Do you trust your fitness tracker's"calories burned"?
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I trust my Apple Watch series 3 that being said I don’t eat the extra calories MFP says I gained each day after workouts. I really only trust it for Cardio though. But then again it’s based off your heart rate and the period of time your heart rate is above normal/resting so.... I’m not sure if the series 2 watch tracks your heart rate during exercises or that was an update on the series 3&4?
It does track heart rate and is accurate at that.0 -
cmriverside wrote: »Just use it for a while and you'll know. That's really the only way to find out.
The device uses a standard/average algorithm that is going to be fairly close for most people.
Your own collected data trumps a device every time so collect your data and then adjust if necessary. For instance, the numbers I get from devices and online calculators are off by a few hundred calories per day according to my digital food scale and my own data collection.
Completely this ^^^.
My Garmin Vivoactive 3 is materially off for me, for all day calorie burn (it underestimates). To the extent that I have other calorie estimates I trust for exercise activity, it may be a bit low there, too.
Its estimates are low by roughly the same amount that MFP and other calculators are off. This makes me believe I'm statistically odd in some way. Meh.
I have it set to know my actual (tested) HRmax, but haven't messed with stride length (I get truly negligible amounts of step-based activity most of the time, so don't care to bother). It's now had about 5 months to get to know me, and I've done its "VO2max test".TavistockToad wrote: »i use a Garmin for running, and MFP for everything else (which is usually walking/stationary bike/weights)
never had fitness tracker, though i have used my Garmin occasionally to look at my step count.
mainly wanted to tag this thread as i never understand why people say their tracker is inaccurate but continue to use it? maybe someone will tell me!
I care about heart rate for workouts - it helps me make sure I'm not slacking off.
It seems accurate enough for HR, based on spot checks against doctors office, what the recent research is saying about accuracy, and experience with an older chest-strap HR belt with wrist monitor. I still use a chest belt with the Garmin for rowing, because wrist-based works poorly for that.
I care about pace and distance for rowing (outdoors). It has GPS, and gives me decent estimates for those as far as I can tell. (Its strokes per minute estimates are a little more questionable sometimes, for reasons I think I sort of understand, but they're not unimaginably awful.)
I always wear a wristwatch, because I'm old. It's nice to have one that I don't have to take off in order to put on the watch-style monitor for a normal HR-only chest belt, and besides, I'd still need the GPS stuff somehow. So, cheaper and logistically easier to get the whole thing in one tidy little device.
I do use the exercise calorie estimates when I don't have a plausible alternative. MFP's rowing estimates are way dumber than the ones I get from the Garmin (based on comparison with Concept 2 results). I suspect the same is true for cycling and spinning. (The Garmin usually gives me lower numbers than the non-watt-measuring spin bikes at my gym - waaaay lower when the spin bike picks up my heart rate **; MFP's generic cycling estimates seem subjectively suspect for my heavy hybrid bike.) I use MFP estimates for strength training. (** It estimated 702 calories for 54 minutes today, which is pretty hilarious.)
I was using HR monitors and GPS devices (for pace/distance) for a long time before I cared about exercise calorie estimates (like 8 or 10 years?), and before trackers (that had plausible estimates for anything I did care about) were a thing.
I have nearly 4 years of MFP logging data now, on which to base calorie intake planning. I don't see why my device's inaccuracy for all-day calories is worth a thought (though I think I could probably figure out a percentage markup that would be close, if I cared to do that, or maybe figure out how much to lie about my age or something to get a better estimate . . . but why? ).
Besides, its estimates of stairs and sleep are a great source of amusement!
Heart rate, pace/distance, time of day, and wrist/phone based comedy: Totally worth it.1 -
Can i burn on my tomtom 1,970 calories by walking around the city? Does this count as excerise?1
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I have worn my charge 3 every day for 6 weeks. 24/7.
I keep a daily log of the Charge TDEE minus calories eaten.
My weight loss over a 6 week period was off by .6 pounds.
I was amazed how close it has calculated.
Somedays I am very lazy and others I am pretty active so as far as daily NEAT goes it's a very helpful tool for me.
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I think they’re all good enough in that they keep us aware of the CO in the CICO in our daily activities. I’m going to start doing as others do of adding back 1/2 of my exercise calories for the next 30 days as my own little “science experiment.”2
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pierinifitness wrote: »I think they’re all good enough in that they keep us aware of the CO in the CICO in our daily activities. I’m going to start doing as others do of adding back 1/2 of my exercise calories for the next 30 days as my own little “science experiment.”
Keep us updated!0 -
pierinifitness wrote: »I think they’re all good enough in that they keep us aware of the CO in the CICO in our daily activities. I’m going to start doing as others do of adding back 1/2 of my exercise calories for the next 30 days as my own little “science experiment.”
Keep us updated!
If I can remember, big if, will do.
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I do trust mine especially after yesterday! I recently changed my activity level to Active in MFP and I let Garmin send my steps and adjust my calories. I did a ~4 mile run yesterday but otherwise sat on my butt. I'm obese. The run calories match using the distance x weight x 0.63 formula.
The tracker giveth, and the tracker taketh away...1 -
I do trust mine especially after yesterday! I recently changed my activity level to Active in MFP and I let Garmin send my steps and adjust my calories. I did a ~4 mile run yesterday but otherwise sat on my butt. I'm obese. The run calories match using the distance x weight x 0.63 formula.
The tracker giveth, and the tracker taketh away...
Congrats on changing your activity level to Active and on all of your accomplishments so far. Your profile pic is very inspiring!0 -
Anything cardio related (running / walking or cycling) yes. Very accurate.
Weight lifting... NOT AT ALL.
It depends on device for weighlifting and how you use it. If I use my Fitbit and put it on weighlifting mode while I lift? It's pretty much giving me a burn on par with what standard METS for lifting does.
I'm currently keeping a spreadsheet for my Fitbit because I never did for my current device, and it's surprisingly accurate.1 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Anything cardio related (running / walking or cycling) yes. Very accurate.
Weight lifting... NOT AT ALL.
It depends on device for weighlifting and how you use it. If I use my Fitbit and put it on weighlifting mode while I lift? It's pretty much giving me a burn on par with what standard METS for lifting does.
I'm currently keeping a spreadsheet for my Fitbit because I never did for my current device, and it's surprisingly accurate.
Garmin Vivoactive HR. For the same workout in weight lifting mode, sometimes I will get 300cal estimate and sometimes more than double that. On the bike or running however, very accurate.
I know Fitbit used to be very off for the weightlifting, but then they changed their algorithm to be more realistic. I don't know what Garmin goes by.0 -
I use a Fitbit that tracks heart rate and calculates burn based on that. I was told the trick is to wear it on your non-dominant wrist, but put it as dominant in the device settings, so it calculates a bit more conservatively. Obviously, it's more accurate for cardio workouts, but if you do routines that combine cardio with strength, like Piyo, then I suppose you might get a better calculation.0
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Unfortunately, the problem with using heart rate to estimate calories is fundamental. In the current generation of technology (and for any foreseeable future that occurs to me), we don't have any cheaply/easily-measured variable that tracks consistently and reliably with the amount of work (in the physics sense) being done in any/all types of exercise or activity, and it's the work that determines the calories.
These devices use user profile settings (like age, age or true heart rate max, weight, etc.), and measure things like arm movement (accelerometer), distance covered (gps), heart rate (HRM). They then use statistics from research studies and algorithms written by programmers to estimate calories. Some of them use user behavior history to tune the estimates, which is useful, but not the Big Fix.
Because of the statistical underpinnings, and if they use sound algorithms, the devices will be close to correct for average people (however the average was in the underlying statistics, simplifying slightly). They will be less accurate for some people, and quite inaccurate for a very few. That's how statistics work.
Heart rate, in particular, is a pretty terrible proxy for calorie burn . . . it's just that it's one of the better ones available to an affordable wrist-based (or chest belt) device.
This article is older, but it's still a good and accurate resource for understanding some of the limitations.
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/the-real-facts-about-hrms-and-calories-what-you-need-to-know-before-purchasing-an-hrm-or-using-one-21472
All you can do as a user is let it collect the history, give it a tested HRmax if you have one (don't let it use age estimates if you can avoid it), set things like stride length carefully, keep your weight in its settings up to date, and do any of its self-tests (for alleged VO2max or HR max or whatever) that you're physically capable of doing.1 -
I’m currently using the Apple Watch ⌚️ series 4, but have owned everyone that Apple has made. Yes, I do trust it over other trackers that I’ve tested.0
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For me it is awfully a matter of choosing the more conservative MFP numbers vs wechat my Garmin calculates.
I don't sync. I manually enter only deliberate exercise.0
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