up my activity level to lightly active, and am letting AW add exercise calories for my purposeful exercise (runs, walks, bike rides). I figure going to lightly active makes up for the calories I used to earn for things like grocery shopping and walking around the college campus where I work. Those seem to be the calories Apple Watch doesn’t communicate well to MFP.

Does this sound about right?

Replies

  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Won't work right - disconnect direct link.

    Have to use an account like Pacer to sync with Apple info, and then pass on correct info to MFP.

    Apple doesn't send a total daily burned figure to MFP to do correct math with - it send those workouts and a sedentary level burn.
    Which MFP then subtracts the workout calories from because it expects total daily burn to really mean total, everything, including exercise - which it doesn't from Apple.

    Apple also doesn't send extra activity calorie burn - so the more active you are and more workouts - worse the issue.
  • emilysusana
    emilysusana Posts: 416 Member
    Thanks for the info. Essentially what I was thinking I was doing was going back to recording only purposeful exercise, which Apple Watch does report, and accounting for the rest through increase in activity level.

    But I’m I would ultimately prefer to have a system that accounts for everything on a day-by-day basis, since my activity level varies from day to day.

    So...if I get Pacer, which I understand to be for step based activities, and link Apple Watch to that, and then link Pacer to MFP, what do I do about non-step based activities (biking, swimming)?
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    From those using it - Apple Health does report workouts to Pacer too which sends it on over.
    So whatever Apple does for that workout is used.

    Swimming of course could be logged on Health account. HR based should be fine.
  • MelanieCN77
    MelanieCN77 Posts: 4,047 Member
    Lifesum can be made to work the way you want, as it will import Move cals throughout the day and you can set your base calories to your BMR for maintenance or lower to create your deficit that way. The way you have chosen to set MFP is kinda your best case scenario given your options.
  • emilysusana
    emilysusana Posts: 416 Member
    Okay,.. I’ve set up the Pacer app and after a few glitches with syncing (I disconnected and reconnected a bunch of times), I think it’s all working properly. Thanks!
  • Maxxitt
    Maxxitt Posts: 1,281 Member
    I have an AW and the FITiv app that I use for my workouts. I like the AW for overall motivation to stay active. I sometimes use AW to track outdoor walking as intentional exercise because I am interested in miles covered in that way as separate from the miles covered in incidental walking. I completely ignore the outdoor walking calories (which mostly port over to MFP as "exercise" but not always). The FITiv calories-out are ported over - they are generally inflated because my gym routine includes a lot of weight training (which I do circuit-training style so there is some actual "burn" but not as much as my heart rate would suggest) in addition to treadmill interval work, and I generally add about half of those to my daily allowance. Overall, I aim for slight deficit calories-in. Seems to be working ok.
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