Fitbit overcalculated calories burned??

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sarlizmurphy
sarlizmurphy Posts: 35 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I have used Fitbit in the past but never really payed attention to the calories burned becasue I wasn’t a calorie counter.. I am trying to keep track of calories now and my new fit bit keeps track of calories burned based on heart rate and movement.. so today was an average day for me at work and then I went for a walk after .. a total of 13,000ish steps for the day.. it is saying I burned over 3,000 calories today! I just don’t see how that would be possible. Any similar experiences??

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  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
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    Without knowing your stats, what you do at work and such it’s really hard to guess. I mean some days I can take 13k steps and burn just under 2000 calories. Other times I can do roughly the same steps and get close to 3000. It really depends how I got the steps and what my day looked like as a whole (including activities that may not have added steps).

    For me Fitbit Fitbit didn’t overestimate and models without HRMS underestimated by a lot.

    However it is just an estimate and it can overestimate for some.

    Double check your stats in the settings as well.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Keep in mind you would have burned about/almost 2,000 calories if you never got out of bed today. 13,000 steps is about 6.5 miles depending how long your legs are. The number of calories walking contributed is in the ballpark of 6.5 x your weight in pounds / 3.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
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    Do you have the heart rate monitor type? For me, those over-estimate. I had to turn heart rate monitoring off to get a more accurate reading because my heart rate can go up more than usual if I'm stressed or overheating while doing an activity. It is possible, though, that you are burning that much depending on your stats and what you do. The usual advice is to start eating back about 50% of the extra calories then see how it correlates with your weight for a few weeks (about 6-8 weeks) then adjust the percentage you eat back up or down accordingly.
  • kam3190
    kam3190 Posts: 157 Member
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    For me that is an appropriate burn. I burn between 2500 and 3800 a day with an average of 10000 to 15000 steps a day.
  • Susieq_1994
    Susieq_1994 Posts: 5,361 Member
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    Fitbit way overestimates for me. What it gave me as a 500 calorie deficit turned out to be my maintenance! If I had eaten the maintenance number, I would have been gaining weight rapidly. Lots of others have found it to be accurate for them, though, so you'll need to use your own data (calorie intake and weekly weight loss) to determine that. :)
  • Maxematics
    Maxematics Posts: 2,287 Member
    edited March 2019
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    Mine is accurate. I'm 5'3", 112 pounds, and my TDEE according to Fitbit is between 2000 and 2300 calories on average.

    The important thing to remember is that Fitbit is showing your TDEE. I'm not saying this is you, but we've had users that think the number Fitbit is giving them is in addition to their BMR and, of course, those people saw rapid weight gain and blamed Fitbit. There's also the fact that some people think they're eating the calories given by Fitbit but they're not using a food scale so their calorie intake is inaccurate.

    As stated by someone else you can always eat a portion of the calories back and reassess. Even if you don't have a food scale, you'll end up with a calorie range that works for you and that's better than undereating by ignoring your Fitbit adjustment altogether.
  • Dilvish
    Dilvish Posts: 398 Member
    edited March 2019
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    Actually studies show these electronic gadgets can be inaccurate most of the time!
    https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30093371
  • RosieRose7673
    RosieRose7673 Posts: 438 Member
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    They’re all estimates based on averages in the population. Try following the Fitbit calories for a few weeks and evaluate. If it seems your gaining, adjust down. If you’re losing appropriately, keep on going!

    For me, my Fitbit versa underestimates my burn. I’m maintaining and if I eat what Fitbit tells me I’m burning, I slowly lose weight. So I usually just eat a little bit more. No big deal.

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