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Fitbit accuracy?

alliesgettinghealthy
alliesgettinghealthy Posts: 87 Member
edited November 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
So lately I've found myself wondering if my fitbit is accurate? I used to think that it most likely overestimated calories burns but now I'm wondering if it could possibly be the opposite? From what I have read 20,000 steps is considered active/very active. Yesterday I walked 30,170 steps (220 active minutes) and my fitbit says that I burned 2,533 calories. When I calculated my tdee it is saying that I burned 2,607 calories, but that would be if I estimated for 20,000 steps a day? So should my burn actually be even higher than that? Does anyone find that their fitbit under estimates their calorie burn? Do you think that mine is giving me an accurate calorie burn? I know it's just an estimates but it makes me wonder which is more accurate.

Replies

  • GoPerfectHealth
    GoPerfectHealth Posts: 254 Member
    I calculated my actual TDEE and compared it to fitbit. I found a 269 calorie difference per day for a 28 day period. I imagine I have a slower metabolism, or the data in my food diary is a bit off. My advice is to take a 4-8 week period to run the numbers. Sounds to me like fitbit might be underestimating like you said.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    Take your 30 day Average Burn and 30 day average intake (found on fitbit profile page). Subtract them to come up with your average deficit for the past 30 days. Multiply that number by 30 to get your full deficit for the 30 days. Take that number and divide it by 3500 to come up with your expected loss. Does your actual loss match this number? If yes, then it's probably right. If no, you lost more then it underestimates. If no, you lost less then it overestimates.

    When I used the Flex (and before that the Zip), I found the calorie estimates to be underestimated by a couple hundred. So far with the Surge, it seems to be almost perfect (providing I don't go to the Asian buffet here in town, that throws my intake numbers off and which just completely throws off the math).
  • IvanOcampo
    IvanOcampo Posts: 226 Member
    The numbers are arbitrary. Just take the number of steps, calories, heart rate, etc.. and try to keep it consistent.

    Consistency is key.
This discussion has been closed.

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