Accuracy of Fitbit

gohawks1988

I think my Fitbit is off...for a couple reasons... 1. it said I had 304 active minutes yesterday. I only worked out for 2 hours. 2. It said I burned 6532 calories yesterday. What?? 3. When I woke up this morning, it said I already had 112 steps taken..unless I'm sleepwalking IDK how that's possible.... am I going insane or is this normal? And on MFP yesterday it adjusted my exercise at 3323 calories..huh??? It's on my non dominant wrist and it's showing as that in my settings so what's up here?

capaul42

Your active minutes don't necessarily mean your workout. I've gotten 40 active minutes for just normal daily activity.

Depending on what your workout was yesterday, it's very possible that fitbit calculated your calories that high, especially if it has HR and yours was elevated during your workout.

As for the steps this morning, fitbit's track movement. If you were fairly restless while sleeping, it's very possible to have that many when you first get up. I usually have no more than 50 when I get up.

The adjustment it sent over to MFP would have been based on your total calories burnt for the day minus what MFP figures you burn daily normally. So that adjustment sounds right based on what fitbit said your calorie burn was. Not that it's correct but...

shadow2soul

1) Fitbit Help: What are Active Minutes?

Your Fitbit tracker recognizes and awards active minutes when the activity you're doing is more strenuous than regular walking, which includes everything from a brisk walk to a cardio workout or run.
....
You earn active minutes for activities at or above about 3 METs. To stay in line with the Center for Disease Control's (CDC’s) “10 minutes at a time is fine” concept, minutes are only awarded after 10 minutes of continuous moderate-to-intense activity. You can view the CDC’s recommendations on the CDC website.

2) While that sounds high to me...it really depends on your stats. For example I'm 5'4.5 and in the 120's. I'm typically in the 2000-2500 range depending on how active I am for the day (on lazy days or sick days I'll be a little lower and on days were I'm really active I can end up a bit higher).

3) If you are restless when you sleep, your device could be picking up steps from that.

4) That would mean that MFP expects you to burn 3,209 before exercise based on your stats and activity level. MFP gave you a deficit based on the 3,209 number. To maintain that deficit, based on Fitbit's estimated calorie burn for you, you would need to eat 3323 more calories. Now granted that depends on how far off base Fitbit's calculation was. I don't know what you did or your stats so I can't even guess.