Do you trust Fitbit for calories per day burned? Seems off...
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Verity1111
Posts: 3,309 Member
At first I thought it was saying 1300 calories per day, which seemed very low. I was reading it wrong because now it is saying I burn 1800-2100 calories per day and I'm considered sedentary (based on what it reads as my steps per day). 1300ish seemed low, but 2198 (what it says now after me wearing it all day) seems very high. I exercise rarely right now because I have aspiration pneumonia and I have only exercised a couple times in the time I've had it (since the 14th because I got sick on the 16th). I am 5'4" and weight between 195-200lbs. I'm 26. I have a FitBit Charge 2 btw.
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That's your total burn including your BMR. We are the same height and I burn 1900-2200 depending on how many steps I get in.
It seems accurate to me.
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leanjogreen18 wrote: »That's your total burn including your BMR. We are the same height and I burn 1900-2200 depending on how many steps I get in.
It seems accurate to me.
Do you use that amount for setting your calorie deficit? I seriously only walk around 3,000 steps per day...unless I go to school (3 days per week). I walk 1-3 miles extra per day on those days. I don't think I've worn my Fitbit to school though. Most people move more than I do.0 -
If your heart rate is relatively high in general it may overstate calories more than otherwise. It may take a few weeks to a month for your Fitbit to settle down, to figure out what your resting heart rate is and what is exercise for you and what isn't.
You meet the MFP definition of sedentary at about 3500 steps a day.
For most people more steps than that mean that they get more calories than MFP sedentary.
The TDEE of 2198 that you show is just below the 2217 that is the expected TDEE of a lightly active female of your age and height @ 195lbs. At 200lbs that number jumps to 2248.
I don't see anything wrong or out of whack here.
ETA: if you got that on 3000 steps potentially the amount of time you were standing in the day or your heart rate may be contributing.
frankly, at your age, try to move more my friend. It will do you good, assuming that you don't have health problems that prevent you from doing so.
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I found mine was well overestimating what I did on a day to day basis. I wear it on my non-dominant arm but have it set to dominant, and it is a lot more realistic.
I'm 37, 5'4, 185lbs and walk 13k-18k steps a day and my total daily burn is between 2500 and 3000 according to Fitbit.1 -
I synced my Fitbit to mfp and still use mfp calorie goal, I get adjustments under the exercise field because after 2500 steps I think you're actually lightly active vs sedentary.
I'm still learning so you may want to join the Fitbit group there is a lot of help there.0 -
Alatariel75 wrote: »I found mine was well overestimating what I did on a day to day basis. I wear it on my non-dominant arm but have it set to dominant, and it is a lot more realistic.
I'm 37, 5'4, 185lbs and walk 13k-18k steps a day and my total daily burn is between 2500 and 3000 according to Fitbit.
Maybe it's my HR making it that way? My HR tends to jump very easily because of w.e. reason be it my health or my being way out of shape. I have a resting heartrate around 70-75 but if I even walk a few steps or try to open a taped up box it will go up to 100bpm and I have heavy breathing lol Im not joking... I did the dishes earlier and for 2 minutes of it the fitbit though I was doing "intense" activity lol In it's defense I did feel like I would faint... Lol0 -
If your heart rate is relatively high in general it may overstate calories more than otherwise. It may take a few weeks to a month for your Fitbit to settle down, to figure out what your resting heart rate is and what is exercise for you and what isn't.
You meet the MFP definition of sedentary at about 3500 steps a day.
For most people more steps than that mean that they get more calories than MFP sedentary.
The TDEE of 2198 that you show is just below the 2217 that is the expected TDEE of a lightly active female of your age and height @ 195lbs. At 200lbs that number jumps to 2248.
I don't see anything wrong or out of whack here.
ETA: if you got that on 3000 steps potentially the amount of time you were standing in the day or your heart rate may be contributing.
frankly, at your age, try to move more my friend. It will do you good, assuming that you don't have health problems that prevent you from doing so.
My resting HR is not high (70-75) but my HR jumps easy and I huff and puff easily as stated in the last comment. It sees doing dishes as moderate to intense activity based on my HR. I did not intended exercise today and it said I was active over 1.5 hours.0 -
If your heart rate is relatively high in general it may overstate calories more than otherwise. It may take a few weeks to a month for your Fitbit to settle down, to figure out what your resting heart rate is and what is exercise for you and what isn't.
You meet the MFP definition of sedentary at about 3500 steps a day.
For most people more steps than that mean that they get more calories than MFP sedentary.
The TDEE of 2198 that you show is just below the 2217 that is the expected TDEE of a lightly active female of your age and height @ 195lbs. At 200lbs that number jumps to 2248.
I don't see anything wrong or out of whack here.
ETA: if you got that on 3000 steps potentially the amount of time you were standing in the day or your heart rate may be contributing.
frankly, at your age, try to move more my friend. It will do you good, assuming that you don't have health problems that prevent you from doing so.
I do have some health issues actually. I have an ankle with hardware, I just had a couple procedures for biopsies and I ended up with complications that gave me aspiration pneumonia. lol. So as of right now I am kind of not too active except on days where I feel better. I also tend to break out in hives often and have severe allergic reactions every few days. I try to move more except that I get chest pain and my breathing quickens easily. Even bending over too long I feel like I will pass the heck out sometimes (especially now with being sick). I miss being healthier and able to exercise more. Thank you for all the information! It helped put things into perspective in another way.0 -
I use it as a rough guide, but take what it says with a grain of salt, especially since my Flex doesn't know how to count when it comes to my deficit. Example: my deficit is set to 500. Yesterday my deficit was 725 cals (2258 out, 1533 in), but the app simultaneously tells me "You are under budget" AND "169 calories over". I don't know if it's because the Fitbit meal plan settings clash with my MFP goals (I log all my food in MFP since there's no local database for food on the FB side) or if the mobile app is buggy. The browser dashboard/Windows app seems to get it right most of the time, which is even more confusing. If it can't get my deficit right, can I trust the burn count?1
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How long have you been wearing the Fitbit? Mine is pretty much spot on, unless I do high intensity workout then the numbers are inflated3
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Based on your heart rates there is a possibility that there is a slight over-estimation. HOWEVER, the numbers are sufficiently in the ballpark that they are not too far off. I would provisionally accept them and move on to seeing if you can get corresponding real life results after trusting them for a month.4
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lemonychild wrote: »How long have you been wearing the Fitbit? Mine is pretty much spot on, unless I do high intensity workout then the numbers are inflated
Very new! Does it make a difference? It's been a week or two only.0 -
Fitbit is much more generous than my Garmin Fenix .... it should not really matter, but I do like the bigger numbers1
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Yes it makes a big difference ... once you put on the Fitbit for the first time it's trying to learn your heart rate at resting and at activity so that it can make the accurate calculations you are looking forVerity1111 wrote: »lemonychild wrote: »How long have you been wearing the Fitbit? Mine is pretty much spot on, unless I do high intensity workout then the numbers are inflated
Very new! Does it make a difference? It's been a week or two only.
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If you were to stay in bed ALL DAY you would use about 1610 calories just for bodily functions. For your heart, lungs, brain to function. For your body to maintain its temperature and such. Then a sedentary person uses 20-25% of their BMR at least to move thru their day.
So yes, your Fitbit read seems accurate, at least within 5-10% which is the best we can hope for I think. Round down to 2000 TDEE for days you don't have class and eat 1500 to aim for 1 pound per week.
Note that as you lose weight, these things will consume less energy.Verity1111 wrote: »At first I thought it was saying 1300 calories per day, which seemed very low. I was reading it wrong because now it is saying I burn 1800-2100 calories per day and I'm considered sedentary (based on what it reads as my steps per day). 1300ish seemed low, but 2198 (what it says now after me wearing it all day) seems very high. I exercise rarely right now because I have aspiration pneumonia and I have only exercised a couple times in the time I've had it (since the 14th because I got sick on the 16th). I am 5'4" and weight between 195-200lbs. I'm 26. I have a FitBit Charge 2 btw.
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I don't rely on mine, but when I do check it's usually pretty accurate. It gives me about 1800-2000 which is about what I average for maintenance.1
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Mine seems a little high to me as well. I've had a Charge 2 for about 2-3 weeks now and it estimates I burn 1800 calories a day (most calculators put me at 1600-1550, 1400-1350 for BMR). However, I do seem to walk a lot (average of 8,000 steps a day, 5 miles a day). I just changed the handiness on it though to see if that feels more accurate. I don't know, I just don't see myself as being that active. I sit at a desk for about 6.5 hours a day (and spend the other 30 minutes either standing or walking around the building). I walk to and from the parking lot (which is only about .25 miles one way, .5 both ways). And when I get home, while I am mostly on my feet doing chores and what not, it's all stuff I feel like anyone else would be doing (going up and down stairs with laundry, walking the dogs, dishes).
The only thing I notice is I tend to do everything either very fast or with a lot of force (for example, I run up and downstairs with the laundry and scrub hard when I do dishes. I also fast walk in the grocery store). I fidget a lot too which I've heard burns an extra 50 or so calories a day. So maybe if you find that you do things with a certain gusto, you end up burning an extra 100 calories a day as well. I would use my best judgement I guess. If you know you're slow and not doing very much, maybe ignore what your Fitbit says. If you know you're a busy bee, maybe it's only wrong by 100 calories.0 -
Verity1111 wrote: »At first I thought it was saying 1300 calories per day, which seemed very low. I was reading it wrong because now it is saying I burn 1800-2100 calories per day and I'm considered sedentary (based on what it reads as my steps per day). 1300ish seemed low, but 2198 (what it says now after me wearing it all day) seems very high. I exercise rarely right now because I have aspiration pneumonia and I have only exercised a couple times in the time I've had it (since the 14th because I got sick on the 16th). I am 5'4" and weight between 195-200lbs. I'm 26. I have a FitBit Charge 2 btw.
Nah I don't go by any of these estimators.0 -
It doesn't seem off to me. I've been using a Fitbit since July 2015. First the Charge HR, then the Charge 2 when it came out. I'm 5'3" and between 111 and 112 pounds. My TDEE via Fitbit is, on average, 2396 calories. I've been following that ever since I've entered maintenance and I have not gained any weight whatsoever.1
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I've read a few different articles that all agree that Fitbit overestimates calories burned for ambulatory acivities like walking and running, but understimates for household activities like vaccumming and laundry. The consensus is that it all averages out to be fairly accurate up to +10% (compared to lab quality equipment). It does get more accurate the more you wear. I've had mine for 2 months and my calorie estimates match up with what most online calculators give me as an estimate. I think you should be able to trust it after a month or two of regular wear.
This article broke down what activity level you should use to estimate calories based on your step counts.
https://www.acsm.org/docs/brochures/selecting-and-effectively-using-a-pedometer.pdf
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