Random uncategorised calories

[Aisharebecca]

So I've been creating foods for meals etc. that I make, basically adding together all the things I put into the meal and entering all of the nutritional information based on this sum. However I keep getting random amounts of uncategorised calories. For example I'll add a food I've created that's about 500 calories and fitbit tells me I've got 32 uncategorised calories. I've filled in all the nutritional info, and I'm super confused about why i have uncategorised calories and why it's only a fraction of the food item I've logged...

[RobertoME]

Hello @Aisharebecca, good to have you here in the Fitbit Community. I'm wondering if you are using the option of "Quick calories"? This will add uncategorised calories in your food entries.

Although, before jump to conclusions I would like to ask a screenshot of this calories you have mentioned on your post? This will allow me to have a closer look of your Dashboard.

Keep me posted, I'll be around.

[Aisharebecca]

Hi Roberto,

No I'm not using quick calories, as I said I've created a food and entered all of the nutritional info but when I add it to my food for the day it gives me some uncategorised but most confusingly not for the whole thing. 

This was an example, I've added other food since but I initially added 'Chicken Korma' as a custom food which I make at home, worked out all the nutrition and entered the values and added it on this day. The 400 calories were added and 38 of them were uncategorised. I'm not sure how it's only a fraction that's uncategorised and annoying when I spent time working out my homemade meal so I could have it be accurate. 

[RobertoME · Accepted solution]

Hi there @Aisharebecca, thank you for providing me more details. Thank you for providing me the screenshot of your food entries. I see what you mean with categorized calories.

Note that the new Macronutrients feature is a simplified view of the Carbs, Fat and protein. Although when the food you logged does not contain only those three categories the macronutrient feature will label those calories as "Uncategorized Cals" 

You can use your online Dashboard under your food section to see all the nutrients from your food more in depth.

See you around and for more questions, just keep me posted.

[lynnyo11]

I am fairly new to fitbit.  I entered a smoothie that like you I identified the nutritional value, totaled it and then entered in the carbs, fat, protein, vitamin a, etc.  My smoothie is a total of just over 500 calories and I am getting over 250 uncategorized calories.  Did you find a solution?  The Macronutrients calculation is saying my smoothie is 55% fat which it is nowhere close.  If I can't find a solution there is no point to enter my food in the log if the metrics are not accurate.  Thanks!

[K_james7]

Hello,

This thread I'm afraid doesn't seem to provide a workable solution.

The customised foods issue is also happening on my end. I have entered every single field and have over 130 calories 'uncategorised' for a specific item I make (sunflower seed bread). This is really frustrating when I'm trying to be specific on my macro count.

Please can you assist with a solution? I really don't want to have to use two platforms I.e. MyFitnessPal. 

K

[bgilliland]

I’m having the same issue on my iPhone app and the advice in this thread isn’t solving it. I’ve tried entering all the fields available. I’ve tried entering only the cals, carbs, total fat, and protein. I’ve tried deleting it and entering it again. My mom has entered the exact same meal and exact same information in her Samsung app and has no “uncatagorized cals”. Mine are small. Like 6 or 2 depending on how’ve many servings of Thisbe meal I enter. But regardless it’s very annoying and frustrating when you're trying to be accurate and putting time into trying to accurately track. Is there any other help with this issue? 

[lynnyo11]

Use my fitness pal app to record your meals, link to Fitbit. That resolved the calorie issue for me.

Sent from my iPhone

[Shameless_mom]

Hi! You will need to enter the serving size as it was initially entered. 

Calories per serving are 110

You eat 110 calories: 1 entry

You eat 220 calories: 2 entries

This will categorize your calories.

[lynnyo11]

No, sorry that is not the solution for my situation.  I did resolve this shortly after my original post.
I entered my smoothie into MyFitnessPal and linked that account to FitBit. Fitbit has or had some type of algorithm problem with calculations with personal meal entries, other users have had the same issues related to uncategorized calories.  It could be the problem has been corrected, 

[lynnyo11]

I resolved my issue by entering my homemade meal (smoothie) with MyFitnessPal app.  Then you have to link that app to the FitBit app.  Once I did this I no longer had the uncategorized calories. Basically I used MyFitness Pal to enter all of my food which loaded then directly to MyFitBit app.  Hope this helps if you haven't found a solution. 🙂

[Shameless_mom]

The solution I first mentioned worked for me, and that's why I mentioned
it. I had uncategorized calories, and they were categorized once I made
separate entries instead of changing the serving size. Thanks

[Vr4berlin]

This was bothering me too so I started thinking about what my can of chicken says.."approximate serving size". It occurs to me that the fat, protein, and carbs all add up to calories. 9 calories for fat, 4 for carbs, 4 for protein. If your amount of fat, protein and carb calories DONT add up to the total amount of calories you're putting in for that food, then you end up with uncategorized calories. It's a math error. The approximate numbers on the food appear to create the issue. Its not exact. Add up the calories for each of the groups fat, carbs and protein. That should be your total calorie number. When you correct the total amount, the uncategorized calories go away. My can of chicken was telling me 32 uncategorized calories. But when I calculated the exact amount of calories based on each of the macros, everything was categorized. Just remember, food labels are approximate and sometimes they are slightly off. According to the macros they said were in the chicken, it was only 257 calories, not the 280 on the label. Fitbit should have figured this out already. 

[Vr4berlin]

RoberttoMe -If we're logging macros, i.e. MACROnutrients, what other types are there besides carbs (sugar), proteins and fat? I dont know of any. If Fitbit is counting MICROnutrients here too, why are they? It says macros on the label. Should only be counting macros. In addition, MICROnutrients dont even have calories. So your answer appears not to make any sense. It's a math issue, see my answer. 

[lrnvl]

I am having the same issue. Here is my working theory: I think this is happening because the calories based on the macros don't add up to the total calories for this entry:

total calories: 265

macros:

fat = 15g * 9cal/gram =135 cal

carb = 10g * 4cal/gram = 40 cal

protein = 7g * 4cal/gram = 28 cal

total based on macros: 223 cal

So fitbit takes the 265 - 223 and finds that there are 42 calories unaccounted for. I see you have more uncategorized cals than that, are there more foods with unaccounted for calories?

[t.parker]

@lrnvl it's very much like it. When I add foods to MyFitnessPal by getting data from the labels, MFP automatically calculates calories based on macros and then I need to manually correct calories if I want it to match the label. So I'd say the food labels are here to blame.