RunKeeper and Apple Healthkit calorie burn in MFP - how accurate are they?

PastorVincent

So background... I am at my goal weight for my THIRD time in my adult life. The first two times I had to lose 50 pounds to get there, this last time only 15, so that is an improvement I guess. Obviously, I suck at the maintenance phase and want to change that.

So trying MFP for the first time this round (though been tracking through those 15 lost pounds) I plugged my stats into MFP and it says 2130 calories per day. Cool. Okay. So here we go...

I plug in everything I eat, then I go for a run. RunKeeper says I burned 2058 calories. Almost a full day's food. I get that I need to think in weekly averages, so I can eat some more tomorrow to help make that up. Not a problem I do not plan to exercise tomorrow. Should be easy to overeat.

Well, RunKepper syncs with Apple Healthkit who then syncs with MFP. When the calorie count makes it into MFP, it is only 1574, almost 600 calorie difference. Apple Health Kit calls this "Active Calories" which it claims is more real than anything else in the entire universe of course. I am sure RunKeeper feels the same about their numbers.

This leaves me a problem. Which number is more accurate? 600 calories is a pretty big bowl of ice cream which sadly I would be happy to eat. When I was losing, I always trusted the lowest number - after all, I wanted to run at a deficit so that made sense. Now though I am trying to find that magic ground where I neither gain nor loose. Is either number more trustworthy?

I just do not want to have to lose this weight again, and MFP is supposed to make this clearer for me, or so was my hope.

Any tips on this? Thanks!

Poisonedpawn78

What gets put into MFP will be more accurate because it is removing the calories it already assumed you would be burning based on your activity level. it assumed you would burn 600 sitting on the couch or doing some stuff around the house/work. The active calories are the ones ABOVE your baseline MFP activity level.

Now 2 things, most people only eat back 50-75% of the active calories because the fitbits ect can be inaccurate by a good amount. Secondly 1574 calories is a LOT for a run, especially when you are near a goal weight.

JeromeBarry1

Try creating a discussion mentioning "RunKeeper and Apple Healthkit calorie burn" in the title. Someone who knows more might see it and explain what's happening for you. As I showed up, all I can say is that the mfp exercise database is not very accurate at all.

PastorVincent

Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »

Secondly 1574 calories is a LOT for a run, especially when you are near a goal weight.

Maybe, but it is real. I do longish runs on the weekend. Here is the numbers from RunKeeper:

PastorVincent

JeromeBarry1 wrote: »

Try creating a discussion mentioning "RunKeeper and Apple Healthkit calorie burn" in the title. Someone who knows more might see it and explain what's happening for you. As I showed up, all I can say is that the mfp exercise database is not very accurate at all.

Done.

PastorVincent

Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »

What gets put into MFP will be more accurate because it is removing the calories it already assumed you would be burning based on your activity level. it assumed you would burn 600 sitting on the couch or doing some stuff around the house/work. The active calories are the ones ABOVE your baseline MFP activity level.

That is what the Apple HealthKit help system claims, just wondering on how correct it is. Both RunKeeper and Apple report far lower calories than MFP's db so I never trust MFP's db - nor the stats from MapMyRun which is also always higher than RK and Apple.

If the 1574 is the one to trust, than I can roll with that. I figure will have to tweak the base 2130 anyways as I go. Just really do not want to do the whole loose 50 pounds thing agian. That gets old fast.

Poisonedpawn78

VydorScope wrote: »

Poisonedpawn78 wrote: »

Secondly 1574 calories is a LOT for a run, especially when you are near a goal weight.

Maybe, but it is real. I do longish runs on the weekend. Here is the numbers from RunKeeper:

Thats quite the run, it might be accurate then.

collectingblues

That's a pretty big calorie burn from that run. I'd be more inclined to agree with the Watch on this one. I don't know your stats, of course, but for a 15-mile run I'd -- at 5'4", 120ish -- burn only around 1,200 calories.

I use both the Watch and Runkeeper, and I find that although it is pretty accurate on most things, Runkeeper does tend to exaggerate burn in some events. If you want to be conservative, go with the Watch.

AnvilHead

The formula I see most often cited is one from Runner's World, where they put it at:

Calories = bodyweight (in lbs.) x 0.63 x miles

Plug your bodyweight into that calculator and see how it works out - if it's closer to one or the other of the figures you got from other sources.

PastorVincent

collectingblues wrote: »

That's a pretty big calorie burn from that run. I'd be more inclined to agree with the Watch on this one. I don't know your stats, of course, but for a 15-mile run I'd -- at 5'4", 120ish -- burn only around 1,200 calories.

I use both the Watch and Runkeeper, and I find that although it is pretty accurate on most things, Runkeeper does tend to exaggerate burn in some events. If you want to be conservative, go with the Watch.

There was also 1109 (or there abouts) of elevation on that run, not sure how that plays into it. My legs want to say it means a lot, but it might not.

It is not a question of "being conservative" here as much as it is finding the correct ballpark number to maintain weight. But that is a second vote here for the Watch at least.

PastorVincent

AnvilHead wrote: »

The formula I see most often cited is one from Runner's World, where they put it at:

Calories = bodyweight (in lbs.) x 0.63 x miles

Plug your bodyweight into that calculator and see how it works out - if it's closer to one or the other of the figures you got from other sources.

That yeilds a third number between the other two. But a little closer to the Watch than RunKeeper, so I guess that counts as a vote for the Watch.

PastorVincent

collectingblues wrote: »

I use both the Watch and Runkeeper, and I find that although it is pretty accurate on most things, Runkeeper does tend to exaggerate burn in some events. If you want to be conservative, go with the Watch.

Oh, meant to say I also use the Watch, but it fires off RunKeeper. When I look in "Workout" it shows it as a RunKeeper run. I assume that it is using all the data from RunKeeper to come up with the 1574 calories and not tracking anything of its own. Sounds like this is also what you do. Based on your experence, it sounds like you would trust the number from Watch/Healthkit more than RunKeeper, in general?

PastorVincent

Just for fun, I sync'd the run over to Strava... and Strava says 2402 calories for the same run.

stanmann571

I find that strava and runkeeper tend to overestimate. I don't use apple health... I do use Garmin Connect and when I sync runs over to strava and runkeeper they sometimes increase the calorie count by as much as double.

collectingblues

That's how I log my runs -- I let Runkeeper do its thing, but then I see what the *total* is that Watch is accumulating during the time.

But, when I look at other activities, I track through HealthKit/Watch alone. That's how I can see that in some things, Runkeeper overestimates (barre, hiking) and underestimates in others (swimming).

Keep in mind that I don't eat back calories, so my goals/needs are different from yours. I manually calculate my TDEE based on the week's average, and do that from Watch. I only see the separate Runkeeper burn when I enter manually in there so that I get the activity record. (My tracking was through Runkeeper first, so that's where all the data was... eventually I'll stop entering in Runkeeper, once I've got a year's worth of data in the Watch or so.)