Calories burned issue

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kallen771991
kallen771991 Posts: 54 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Ok, so i haven't gotten any kind of response in the tech side, maybe one of you could tell me why this happened.

So yesterday i went to make dinner, was logging my stuff and saw it says i've burned 597 calories, then later it went to 600. Now i have had that happen where it adjusts up, but what happened after is a big first. Not only did it go DOWN to 587 cal by bedtime, when i went on to look this morning, to see what it landed at , it says 468?!! What the heck happend!?

I have done things like yesterday lots, i've been more active before 5 pm and it logs fine, sometimes it stays at 0 for a good long while and then finally adjusts but with the issues here recently i figured it was just a hiccup... this has me peeved.

It started changing when i made my nut mix. it was almonds, cashews and i got some white baking chips that are sugar free and are only 60 cal a serving, i just wanted a snack before bed, because at 587 cal burned for what i had eaten, it would have panned out to be under what my doctor told me to go for by a bit, and i was wanting to even it out a bit.. then it changed so i put a bunch of it back and then it went and changed last night. it makes no sense!

like for instance

yesterday was 7520 steps, it sayys 468
Sunday was 6306 steps 364 cal
saturday 3840 steps.... 0 cal...
friday 6122 steps 408 cal
thursday 6463 steps, 59 cal...

before that my app was having tech issues.. but how in the absalute heck does that make sense?!

just like the 26th for instnace, my FITBIT says i burned 1035cal in active minutes for an 1hr 26min all together for my heart, i h ad 11,885 steps that day, seemed good till the MFP app logged me down for 887 calories.... that makes no flippen sense! :(

i'm trying hard to work with this because figuring out myy calories burned is important to know i'm not under eating. The fitbit app has a constant number from BMR so i can't tell what i'm getting accurately so MFP has been my go to, and it used to reflect my active minutes and now it only go's off steps apperently and it is all jank... :( help please.

Replies

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    Your Fitbit is sending over reconciling adjustments, not just your active minute calorie burns. It also sounds like you have negative adjustments enabled. The calorie adjustment you get from Fitbit to MFP is just reconciling your activity level you set in MFP with what your Fitbit is estimating your actual activity level to be. For example, if I set my activity level as moderately active in MFP, but my actual activity is active, I would get an adjustment...it wouldn't be the total calories for "active minutes" or anything like that because some of those calories are already accounted for in my moderately active activity setting in MFP...the adjustment would just be the difference between moderately active and active to reconcile the difference.

    Fitbit is also making assumptions about your day when it synchs...so for example if you've been very active in the morning it will give you a bigger adjustment with the assumption that you'll continue to be at that same level throughout the day. If you have negative adjustments enabled the adjustment will shrink to account for being less later in the day if that is the case.
  • kallen771991
    kallen771991 Posts: 54 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Your Fitbit is sending over reconciling adjustments, not just your active minute calorie burns. It also sounds like you have negative adjustments enabled. The calorie adjustment you get from Fitbit to MFP is just reconciling your activity level you set in MFP with what your Fitbit is estimating your actual activity level to be. For example, if I set my activity level as moderately active in MFP, but my actual activity is active, I would get an adjustment...it wouldn't be the total calories for "active minutes" or anything like that because some of those calories are already accounted for in my moderately active activity setting in MFP...the adjustment would just be the difference between moderately active and active to reconcile the difference.

    Fitbit is also making assumptions about your day when it synchs...so for example if you've been very active in the morning it will give you a bigger adjustment with the assumption that you'll continue to be at that same level throughout the day. If you have negative adjustments enabled the adjustment will shrink to account for being less later in the day if that is the case.

    I keep my log at Lightly Active because my doctor told me to aim for 1500 cal a day and its easier to get it right without whipping out my calculator every time. I have pcos so calorie counting is harder for me to do right already without this confusing mess lol... i just don't understand why it changed so drastically like that when it hasn't before. usually by bedtime it says the same as it does in the morning. I try to fallow it carefully because i do a big list of exercises during the day, m thru f and i'm trying to avoid under eating.

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    kallen771991 wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Your Fitbit is sending over reconciling adjustments, not just your active minute calorie burns. It also sounds like you have negative adjustments enabled. The calorie adjustment you get from Fitbit to MFP is just reconciling your activity level you set in MFP with what your Fitbit is estimating your actual activity level to be. For example, if I set my activity level as moderately active in MFP, but my actual activity is active, I would get an adjustment...it wouldn't be the total calories for "active minutes" or anything like that because some of those calories are already accounted for in my moderately active activity setting in MFP...the adjustment would just be the difference between moderately active and active to reconcile the difference.

    Fitbit is also making assumptions about your day when it synchs...so for example if you've been very active in the morning it will give you a bigger adjustment with the assumption that you'll continue to be at that same level throughout the day. If you have negative adjustments enabled the adjustment will shrink to account for being less later in the day if that is the case.

    I keep my log at Lightly Active because my doctor told me to aim for 1500 cal a day and its easier to get it right without whipping out my calculator every time. I have pcos so calorie counting is harder for me to do right already without this confusing mess lol... i just don't understand why it changed so drastically like that when it hasn't before. usually by bedtime it says the same as it does in the morning. I try to fallow it carefully because i do a big list of exercises during the day, m thru f and i'm trying to avoid under eating.

    My guess would be that there was some kind of Fitbit update that changed your settings and enabled negative calorie adjustments when they weren't enabled before...either that or you accidentally changed a setting on your Fitbit. The fact that the calorie amount is going down clearly indicates that negative adjustments have some how or another been enabled.
  • kallen771991
    kallen771991 Posts: 54 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    kallen771991 wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Your Fitbit is sending over reconciling adjustments, not just your active minute calorie burns. It also sounds like you have negative adjustments enabled. The calorie adjustment you get from Fitbit to MFP is just reconciling your activity level you set in MFP with what your Fitbit is estimating your actual activity level to be. For example, if I set my activity level as moderately active in MFP, but my actual activity is active, I would get an adjustment...it wouldn't be the total calories for "active minutes" or anything like that because some of those calories are already accounted for in my moderately active activity setting in MFP...the adjustment would just be the difference between moderately active and active to reconcile the difference.

    Fitbit is also making assumptions about your day when it synchs...so for example if you've been very active in the morning it will give you a bigger adjustment with the assumption that you'll continue to be at that same level throughout the day. If you have negative adjustments enabled the adjustment will shrink to account for being less later in the day if that is the case.

    I keep my log at Lightly Active because my doctor told me to aim for 1500 cal a day and its easier to get it right without whipping out my calculator every time. I have pcos so calorie counting is harder for me to do right already without this confusing mess lol... i just don't understand why it changed so drastically like that when it hasn't before. usually by bedtime it says the same as it does in the morning. I try to fallow it carefully because i do a big list of exercises during the day, m thru f and i'm trying to avoid under eating.

    My guess would be that there was some kind of Fitbit update that changed your settings and enabled negative calorie adjustments when they weren't enabled before...either that or you accidentally changed a setting on your Fitbit. The fact that the calorie amount is going down clearly indicates that negative adjustments have some how or another been enabled.

    Thank you for responding on both threads, i don't understand what would of changed, i didn't update any of my measurementts or weigh ins, i didn't change my activity level and fitbit updated days ago.... Gunna ask in their help support forum now
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Go check the settings he mentioned that might be responsible. Do you need it to work, or do you need to know the story of how it broke?
  • DaffyGirl88
    DaffyGirl88 Posts: 4,560 Member
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    @kallen771991 I know it can be confusing. It took me a long time, and reading (and re-reading) many posts by @cwolfman13 and others before I finally got a grasp of it. Not well enough that I could explain it to anyone though. LOL

    It was especially confusing when I would get an exercise credit of say 200 calories after a spin class. If the number went down later in the day I'd be WTH? Spin classes are in no way tied to my step count, so shouldn't that remain constant? But since my Fitbit, Peloton and MFP are all tied together and share data the number varies and isn't necessarily what my Peloton says I burned. That was the most confusing I think.

    What helped me was looking at several days worth of data and in various locations. I'd look at what my Fitbit said my total burn for the day was as of 11:59 PM, what exercises I did that day, what my calorie goal was for the day and how many exercise calories I was credited. Eventually I was able to see how the numbers correlated.

    I try not to eat all of my calories back in order to have a small cushion. The downward adjustment is really only an issue if I look at my balance and think "Yay! I can have that glass of wine!" only to find out later that I couldn't. :D
  • papercut2k
    papercut2k Posts: 83 Member
    edited May 2022
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    Just dusted off the ol' Fitbit to participate in my job's version of the Biggest Loser - they call it the Biggest Winner - heh totally avoided that lawsuit with the name change there😉.

    I did over 10,000 steps on day one and saw my exercise calories shot up to 450. Because I kept MFP open for an hour I literally watch my numbers drop to 350. I am like lolwut. Took a look at Fitbit's faq and it is as a previous member says, they use predictive technology to adjust your exercise calories if you stop being active.

    I thought that was lame but I guess it makes sense in a way I suppose. Overestimating calories is a big problem with these watches so this is something like a fix.

    You can change the settings in Fitbit if you like it to stop doing that. I can't be bothered. I don't remember if was always like that or they changed the calculation when Google bought Fitbit.

    An aside, I got a Amazon Halo and the device is particularly heinous about being inactive. It will literally deduct your active points if you spend more than 8 hours not doing much of anything. It's for no other reason but to punish you for not being able to walk a mile every hour of the day. I don't wear it when I at work since it's a desk job.

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