Fitbit and exercise calories burned

flippy1234

Hi all,
Question, How accurate do you think your fitbit (Charge 2 is what I have), is when it shows calories burned in a workout? I literally put mine on right before my workout this morning and took it off right after. I was trying to see calories burned only. It registered about 750 calories when I was done. It's a 1/2 hour kickboxing workout that is pretty intense but that seems really high. Any thoughts?

shadow2soul

Okay so did you put it in exercise mode and get that from the end exercise summary?

Or did you just look at calories burned?

The thing about Fitbit is that it is an All Day activity tracker. It will count calories for your BMR regardless of whether you wear it or not. So if after your class you looked at the calorie burn total it was your exercise and your BMR from midnight to that point in time.

An example, my Fitbit gives me 14 calories every 15 mins to account for my BMR. Daily activity and exercise adds to that.

So when I get up at 6 am I have already burned 336 calories even though I was asleep, because my body still uses calories even at rest.

heybales

Are you within first couple weeks of using it?
It's going to be potentially inaccurate since still learning your stats, resting HR, easy moving HR, amount of workouts, ect.

Was HR enabled, and therefore HR-based calorie burn if you started a workout?
Then inaccurate for that type of workout which I'm betting is very interval in nature.

And then the very potential reason explained already.

wmd1979

Yeah, there's no way you burned 750 calories in half an hour of kickboxing. I kickbox as well and I might be able to burn that many in 45 minutes to an hour but I am also 6'2" 195lbs. Like stated before, I would guess that is your total calorie burn including your BMR. I would keep your fitbit on at all times and give it a couple weeks to get more accurate measurements. It will adjust and you will be able to adjust with it.

flippy1234

Thanks you guys. Not sure what the fitbit did but I knew it was high.

Zodikosis

Fitbits are best used when you wear them (almost) 24/7. They automatically calculate your BMR and add them to your burn count. You could do some math to figure out what just the activity burn was, but it's not directly reported in your daily average (caveat: it does sometimes report just the activity burn if it can autodetect it or if you're certain down to the minute when you started and ended the activity and the activity was continuous).

heybales

Base level burn is always included in the workout - because literally in this chunk of time here's what you burned. Or so it's estimated by calculation anyway.

It's not here's what you burned above what you would have burned sleeping, as if that would have been the only other option for your time besides the workout.

A workout where you start/stop the activity and a workout where it auto-starts it after the fact (enough time, steps, and HR) both end up the same too.