Fitbit Calorie Burn Accuracry

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jtb442
jtb442 Posts: 5 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I was wondering if anyone here has had any luck by using the calorie's burned per day stat on their Fitbit (I'm using an HR 2) to calculate their deficit for that day.

Mine seems to be WAY off. I have a daily budget of 1400 and lose about 2LB's a week. My Fitbit typically pins me at burning 3400 calories a day.

The reason I bring this up is that I typically break and have a pretty bad weekend that sets me back even considering this setback I still burn 2lb's a week. So I'm wondering if I'm over-working myself during the week and by using the Fitbit's numbers I could have much more lax weekdays and not break on the weekends.

Replies

  • lemonychild
    lemonychild Posts: 654 Member
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    What gives you 3400 cals daily burn?
  • jtb442
    jtb442 Posts: 5 Member
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    I'm not 100% sure how the Fitbit actually comes up with the number. It appears to be a base calculation of my age/weight/etc then uses my heart rate data throughout the day to estimate what I'm doing. I also exercise daily which adds about 500.
  • lemonychild
    lemonychild Posts: 654 Member
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    I know what Fitbit is doing, I'm asking you what type of activity do you do In order to get that type of daily burn? Fitbit has inaccuracies and they are mostly around irregular HR meaning high intensity exercise is what gives Fitbit a racked up number . If your HR is pretty steady (i.e. Walking) your Fitbit is pretty accurate then( this applies also that you are a user for longer than a month of Fitbit as during that time it has the learning curve)
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited February 2017
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    Okay, what is your average daily intake (including bad days) for say the past month.

    An easy way to do this is go to nutrion settings in app and pick a start day for your week.
    Then:
    - Go to Nutrition section
    - Select Calories
    - Select Total
    - Write down number I circled in red on pic below (its the weeks average) for the past 4-6 weeks
    9he75n82si8j.png

    Now, take the total of your weekly averages and divide it by the number of weeks you used. Then divide that by 7 and you will get your daily average for that time frame.

    Now figure out your average weekly loss for that same time period. (Total loss during time frame divided by # of weeks)

    Average loss * 3500 = average weekly deficit
    Average weekly deficit / 7 = average daily deficit

    Average daily deficit + average daily intake = approx maintenance level calories



    ~If your anti math, I can do it for you. But you will have to tell me the information needed to do the calculations~
  • jtb442
    jtb442 Posts: 5 Member
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    lemonychild wrote: »
    I know what Fitbit is doing, I'm asking you what type of activity do you do In order to get that type of daily burn? Fitbit has inaccuracies and they are mostly around irregular HR meaning high intensity exercise is what gives Fitbit a racked up number . If your HR is pretty steady (i.e. Walking) your Fitbit is pretty accurate then( this applies also that you are a user for longer than a month of Fitbit as during that time it has the learning curve)

    Oh okay my bad. I run on the treadmill or elliptical nightly. Other then that It's just a normal day or walking when running errands and such. 3 Times a week on top of the treadmill I also lift weights for about 20 minutes.
  • jtb442
    jtb442 Posts: 5 Member
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    shadow2soul wrote: »
    Okay, what is your average daily intake (including bad days) for say the past month.

    An easy way to do this is go to nutrion settings in app and pick a start day for your week.
    Then:
    - Go to Nutrition section
    - Select Calories
    - Select Total
    - Write down number I circled in red on pic below (its the weeks average) for the past 4-6 weeks
    9he75n82si8j.png

    Now, take the total of your weekly averages and divide it by the number of weeks you used. Then divide that by 7 and you will get your daily average for that time frame.

    Now figure out your average weekly loss for that same time period. (Total loss during time frame divided by # of weeks)

    Average loss * 3500 = average weekly deficit
    Average weekly deficit / 7 = average daily deficit

    Average daily deficit + average daily intake = approx maintenance level calories



    ~If your anti math, I can do it for you. But you will have to tell me the information needed to do the calculations~

    I did the math and got an average 850 deficit per week. Which makes sense to what I was expecting and calculating for my daily goals. So I'm going to assume my fitbit is way off at this point. Thanks for laying that out for me! I thought I was going insane.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
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    jtb442 wrote: »
    shadow2soul wrote: »
    Okay, what is your average daily intake (including bad days) for say the past month.

    An easy way to do this is go to nutrion settings in app and pick a start day for your week.
    Then:
    - Go to Nutrition section
    - Select Calories
    - Select Total
    - Write down number I circled in red on pic below (its the weeks average) for the past 4-6 weeks
    9he75n82si8j.png

    Now, take the total of your weekly averages and divide it by the number of weeks you used. Then divide that by 7 and you will get your daily average for that time frame.

    Now figure out your average weekly loss for that same time period. (Total loss during time frame divided by # of weeks)

    Average loss * 3500 = average weekly deficit
    Average weekly deficit / 7 = average daily deficit

    Average daily deficit + average daily intake = approx maintenance level calories



    ~If your anti math, I can do it for you. But you will have to tell me the information needed to do the calculations~

    I did the math and got an average 850 deficit per week. Which makes sense to what I was expecting and calculating for my daily goals. So I'm going to assume my fitbit is way off at this point. Thanks for laying that out for me! I thought I was going insane.

    Not a problem. For some it's way to high and for others it's about right. Mines about right, but I can't say that it will be for everyone.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
    edited February 2017
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    Is all your data entered correctly into Fitbit? Your height, weight, age, etc? When you use the elliptical or treadmill, do you use the exercise mode of the Charge 2?

    Have you tried lowering the sensitivity of your Fitbit by switching its settings to saying you wear it on your dominant hand?
  • SusanMFindlay
    SusanMFindlay Posts: 1,804 Member
    edited February 2017
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    jtb442 wrote: »
    I was wondering if anyone here has had any luck by using the calorie's burned per day stat on their Fitbit (I'm using an HR 2) to calculate their deficit for that day.

    Mine seems to be WAY off. I have a daily budget of 1400 and lose about 2LB's a week. My Fitbit typically pins me at burning 3400 calories a day.

    The reason I bring this up is that I typically break and have a pretty bad weekend that sets me back even considering this setback I still burn 2lb's a week. So I'm wondering if I'm over-working myself during the week and by using the Fitbit's numbers I could have much more lax weekdays and not break on the weekends.

    What are your:
    • gender
    • age
    • height
    • weight
    • average daily steps

    My husband is a very muscular somewhat active (10,000ish steps/day) 6'1 220 pound almost-50 male. His daily calorie burn according to FitBit is even higher than yours, so the number is not implausible. He's dropping weight steadily, but doesn't count calories so I can't absolutely guarantee you that his numbers are accurate - but mine are; my calorie intake, FitBit burn and weight lost match almost perfectly. We both have the Charge 2 model.

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