Fit bit and calories

jenniferburns1989
jenniferburns1989 Posts: 21 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Is fit bit watch calculating my calories right?? If so great , everyone needs to own a fitbit.

Replies

  • SuperheroSadie
    SuperheroSadie Posts: 167 Member
    What kind of fitbit do you have? I have an HR, and the calorie adjustments it gives you are insanely inaccurate. If you unpair with MFP and calculate just what you're burning doing cardio, then it's probably about as accurate as you're gonna get.
  • jenniferburns1989
    jenniferburns1989 Posts: 21 Member
    Flex. I know on fitbit app I know those calories are way wrong ( 2000 some calories burned) but my fitness pal has a different calorie count which seems right .
  • bellarose1207
    bellarose1207 Posts: 26 Member
    Then why have it if it is wrong...disappointed
  • xLyric
    xLyric Posts: 840 Member
    edited April 2016
    I find mine to be very accurate

    Just realized it says watch. I have the One, which I find to be very accurate. I don't have any experience with the watches!
  • HellyFaye
    HellyFaye Posts: 202 Member
    I feel like my fitbit is fairly accurate, expect when I have been driving over a bumpy road.
  • xLyric
    xLyric Posts: 840 Member
    jenniferburns1989 wrote: »
    Flex. I know on fitbit app I know those calories are way wrong ( 2000 some calories burned) but my fitness pal has a different calorie count which seems right .

    2000 calories is correct. It's calculating everything burned just from existing, not just exercise. MFP already does that, so you don't see it in the transfer, but it's there. That's why you'll see calories burned even when sleeping; you're always burning calories.
  • SuperheroSadie
    SuperheroSadie Posts: 167 Member
    jenniferburns1989 wrote: »
    Flex. I know on fitbit app I know those calories are way wrong ( 2000 some calories burned) but my fitness pal has a different calorie count which seems right .

    It's saying that you've burned 2000 calories so far that day. It generally includes your TDEE in that burn.

    And it depends. If you pair them up you can't enter your exercise calories separately in MFP, and I'd just make sure they were lining up. I was getting like 600-800 calories extra a day only walking like 12000 steps. Ridiculous, really.
  • PiperGirl08
    PiperGirl08 Posts: 134 Member
    edited April 2016
    Ah, the fitbit calorie count. It was like being back in college again -- without having to do all the running between classes and multiple team and supplemental workouts for hours each day.

    Seriously, I didn't find the fitbit hr to be good at anything -- not at step counting, not at calorie counting, not at distance measuring, not at heart rate . It was consistently and absurdly high on every front (unless I was training at an intense level, then the hr barely registered). I honestly don't understand how they've gotten such a huge chunk of the market.
  • bellarose1207
    bellarose1207 Posts: 26 Member
    If it is that inaccurate which would be the best one??
  • mom2natalie
    mom2natalie Posts: 51 Member
    I've been using my charge hr synced with my fitnesspal since February. I've been losing consistently and have no issues.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    PiperGirl08 wrote: »
    Seriously, I didn't find the fitbit hr to be good at anything -- not at step counting, not at calorie counting, not at distance measuring, not at heart rate . It was consistently and absurdly high on every front (unless I was training at an intense level, then the hr barely registered). I honestly don't understand how they've gotten such a huge chunk of the market.

    They got the corporate wellness market, and then the social network carried them the rest of the way.
  • PiperGirl08
    PiperGirl08 Posts: 134 Member
    In terms of which is the best, it depends on what your priorities are. I use a Polar M400 with the EKG-accurate chest strap for training because of the included gps for distance, pace and hr accuracy. I also use a MS Band 2 for resting and non-training hr, because it is close enough for that purpose. And allows you to program in workouts through which it then guides you -- warmup, workout including intervals if desired, cooldown, a wide variety of stretches. Just top rate features in that vein. But the hr is nowhere accurate during intense exercise.

    There are a small number of competing wrist units that claim to be EKG-accurate, though, from competitors whose names elude me. Most of the wrist-based optical hr devices are inaccurate, though as countless articles online detail.

    I wish I could remember the name of the ekg-accurate wrist unit. As I recall, the drawback was in the presentation of the collected data -- the company doesn't do nearly as much with it as Polar and Garmin, plus I already had the Band.

    Personally, I have not been able to find the one unit to rule them all, yet. I don't think it exists. But Garmin just released some new devices that sound quite promising.

    Good luck.
  • firef1y72
    firef1y72 Posts: 1,579 Member
    Well I find my Charge HR to be pretty accurate. Yes it does give me insane numbers, with loads of extra calories for being active, but I'm losing at the rate it predicts with the extra calories it gives. The HR monitor seems reasonably accurate too, I check it against the machine monitors every now and again and it's within a couple of points.
  • pineygirl
    pineygirl Posts: 322 Member
    Mine has been really accurate. I have the Charge HR. I was skeptical of its accuracy at first and didn't eat all my exercise calories back. Instead of losing 1lb per week like I had intended to, I lost 1.5 to 2lb per week. When I looked at my weight data over 8 weeks I could see my deficit was between 750 and 900. Not 500.

    When I started eating at an actual 500 calorie deficit and ate back my fitbit adjusment calories...I did lose 1lb per week. Then switched to a 250 deficit and lost 0.5lb per week.

    In maintenance though I continued to lose fat and inches even though my weight stayed constant. I am lifting heavy though.

    Fitbit doesn't even recognize my lifting as exercise. And why should it? I don't take a lot of steps, spend 2 minutes between sets playing with my phone. My heart rate might go up to 120 during a set but drops right back down when I'm done an resting.

    But Firbit doesn't account for the extra calorie consumption lifting requires. Recovery from the muscle damage requires energy...and calories.

    So by eating what Fitbit told me to...My weight stayed the same, but I built muscle and the energy required to do that came from my body fat.

    Ahhh...recomposition.

    Should have done that 5lb ago. Because I got way too thin looking. I go a six pack and really vascular looking. My chest got bony and my ribs show. And my cycle got wonky. I'm trying to concieve baby #2....and I didn't even respond to Clomid this cycle.

    So now I'm eating more than fitbit tells me to. So I can build muscle, and put a little fat back on. So technically a bulk.
  • mullihm
    mullihm Posts: 2 Member
    Hey I have a question....I know I'm not supposed to add my exercises into fitbit but do I actually hold the button on the fitbit itself to let it know I'm starting a workout? Ive been using fitbit with mfp for a week and it seems my added calories are very high. I try to stick to the original amount of calories mfp gives and want to save the rest for weight loss. But in the case I do want to eat something extra how do I figure this is accurate.... start the workout manually on the fitbit or not at all? ThankS guys

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