Calories

KThompson10272018
KThompson10272018 Posts: 10 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Why do I wake up and have negative calories? I woke up today and I see I have a 134 negative calories why does that happen

Replies

  • MichelleMcKeeRN
    MichelleMcKeeRN Posts: 450 Member
    It might be counting calories burned while sleeping. MFP doesn’t calculate like that though so if you see it on here, I would say it is a glitch
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    KThompson10272018 wrote: »
    Why do I wake up and have negative calories? I woke up today and I see I have a 134 negative calories why does that happen

    Do you have a fitness tracker linked to MFP?
  • KThompson10272018
    KThompson10272018 Posts: 10 Member
    Yes. I have a Fitbit.
  • KThompson10272018
    KThompson10272018 Posts: 10 Member
    I am still trying to figure out negative calorie adjustment and adding exercises. I add exercise to Fitbit. If I add them in mfp then it stops tracking my steps from Fitbit.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    Mfp gets constant updates from your Fitbit, and compares it to the activity level you chose when you set up your MFP account. If based on what you've done so far today it looks like you'll get less steps than required for your activity level, it will give you a negative adjustment. If you get moving later in the day you'll see your adjustment get closer to 0, and then become positive if you get more steps than your activity level requires. It can take some getting used to and time to get properly calibrated.

    Double check the time zone in your setup for mfp and for Fitbit. Unless you sleep really late or have an odd sleep pattern, it should be giving you a little time at 0 before it starts to worry you're not gonna get off your butt and get moving :smiley:
  • KThompson10272018
    KThompson10272018 Posts: 10 Member
    My time zone are correct. Just puzzles me that at 6am I am already 133 to 150 in negative.
  • escschwartz
    escschwartz Posts: 18 Member
    Do you have MFP set to sedentary and use Fitbit for all exercise logging? The Fitbit will give you calorie credit even for non-exercise calories but if you have MFP set to active then it thinks you haven't burned enough even sleeping. Essentially MFP compares its calories to the Fitbit report so if MFP estimate is too high you'll get negative calories.
    If you click on the exercise bar in MFP it will show you how it calculated the calorie allotment based on the Fitbit sync. I assume you are wearing your Fitbit to sleep. If you are not, that might affect that early morning sync.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    edited February 2020
    Fitbit is set to start at your RMR level (base calories, no movement), and it accumulates calories throughout the day as you move. Since MFP calculates fitbit calories by difference and doesn't know fitbit has you at RMR, the calories early in the day look to MFP as if you aren't moving as much as your chosen activity level calculates. There used to be a setting in fitbit to use predictive algorithms to start you higher, but I can't find it. Either they removed it or I can't remember where it is. If it annoys you and you know that you always end the day with a positive number, you could simply disable negative adjustments in MFP.
  • katsheare
    katsheare Posts: 1,025 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    Mfp gets constant updates from your Fitbit, and compares it to the activity level you chose when you set up your MFP account. If based on what you've done so far today it looks like you'll get less steps than required for your activity level, it will give you a negative adjustment. If you get moving later in the day you'll see your adjustment get closer to 0, and then become positive if you get more steps than your activity level requires. It can take some getting used to and time to get properly calibrated.

    Double check the time zone in your setup for mfp and for Fitbit. Unless you sleep really late or have an odd sleep pattern, it should be giving you a little time at 0 before it starts to worry you're not gonna get off your butt and get moving :smiley:

    I usually workout at 6 AM. If I don't, when I finally roll out of bed at 7 or so I'm in negative territory. I haven't set either Fitbit or MFP to know that I work out first thing. I have noticed that after about a week of the workout happening consistently, if it doesn't I'm at - exercise starting out. Anecdotal but bears out what @escschwartz and @amusedmonkey said as well.

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