Samsung Galaxy Watch 2 - Running Tracker / step tracker and double counting calories burned

patriotdavid
patriotdavid Posts: 15 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi All,

I have a samsung Galaxy 2 watch and use MFP to track calories burned. Due to some issues I've had to manually enter my workouts into MFP. I went for a 47 min run and burned 492 calories according to my Samsung watch. However, MFP also tracked my steps during my run and also came with a calories burned total. If i manually input my 47 min run (with the 492 calories), should i assume that i'm gonna be double counting my calories burned (492 plus whatever the calorie burned from my steps)?

Thanks
Dave

Replies

  • hfergie
    hfergie Posts: 14 Member
    Bump—following
  • Duck_Puddle
    Duck_Puddle Posts: 3,224 Member
    Assuming Samsung integration works with mfp like the other trackers - you shouldn’t be double counting.

    Generally what happens is that the tracker (Samsung) will send mfp its estimate of your total calories burned for the day.

    Mfp then subtracts out the number of calories that it thinks you burned for the day (which is whatever the number is for your activity setting plus any workouts entered on mfp).

    The difference between these number is what shows up on the “steps” line (which has nothing to do with steps but the step number can help confirm that things have synced).

    So-

    Let’s say you’re set as sedentary on mfp and for your weight/height/etc, mfp think you burn 1500 calories a day.

    You burn 500 for your workout.

    Samsung says you burned 2200 total for the day.

    If you don’t enter the workout on mfp, the numbers look as follows:

    2200 (Samsung total) - 1500 (what mfp thinks you burned) = 700 “steps” adjustment.

    Total exercise calories: 700 (all from the step adjustment)

    If you do enter the workout on mfp, the numbers look as follows:

    2200 (Samsung total)-2000 (mfp thinks you burned 1500 + 500 workout)=200 “steps” adjustment.

    Total exercise calories: 700 (500 from workout, 200 from the step adjustment).

    You should not be double counting.

    The one very important caveat-is to make sure Samsung isn’t showing two workouts (and double the calorie burn - meaning it would be sending over 2700 as the total burned in the example above). That would end up double counting.

    If Samsung is only showing the one workout - then you’re not double counting.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    In addition to above - you don't have to enter your workouts on MFP.
    As shown in math - MFP is informed of the fact you burned more from something, which happened to be the run.

    MFP doesn't need to know what it is to correct itself and have you eating more when you do more.
    And if integration is working correctly, the manually entered MFP workout should be synced back to overwrite what is in the Samsung account - which isn't good.
    Not because of double-counting which won't - Samsung is still a replace-only system, compared to MFP being add-on system. On Samsung you could have 5 workouts listed with same time/duration and different calorie burns - only the last is in the daily total.
    Do that on MFP and you got a total. And when synced, that total is subtracted from the daily burn received from the tracker - talk about wrong math now.

    If you just want friends list to see you worked out - make a wall post with more interesting info than a generic 1 liner.

    Now - the correct description of the math above and my comments are based on actually having some accounts synced up.

    You could merely be telling the MFP app in settings to make your Step Source the Galaxy watch, or phone, and then MFP is left to do some very rough math with merely a step count, which isn't how Samsung is doing it when it figures out a daily burn.
    That type of calories from steps and then manually added workouts in much worse, as there is no time involved and MFP doesn't know if steps were totally part of the added workout - it assumes yes.

    When you manually added the workout - did you have to provide Start and Duration time?
    Then accounts are synced and you get better figures, what has been written is correct to double-counting.

    If not, you aren't, and opposite of double-counting is possible - missing out on increased daily activity.

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