Why is my steps calories so low

the calories from my Apple Watch steps counter that the my fitness app is much less than actuall calories on the watch plus why doesn’t it use the move total instead of just steps
Answers
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welcome to MFP @moshemiller
that’s a good question and one we see here a lot.No, you won’t get all the move ring credit as exercise.
Your move ring includes two types of calories burned:
1.) movement you do during a normal day. Cooking. Walking in the grocery store. Chasing after kids pets or spouses. Doing laundry. You’re going to burn calories just in the day to day happening of life. For example, by the time I get up, throw on some exercise gear, take the dog out for a wee, feed said dog and two cats and make my own breakfast, I’ve usually done 800 steps and a fraction of a move ring.
That’s not exercise. That’s just me being me, doing the normal stuff I did while obese, too.
2.) your second type of calories that show on your move ring are calories for intentional exercise you’ve started and stopped on your watch. You’re not going to get credit for all the calories you’ve burned, because Apple recognizes you would burned some anyway.
Here is my swim I recorded this morning:
561 were applied to my move rings.
But only 488 were applied to MFP as an exercise calorie burn.
Apple anticipates that I would have burned 73 during that period just living.
Another thing that can affect how calories are applied is the activity level you selected : sedentary, average, highly active.
Also, for me, when I first started on MFP and got my watch the next month, I had a grossly inflated idea of how fast calories “burned” or how many I should “earn” exercising. I had it in my head that a three mile walk would burn enough calories that I could eat a family sized pack of Oreos.
Well, knock me down with a feather, it barely burned a two cookie serving! No stinking wonder I was obese!
Study and learn from your watch. I find mine to be pretty darn accurate. It can be painfully disappointing to learn that you’re not burning through calories and buying back food, same as it can be shocking to have that gelato or Big Mac and realize just how long it would take to do an equal amount of exercise.
That’s when the real “connection” between calories in/calories out happens.
One final thing, if you become very active, say three spins a day or log a ton of steps, you’re going to see an additional “Apple Calorie Adjustment”, which is a negative number to make additional adjustments. I wouldn’t worry about that til you get there, but that also confuses people.
here is my diary so far today. You’ll see the net 488 calories for the swim logged, as well as an Apple Watch adjustment of -175. This is because I’m highly active and have already turned my move ring four times.
I have not planned to eat any of my exercise calories back yet, so you see my net remaining calories are 768It’s lunchtime here (my meals snacks and desserts are already pre-logged.). By the time I walk the dog a couple of miles and do a yoga class, I’ll have20,000+ steps, a negative adjustment in the -400’s, and remaining calories of about 1,000, which means I get to spring for either an upgraded or additional snack, or second slice of pizza with dinner.
I am more active than average beat, but sharing this I think makes some of the differences more clear than you might see on your own diary, especially since mine is pre-logged and thus tentatively “done” for the dayYou can see I only got 104 calories (less the adjustment) for a mile and a half walk this morning. Walking is awesome exercise, one of (if not the best), but you’re just not going to buy-back as many calories as you think.
I know this can be wildly confusing. It took me AGES to figure it out, so please feel free to ask if any questions. I’m a 63 year old grandma, and very unintimidating, I promise. I just like to be in the street, as they say.
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