Does Fitbit way overestimate calories burned?
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shadow2soul wrote: »MamaBirdBoss wrote: »shadow2soul wrote: »azulvioleta6 wrote: »PeachyCarol wrote: »azulvioleta6 wrote: »There is no such thing as starvation mode.
Burning 500 calories is light years away from a strenuous workout.
If a Zip is going through more than about 2 batteries a year, it is defective. This happened to me--I called FitBit and received a brand new Zip in less than a week.
You can't make blanket statements about other people and exercise, and you always, always do. It comes across as annoying and judgmental. Everyone on here is at a different part of their fitness journey. People are also differently abled, and differently sized.
Additionally, the amount of calories you burn depends on how much you weigh, how fit you are already, how long you exercise and a host of other factors.
I am middle aged.
I have a desk job.
I have fibromyalgia.
I have several very significant injuries that limit what I can do in terms of exercise.
Still, I don't think that I have EVER had a day when I burned less than 1000 calories in activity. I am usually in the 1500-2000 range, even when I'm not trying terribly hard. Yes, I am a tall/large framed person and obviously that makes a difference in calorie burn.
A lot of people here have been very sedentary for years and they have really skewed ideas about exercise. Many of us are from cultures where being inactive is considered acceptable, especially as we age. There are a lot of people on MFP who are not very interested in being physically active. While it might not be necessary for most people to work out a lot in order to lose weight, being active IS important for quality of life and overall health.
Brag about doing 500 calories worth of exercise and you should expect to be corrected. That is just NOT much.
How do you know it's not that much? Seriously. You don't know. For me:
97 Mins Ice Cream Fitness 5x5 (heavy lifting) = approx 200 - 250 calories burned which leaves me physically drained and starving
Today I've worked out for a total of 1 hr 42 mins for 545 calories. Granted it's been a mixture between strength and cardio.
How many calories you burn depends on what your doing and your stats. I'm at a healthy weight now and it would take me hours to get 1000 calorie burns from workouts (when I was heavier, it didn't take long). To get that during lifting, I'd have to be lifting heavy for 388 mins (over 6 hours) and I'm pretty sure my body would give out well before that point. When I was 200+ lbs, 1000 calories wasn't out of the ordinary. However, I'm around 135 lbs now and it would take more time then I can allot to exercise to get to 1000 calorie burns (and that's if my body didn't give out from the stress first).
Mine would. Right now? Absolutely. At the weight that I was at my fittest? Like I said, I probably hit that a handful of times. Ever. And I was in track and cross country--one of the better runners on the team. I was one of about five (out of over 50) who could actually make the whole stadium routine without walking.
I could free weight squat more than most of the football team. When I switched to weightlifting, I could crunch on the ab machine more than any of them, easily. EASILY. I could do back extensions holding a 45 AND a 35lb weight to my chest. I was enough of a monster that when I visited gyms, guys would stop working out to watch me lift on some of the stations. I'd do freeweight calf raises with close to 400lbs.
And I don't think I hit 1000 cals hardly ever.
I exercised 15 hours a week when I was at my lightest. Some days, I'd work so hard that I'd wobble the next day.
Trust me. I was working. I knew how to work. When you're sub-120lbs, it takes an insane amount to burn through 1000 calories.
Could I walk 19 miles in a day now? Yeah. But I wouldn't be doing it tomorrow, too.
That was my point. If I read the ticker on her profile correctly, I think she is in the 200's and calorie burns for a 200lb person are a lot different than those of us who are lighter.
I am currently 199.8 lb and I get a 1200 calorie Fitbit adjustment with 80 minutes of walking, 1 hour of swimming laps, and 1 hour of a water aerobics class. I can only do that 3 times a week. It is possible to burn that much in the 200 lb range, but you need a lot of time in which to do it. Good for you @azulvioleta6 if you have no job or other responsibilities and can work out a large portion of the day, every day. The rest of us have lives.
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Yeh I'm confused. I think she may be referring to NEAT plus exercise on tracker.
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shadow2soul wrote: »Wait, wait. It just dawned on me. @azulvioleta6 are you talking about 1000 calorie Fitbit Adjustments? (seeing as this is a thread about Fitbit Adjustments)
If that's the case, ya when I set my profile on MFP to sedentary, I'm almost guaranteed to get a 1000 calorie adjustment from Fitbit. That however isn't just exercise, but includes my daily activity as well. My exercise calorie burns are puny anymore
. I'm set to lightly active right now and have a 422 calorie adjustment from Fitbit already.
Yeah, I think that's what's going on. She has been using "activity" and "exercise" interchangeably.
However, I have to do something like 30k steps to get anything close to a 1,000 adjustment. I don't have my MFP settings on sedentary, though, I think it's active or lightly active and begin the day with 1463 calories that I set myself with negative adjustment turned off. I weigh 186.
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I didn't exercise yesterday. I have my Mfp set to sedentary, I took about 13000 steps and got about 500 cals on the Fitbit adjustment. But those steps are only "extra" because I have it set at sedentary, which I'm not (most days
). I've only had it a couple months, I'm still playing with the settings, but it's seems to be pretty accurate. 0 -
I have a fit bit surge and seems about as accurate as gym machines and online calculators. Like it's not massively higher or lower.
I trust it. Not to the point of eating 100% if the exercise back. I would rather risk losing slightly more than slightly less.
My understanding is if you enter into mfp it's not double dipping, for me what's entered into mfp over writes the Fitbit figures.
Also give it more time. Make sure you set up the fit bit correctly, I think there is an option for stride length0 -
shadow2soul wrote: »MamaBirdBoss wrote: »shadow2soul wrote: »azulvioleta6 wrote: »PeachyCarol wrote: »azulvioleta6 wrote: »There is no such thing as starvation mode.
Burning 500 calories is light years away from a strenuous workout.
If a Zip is going through more than about 2 batteries a year, it is defective. This happened to me--I called FitBit and received a brand new Zip in less than a week.
You can't make blanket statements about other people and exercise, and you always, always do. It comes across as annoying and judgmental. Everyone on here is at a different part of their fitness journey. People are also differently abled, and differently sized.
Additionally, the amount of calories you burn depends on how much you weigh, how fit you are already, how long you exercise and a host of other factors.
I am middle aged.
I have a desk job.
I have fibromyalgia.
I have several very significant injuries that limit what I can do in terms of exercise.
Still, I don't think that I have EVER had a day when I burned less than 1000 calories in activity. I am usually in the 1500-2000 range, even when I'm not trying terribly hard. Yes, I am a tall/large framed person and obviously that makes a difference in calorie burn.
A lot of people here have been very sedentary for years and they have really skewed ideas about exercise. Many of us are from cultures where being inactive is considered acceptable, especially as we age. There are a lot of people on MFP who are not very interested in being physically active. While it might not be necessary for most people to work out a lot in order to lose weight, being active IS important for quality of life and overall health.
Brag about doing 500 calories worth of exercise and you should expect to be corrected. That is just NOT much.
How do you know it's not that much? Seriously. You don't know. For me:
97 Mins Ice Cream Fitness 5x5 (heavy lifting) = approx 200 - 250 calories burned which leaves me physically drained and starving
Today I've worked out for a total of 1 hr 42 mins for 545 calories. Granted it's been a mixture between strength and cardio.
How many calories you burn depends on what your doing and your stats. I'm at a healthy weight now and it would take me hours to get 1000 calorie burns from workouts (when I was heavier, it didn't take long). To get that during lifting, I'd have to be lifting heavy for 388 mins (over 6 hours) and I'm pretty sure my body would give out well before that point. When I was 200+ lbs, 1000 calories wasn't out of the ordinary. However, I'm around 135 lbs now and it would take more time then I can allot to exercise to get to 1000 calorie burns (and that's if my body didn't give out from the stress first).
Mine would. Right now? Absolutely. At the weight that I was at my fittest? Like I said, I probably hit that a handful of times. Ever. And I was in track and cross country--one of the better runners on the team. I was one of about five (out of over 50) who could actually make the whole stadium routine without walking.
I could free weight squat more than most of the football team. When I switched to weightlifting, I could crunch on the ab machine more than any of them, easily. EASILY. I could do back extensions holding a 45 AND a 35lb weight to my chest. I was enough of a monster that when I visited gyms, guys would stop working out to watch me lift on some of the stations. I'd do freeweight calf raises with close to 400lbs.
And I don't think I hit 1000 cals hardly ever.
I exercised 15 hours a week when I was at my lightest. Some days, I'd work so hard that I'd wobble the next day.
Trust me. I was working. I knew how to work. When you're sub-120lbs, it takes an insane amount to burn through 1000 calories.
Could I walk 19 miles in a day now? Yeah. But I wouldn't be doing it tomorrow, too.
That was my point. If I read the ticker on her profile correctly, I think she is in the 200's and calorie burns for a 200lb person are a lot different than those of us who are lighter.
I ran the stats. Yeah, I could get a 1000 cal a day burn from not too much more than 10000 steps at 200lbs.
I'm now really interested in a possible weight vest...lol! I'm afraid that might not be quite the same. I wonder.......0 -
Lourdesong wrote: »shadow2soul wrote: »Wait, wait. It just dawned on me. @azulvioleta6 are you talking about 1000 calorie Fitbit Adjustments? (seeing as this is a thread about Fitbit Adjustments)
If that's the case, ya when I set my profile on MFP to sedentary, I'm almost guaranteed to get a 1000 calorie adjustment from Fitbit. That however isn't just exercise, but includes my daily activity as well. My exercise calorie burns are puny anymore . I'm set to lightly active right now and have a 422 calorie adjustment from Fitbit already.
Yeah, I think that's what's going on. She has been using "activity" and "exercise" interchangeably.
However, I have to do something like 30k steps to get anything close to a 1,000 adjustment. I don't have my MFP settings on sedentary, though, I think it's active or lightly active and begin the day with 1463 calories that I set myself with negative adjustment turned off. I weigh 186.
I'm at 45,600 steps with my short, squatty legs to get 1,000 cal just from activity. lol. And I AM on sedentary!
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I have to walk around 21,000 steps or over 10 miles to get to that magical 1000 calorie burn. I've been trusting my fitbit, and so far so good.0
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UltimateRBF wrote: »Lourdesong wrote: »shadow2soul wrote: »Wait, wait. It just dawned on me. @azulvioleta6 are you talking about 1000 calorie Fitbit Adjustments? (seeing as this is a thread about Fitbit Adjustments)
If that's the case, ya when I set my profile on MFP to sedentary, I'm almost guaranteed to get a 1000 calorie adjustment from Fitbit. That however isn't just exercise, but includes my daily activity as well. My exercise calorie burns are puny anymore . I'm set to lightly active right now and have a 422 calorie adjustment from Fitbit already.
Yeah, I think that's what's going on. She has been using "activity" and "exercise" interchangeably.
However, I have to do something like 30k steps to get anything close to a 1,000 adjustment. I don't have my MFP settings on sedentary, though, I think it's active or lightly active and begin the day with 1463 calories that I set myself with negative adjustment turned off. I weigh 186.
I think that's what's going on. Normal daily activity burns and exercise burns are not the same thing. For Pete's sake
Oh and I saw my post earlier today now has a flag...LOLOL
I've STRUGGLED to get anywhere close to 2,200-2,300 cal a day total burn. STRUGGLED. I'm trying to keep on a 1,000 cal deficit challenge. It's very, very hard for me. I'm walking on a treadmill as I type this!0 -
azulvioleta6 wrote: »PeachyCarol wrote: »azulvioleta6 wrote: »There is no such thing as starvation mode.
Burning 500 calories is light years away from a strenuous workout.
If a Zip is going through more than about 2 batteries a year, it is defective. This happened to me--I called FitBit and received a brand new Zip in less than a week.
You can't make blanket statements about other people and exercise, and you always, always do. It comes across as annoying and judgmental. Everyone on here is at a different part of their fitness journey. People are also differently abled, and differently sized.
Additionally, the amount of calories you burn depends on how much you weigh, how fit you are already, how long you exercise and a host of other factors.
I am middle aged.
I have a desk job.
I have fibromyalgia.
I have several very significant injuries that limit what I can do in terms of exercise.
Still, I don't think that I have EVER had a day when I burned less than 1000 calories in activity. I am usually in the 1500-2000 range, even when I'm not trying terribly hard. Yes, I am a tall/large framed person and obviously that makes a difference in calorie burn.
A lot of people here have been very sedentary for years and they have really skewed ideas about exercise. Many of us are from cultures where being inactive is considered acceptable, especially as we age. There are a lot of people on MFP who are not very interested in being physically active. While it might not be necessary for most people to work out a lot in order to lose weight, being active IS important for quality of life and overall health.
Brag about doing 500 calories worth of exercise and you should expect to be corrected. That is just NOT much.
This has to be bmr, or your tdee....
In order to truly "exercise"and burn 500-1000 cal. would take hard work.
and it IS ALOT of work, hard work and time !!
you are middle aged, desk job, with pain... to exercise (walk,run,etc) and burn 500 is hard to do.
You have to be counting just living calorie burn. (tdee)
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It's weird what goes on in some of these threads.
Arguments between apples and oranges over what is a lot of exercise or a little.
Competing over who had the most illness/disabilities.
To all the people who have a fit bit do you have negative adjustments turned on? If you do it should matter which setting you have it on in mfp, sedentary or active.
Some days I am super sedentary and need to exercise to get up to what mfp considers sedentary 0 -
MamaBirdBoss wrote: »Lourdesong wrote: »shadow2soul wrote: »Wait, wait. It just dawned on me. @azulvioleta6 are you talking about 1000 calorie Fitbit Adjustments? (seeing as this is a thread about Fitbit Adjustments)
If that's the case, ya when I set my profile on MFP to sedentary, I'm almost guaranteed to get a 1000 calorie adjustment from Fitbit. That however isn't just exercise, but includes my daily activity as well. My exercise calorie burns are puny anymore . I'm set to lightly active right now and have a 422 calorie adjustment from Fitbit already.
Yeah, I think that's what's going on. She has been using "activity" and "exercise" interchangeably.
However, I have to do something like 30k steps to get anything close to a 1,000 adjustment. I don't have my MFP settings on sedentary, though, I think it's active or lightly active and begin the day with 1463 calories that I set myself with negative adjustment turned off. I weigh 186.
I'm at 45,600 steps with my short, squatty legs to get 1,000 cal just from activity. lol. And I AM on sedentary!
That don't make no sense.
How are you set to sedentary and doing 45k steps and only getting that small of an adjustment. Are you super fit and walking is really easy for you?0 -
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I'm having the reverse problem, I think. I'm wondering whether the Fitbit is underestimating what I'm burning. Today I took a 30 minute walk (1 mile and a half), did an hour yoga class (average to gentle, not power), laundry, some light yard work -- raking and seeding for about half an hour, and another 20 minute walk (about a mile) before supper. Before lunch but after my 30 minute walk, I got around 60 exercise calories from my MFP adjustment, but by the end of the day, it was down to 13 -- calories got taken away, even though I wasn't exactly a couch potato. Right now, my total calories used from my fitbit, which I assume is my TDEE is only 1245 calories. I know I'm small (5'1.5") and over 50 years old, but still this doesn't seem like much for that amount of activity.0
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MamaBirdBoss wrote: »Lourdesong wrote: »shadow2soul wrote: »Wait, wait. It just dawned on me. @azulvioleta6 are you talking about 1000 calorie Fitbit Adjustments? (seeing as this is a thread about Fitbit Adjustments)
If that's the case, ya when I set my profile on MFP to sedentary, I'm almost guaranteed to get a 1000 calorie adjustment from Fitbit. That however isn't just exercise, but includes my daily activity as well. My exercise calorie burns are puny anymore . I'm set to lightly active right now and have a 422 calorie adjustment from Fitbit already.
Yeah, I think that's what's going on. She has been using "activity" and "exercise" interchangeably.
However, I have to do something like 30k steps to get anything close to a 1,000 adjustment. I don't have my MFP settings on sedentary, though, I think it's active or lightly active and begin the day with 1463 calories that I set myself with negative adjustment turned off. I weigh 186.
I'm at 45,600 steps with my short, squatty legs to get 1,000 cal just from activity. lol. And I AM on sedentary!
That don't make no sense.
How are you set to sedentary and doing 45k steps and only getting that small of an adjustment. Are you super fit and walking is really easy for you?
I think it's still small but I just realised I was mixing up calories and kilojoules
so not as bad as I thought. 0 -
christinev297 wrote: »I have to walk around 21,000 steps or over 10 miles to get to that magical 1000 calorie burn.
Yup, same here.
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I'm having the reverse problem, I think. I'm wondering whether the Fitbit is underestimating what I'm burning. Today I took a 30 minute walk (1 mile and a half), did an hour yoga class (average to gentle, not power), laundry, some light yard work -- raking and seeding for about half an hour, and another 20 minute walk (about a mile) before supper. Before lunch but after my 30 minute walk, I got around 60 exercise calories from my MFP adjustment, but by the end of the day, it was down to 13 -- calories got taken away, even though I wasn't exactly a couch potato. Right now, my total calories used from my fitbit, which I assume is my TDEE is only 1245 calories. I know I'm small (5'1.5") and over 50 years old, but still this doesn't seem like much for that amount of activity.
Do you have mfp set to lightly active? How many steps have you taken? It won't really credit the yoga or seeding, just steps.0 -
I'm having the reverse problem, I think. I'm wondering whether the Fitbit is underestimating what I'm burning. Today I took a 30 minute walk (1 mile and a half), did an hour yoga class (average to gentle, not power), laundry, some light yard work -- raking and seeding for about half an hour, and another 20 minute walk (about a mile) before supper. Before lunch but after my 30 minute walk, I got around 60 exercise calories from my MFP adjustment, but by the end of the day, it was down to 13 -- calories got taken away, even though I wasn't exactly a couch potato. Right now, my total calories used from my fitbit, which I assume is my TDEE is only 1245 calories. I know I'm small (5'1.5") and over 50 years old, but still this doesn't seem like much for that amount of activity.
Do you have mfp set to lightly active? How many steps have you taken? It won't really credit the yoga or seeding, just steps.
Today, I did over 11,000 steps. I'm also using the Fitbit HR, so it's measuring heartrate, not just steps, so I'm assuming it's calculating my TDEE since it's measuring how many calories I burn all day based on that. I would assume yoga wouldn't burn too many calories, but yard work and such would. MFP has me set to eat 1200 to lose; I've actually reset to 1000 calories because I do have a low metabolism (it was tested and showed 1136 BMR). However, I assumed BMR is when you're doing practically nothing. 1245 is not much higher than that and that's what the fibit shows I've burned in a day's activity.0
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