Calorie burn too high?!

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mikesaslof
mikesaslof Posts: 4 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I walk 9 miles a day at my job about 21000 steps as a goal, fit but says I burn 1800 calories every day, on top of my bMR, MyFitnessPal says I burn about 450, so what's the deal...

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  • jenniferinfl
    jenniferinfl Posts: 456 Member
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    Where are you seeing that separate 1800 calorie burn on top of your BMR in the fitbit app? I'm just curious as mine doesn't split it up that way at all. I have the Blaze, so perhaps it's a different experience. I can see how much I burned on a walk, but, it includes the BMR calories for the timespan of the walk. I'm heavier, so, for instance a typical 'at rest' burn for me is about 6 calories every 5 minutes according to fitbit, that's my BMR spread throughout the day. So, if I go on a 35 minute walk and burn 205 calories, I have to subtract out my BMR calories if I want to see my calories just from my walk. I burn around 42 calories that are just my BMR calories and 163 calories are my walking calories during that 35 minute walk.
    Considering that your walking is happening in the course of a typical work day, I'm betting that you are looking at a combination of your walking calories and your BMR on fitbit. Like I said, yours may be different, but, anywhere I look on my fitbit app or the website dashboard, all I get is the combination of BMR and activity, they aren't split.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
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    jenniferinfl wrote: »
    Where are you seeing that separate 1800 calorie burn on top of your BMR in the fitbit app? I'm just curious as mine doesn't split it up that way at all. I have the Blaze, so perhaps it's a different experience. I can see how much I burned on a walk, but, it includes the BMR calories for the timespan of the walk. I'm heavier, so, for instance a typical 'at rest' burn for me is about 6 calories every 5 minutes according to fitbit, that's my BMR spread throughout the day. So, if I go on a 35 minute walk and burn 205 calories, I have to subtract out my BMR calories if I want to see my calories just from my walk. I burn around 42 calories that are just my BMR calories and 163 calories are my walking calories during that 35 minute walk.
    Considering that your walking is happening in the course of a typical work day, I'm betting that you are looking at a combination of your walking calories and your BMR on fitbit. Like I said, yours may be different, but, anywhere I look on my fitbit app or the website dashboard, all I get is the combination of BMR and activity, they aren't split.

    I have the charge HR and it doesnt separate the BMR from your activity calories unless you are looking on the dashboard on the app where it says weekly exercise.but sometimes it doesnt always show the activity you did either so.its a crap shoot lol
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
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    To sanity check your net caloric expenditures use this formula for walking: .30 x weight in lbs x distance in miles

    Unless you weigh 666 lbs or are walking up Mt Everest you're not burning an additional 200 cal per mile walked. If you're in the neighbourhood of 150 or 160 lbs the 50 cal / mile is far more realistic.
  • CatchMom11
    CatchMom11 Posts: 462 Member
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    I have the Charge 2 HR and if I'm looking at my dashboard and go into my exercises, it'll tell me how many calories I burned for each particular exercise. That doesn't include the rest of the calories that I've burned throughout the day, including post-workout. From what I can tell, it's only counting the calories that were burned during the elevated heart rate period.
  • jenniferinfl
    jenniferinfl Posts: 456 Member
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    CatchMom13 wrote: »
    I have the Charge 2 HR and if I'm looking at my dashboard and go into my exercises, it'll tell me how many calories I burned for each particular exercise. That doesn't include the rest of the calories that I've burned throughout the day, including post-workout. From what I can tell, it's only counting the calories that were burned during the elevated heart rate period.

    Fitbit and Myfitnesspal do things a bit differently. In My Fitness Pal, you start out with your BMR already showing on the board and gradually the calories from fitbit shuffle over as you sync.
    Fitbit though doesn't give you your BMR in one lump sum, it spreads it out evenly in 5 minute intervals. If you click on calorie burn from your dashboard, you should see that even when you are sleeping you are burning a certain amount every 5 minutes, this is your BMR spread out throughout the day.

    You will notice that when you exercise, those exercise calories are added on top of your BMR. So, if you see that you burned 300 calories on your one hour walk on your fitbit and decide to enter that yourself to Myfitnesspal, you will be accidentally including some of your BMR calories because of the way fitbit adds it up.

    Fitbit shows how many calories you burned for the duration of your exercise, so it includes the calories from the exercise and the calories from your BMR. If you look at your calorie burn for while you're sleeping you can see how much fitbit assigns for your BMR every 5 minutes and subtract it out. :) But, yeah, fitbit doesn't enter your BMR in one lump sum like MFP, but in small increments every 5 minutes over a 24 hour time period.
  • jenniferinfl
    jenniferinfl Posts: 456 Member
    edited May 2017
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    mikesaslof wrote: »
    I walk 9 miles a day at my job about 21000 steps as a goal, fit but says I burn 1800 calories every day, on top of my bMR, MyFitnessPal says I burn about 450, so what's the deal...
    CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »
    jenniferinfl wrote: »
    Where are you seeing that separate 1800 calorie burn on top of your BMR in the fitbit app? I'm just curious as mine doesn't split it up that way at all. I have the Blaze, so perhaps it's a different experience. I can see how much I burned on a walk, but, it includes the BMR calories for the timespan of the walk. I'm heavier, so, for instance a typical 'at rest' burn for me is about 6 calories every 5 minutes according to fitbit, that's my BMR spread throughout the day. So, if I go on a 35 minute walk and burn 205 calories, I have to subtract out my BMR calories if I want to see my calories just from my walk. I burn around 42 calories that are just my BMR calories and 163 calories are my walking calories during that 35 minute walk.
    Considering that your walking is happening in the course of a typical work day, I'm betting that you are looking at a combination of your walking calories and your BMR on fitbit. Like I said, yours may be different, but, anywhere I look on my fitbit app or the website dashboard, all I get is the combination of BMR and activity, they aren't split.

    I have the charge HR and it doesnt separate the BMR from your activity calories unless you are looking on the dashboard on the app where it says weekly exercise.but sometimes it doesnt always show the activity you did either so.its a crap shoot lol

    Yeah, on my fitbit the activity has to be sustained for at least 10 minutes to count.. I'm sure there have been dozens of times when I have stopped when I was within 30 seconds of an activity counting. Ugh! I did go ahead and compare my activity burns and even the separated out ones include the BMR in the activity burn.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
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    jenniferinfl wrote: »
    CatchMom13 wrote: »
    I have the Charge 2 HR and if I'm looking at my dashboard and go into my exercises, it'll tell me how many calories I burned for each particular exercise. That doesn't include the rest of the calories that I've burned throughout the day, including post-workout. From what I can tell, it's only counting the calories that were burned during the elevated heart rate period.

    Fitbit and Myfitnesspal do things a bit differently. In My Fitness Pal, you start out with your BMR already showing on the board and gradually the calories from fitbit shuffle over as you sync.
    Fitbit though doesn't give you your BMR in one lump sum, it spreads it out evenly in 5 minute intervals. If you click on calorie burn from your dashboard, you should see that even when you are sleeping you are burning a certain amount every 5 minutes, this is your BMR spread out throughout the day.

    You will notice that when you exercise, those exercise calories are added on top of your BMR. So, if you see that you burned 300 calories on your one hour walk on your fitbit and decide to enter that yourself to Myfitnesspal, you will be accidentally including some of your BMR calories because of the way fitbit adds it up.

    Fitbit shows how many calories you burned for the duration of your exercise, so it includes the calories from the exercise and the calories from your BMR. If you look at your calorie burn for while you're sleeping you can see how much fitbit assigns for your BMR every 5 minutes and subtract it out. :) But, yeah, fitbit doesn't enter your BMR in one lump sum like MFP, but in small increments every 5 minutes over a 24 hour time period.

    your BMR doesnt show up on the board on MFP. what shows up is your TDEE - deficit to lose weight. so if your TDEE is 2500 and you are set to lose 1lb a week your calories will be 2000.. what is added back to mfp is your exercise calories because your deficit is built in without exercise, so any intentional exercise will make a bigger deficit which is why its suggested to eat some or all exercise calories back(it will vary person to person). If you enter info yourself from your fitbit into mfp it will overwrite everything else. which is why its best to either let fitbit calculate everything,or you can decide not to sync fitbit and manually enter everything.


    your BMR(what your body burns just by being alive) it doesnt change often(except when you eat lower calories for a time,age,weighing less/more,certain health issues,meds,etc). what changes often is your TDEE, due to how active/inactive you are.Its not the same everyday for most people

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