Negative Calorie Adjustment

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Ashly37828
Ashly37828 Posts: 9 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I’m confused. I’ve always gotten a positive Calorie adjustment but today I got negative one. The positive adjustment I just assumed it was the amount of calories I earned to eat by working out/exercising, but I have no idea what a negative one would mean. What does getting a negative calorie adjustment mean when you exercise ?

Replies

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    It means that MFP thinks you've moved less than it estimated based on the activity level you provided when setting your goals.

    Do you have a synced device? If so, have you verified that the sync happened today?
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited July 2020
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    That adjustment is merely the difference between what the tracker reported your daily burn was, and what MFP estimated it would be with no exercise.

    You could have a big workout and really lazy otherwise and get negative adjustment.

    You could have no workout and be very active and get a positive adjustment.

    Or little of both likely.

    If your workout was logged on MFP, then you still get credit for that.
    And it may be a timing issue if you logged it manually, or the tracker sent it over.

    You failed to mention what is being synced - so many possibilities for why beyond the fact you were not as active as MPF thought you would be with your selected activity level.
  • Ashly37828
    Ashly37828 Posts: 9 Member
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    I do have it synced to my iPhone, specifically to the amount of steps I do everyday. I can verify it happened today.
  • Ashly37828
    Ashly37828 Posts: 9 Member
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    ]
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    It means that MFP thinks you've moved less than it estimated based on the activity level you provided when setting your goals.

    Do you have a synced device? If so, have you verified that the sync happened today?


    My goal is set to maintain my weight. The only thing I have MFP synced to is my iPhone’s Health app (specifically the steps taken) I can verify the sync happened today.
  • Ashly37828
    Ashly37828 Posts: 9 Member
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    heybales wrote: »
    That adjustment is merely the difference between what the tracker reported your daily burn was, and what MFP estimated it would be with no exercise.

    You could have a big workout and really lazy otherwise and get negative adjustment.

    You could have no workout and be very active and get a positive adjustment.

    Or little of both likely.

    If your workout was logged on MFP, then you still get credit for that.
    And it may be a timing issue if you logged it manually, or the tracker sent it over.

    You failed to mention what is being synced - so many possibilities for why beyond the fact you were not as active as MPF thought you would be with your selected activity level.

    Thanks for the workout and effort comparisons. It helped me visualize it much better. The only thing synced is my iPhone health app, primarily the steps I take a day/the miles I walk.

    As of the possibilities of why MFP might’ve thought I was not as active today may be due to the fact I plugged my phone into my car (about a 45 minute drive) to listen to Pandora. That’s the only reason I could think of. The phone may have been rocking back and forth in my middle console as I drove, mistakenly counting them as steps.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    Ashly37828 wrote: »
    heybales wrote: »
    That adjustment is merely the difference between what the tracker reported your daily burn was, and what MFP estimated it would be with no exercise.

    You could have a big workout and really lazy otherwise and get negative adjustment.

    You could have no workout and be very active and get a positive adjustment.

    Or little of both likely.

    If your workout was logged on MFP, then you still get credit for that.
    And it may be a timing issue if you logged it manually, or the tracker sent it over.

    You failed to mention what is being synced - so many possibilities for why beyond the fact you were not as active as MPF thought you would be with your selected activity level.

    Thanks for the workout and effort comparisons. It helped me visualize it much better. The only thing synced is my iPhone health app, primarily the steps I take a day/the miles I walk.

    As of the possibilities of why MFP might’ve thought I was not as active today may be due to the fact I plugged my phone into my car (about a 45 minute drive) to listen to Pandora. That’s the only reason I could think of. The phone may have been rocking back and forth in my middle console as I drove, mistakenly counting them as steps.

    You are thinking the wrong direction.

    You were seen as being LESS active than MFP was expecting as you said.

    But bogus steps would be more active and perhaps not a negative adjustment.


    Also, if you really have the Health app syncing - that's more than just steps showing up as a figure on MFP.
    Distance would not be coming over though.

    Curious - if you go to your MFP Exercise diary - do you have a line for the Apple adjustment?
    On days with a workout you logged on iPhone or Apple Health app, is there a line about that workout too?

    Tap and hold on the Apple adjustment line.
    Can you take a screen shot and post it here?
    Or just note the figures.
    May be something like this.

    bqs4z69hjpv1.png


  • Ashly37828
    Ashly37828 Posts: 9 Member
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    heybales wrote: »
    Ashly37828 wrote: »
    heybales wrote: »

    Curious - if you go to your MFP Exercise diary - do you have a line for the Apple adjustment?
    On days with a workout you logged on iPhone or Apple Health app, is there a line about that workout too?

    Tap and hold on the Apple adjustment line.
    Can you take a screen shot and post it here?
    Or just note the figures.
    May be something like this.

    bqs4z69hjpv1.png



    Here’s a screenshot:

    h80wn4zoq0vw.jpeg


  • Ashly37828
    Ashly37828 Posts: 9 Member
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    heybales wrote: »
    Ashly37828 wrote: »
    heybales wrote: »

    Curious - if you go to your MFP Exercise diary - do you have a line for the Apple adjustment?
    On days with a workout you logged on iPhone or Apple Health app, is there a line about that workout too?

    Tap and hold on the Apple adjustment line.
    Can you take a screen shot and post it here?
    Or just note the figures.
    May be something like this.

    bqs4z69hjpv1.png


    Here’s a screenshot:


  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    Ok - retract some of my statements that have to do with syncing to an actual activity tracker.

    You have told MFP app to get a step count from the iPhone.

    MFP with your physical stats then has a very rough estimate of calories that it calculates from those steps.
    (meaning it doesn't know distance of those steps to get meaningful calorie burn)

    Some of those calories meet the activity level you selected in MFP.

    Some of them may go above that level and cause a positive adjustment.
    You could have not enough and not even meet the activity level and get a negative adjustment.

    And either you manually entered a workout or Apple Health sent it over.

    So MFP at your selected activity level (sedentary or not-very active, right?) estimates you'll burn 1934 calories daily.
    It figures in the last 35 min until midnight you'll burn 47 more at that same rate.

    MFP knows you burned 322 calories in a workout specifically.

    Of all the step calories you received, and the extra 47 more, and the 322 for the workout, you reached 2224.

    Which was 35 less than sedentary with that workout would have burned at 2259.

    So time to compare - are you getting less steps now than prior doing the same workout?
    If so - why less steps?

    If the same steps about - do you weigh less now than prior?
    You'll be burning less from those steps with less weight to move around.
  • HealthGoose
    HealthGoose Posts: 1 Member
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    My MFP is doing something similar.

    Background: I use my iPhone SE as my pedometer and I have my baseline calories set to 1850 (custom) with "Lightly Active".

    Today I walked 7 miles and MFP gave a 150 calorie adjustment (I believe it was positive) which is obviously low for that amount of exercise. I noticed the note about Negative Calorie Adjustments and how it can give more accurate readings and decided to enable it. It gave me a calorie adjustment more on par with that mileage- around 700- but it subtracted it from my calories remaining. It read like this- Calories remaining 1850 (Goal) - 450 (Food) - 700 (Exercise)= 700 (Remaining). I turned Negative Calorie Adjustments off and now it isn't counting any exercise at all (which is preferable to a wonky reading and also why I can't remember if my 150 calorie adjustment before I enabled negative adjustment was positive or negative). It's a helpful app but I'm pulling a bit of hair out right now :# I also tried adjusting my activity level before disabling Negative Calorie Adjustments and it just lowered my baseline calories

    TLDR: Exercie calories are being subtracted from my TDEE allowance.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    HealthGoose wrote: »
    My MFP is doing something similar.

    Background: I use my iPhone SE as my pedometer and I have my baseline calories set to 1850 (custom) with "Lightly Active".

    Today I walked 7 miles and MFP gave a 150 calorie adjustment (I believe it was positive) which is obviously low for that amount of exercise. I noticed the note about Negative Calorie Adjustments and how it can give more accurate readings and decided to enable it. It gave me a calorie adjustment more on par with that mileage- around 700- but it subtracted it from my calories remaining. It read like this- Calories remaining 1850 (Goal) - 450 (Food) - 700 (Exercise)= 700 (Remaining). I turned Negative Calorie Adjustments off and now it isn't counting any exercise at all (which is preferable to a wonky reading and also why I can't remember if my 150 calorie adjustment before I enabled negative adjustment was positive or negative). It's a helpful app but I'm pulling a bit of hair out right now :# I also tried adjusting my activity level before disabling Negative Calorie Adjustments and it just lowered my baseline calories

    TLDR: Exercie calories are being subtracted from my TDEE allowance.

    All the adjustments you did within 1 day are not all going to be reflected in adjusted math instantly - some may.
    So forget the numbers that happened after you changed settings, not really meaningful until the next day with new figures.

    Did you read the responses before your post - explains what is happening, and where you need to look for the info.
    The 1 liner showing base eating goal, and adjustments shows what happened.

    Negative isn't a matter of more accurate readings for like exercise - it merely allows removing calories when you less active than your activity level, same as adding calories when you are more active.

    You would have gotten the neg 700, I doubt greatly it ever showed pos 700.
    Part of the 7 miles would have been included in your Lightly-Active level, the 150 is what it estimated was above that. Sounds right and would have been positive since you didn't have the setting enabled.

    As to why neg 700, did a workout for a walk get logged also?

    Anyway, need to read prior posts and your issue sounds like the post just prior, and needs a screen show as shown in post before that one.

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