Calories Burned Discrepancy Apple Watch vs. Chest Strap Heart Rate Monitor

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benniesmother
benniesmother Posts: 269 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I just got an apple watch recently, to help track my activity and specifically calories burned. I have a chest strap heart rate monitor but it often pops open when I'm exercising and it drives me crazy, so I thought having the watch would be helpful. However, there are HUGE discrepancies in the calorie burn between the two. For example, I jogged outdoors today for 55 minutes with an average rate of 140 bpm. My chest strap monitor says I burned approximately 405 calories, and the Apple Watch says I burned 200. I was huffing and puffing the entire time and I felt like I was going to throw up by the end of it, so it was a very intense workout. Both of these devices have my height and weight input into them (5'3.5", 124 lb), so I'm wondering which one would be more accurate or why there is such a huge discrepancy between the two. When I use an online calorie burn calculator using my stats including average heart rate, it shows as being much closer to the 400 mark. I don't want to be overcounting calorie burn, but I would like to get credit for the hard work I'm doing!! Thanks in advance.

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  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    How many miles did you go? Perceived exertion can be misleading...ultimately, someone of the same weight who is in better shape going the same distance as someone of the same weight who is huffing and puffing over the same distance is going to burn roughly the same calories as energy expenditure is going to be largely based on mass moved over a specific distance where running and walking are concerned.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    The relationship between heartbeats and calories is very variable between people or even the same person at different fitness levels.

    The relationship between perceived exertion and calories is massively variable between different people.
    e.g. a Pro cyclist could be doubling my burns for the same "feeling" and I could be doubling the calories of a low performance cyclist but all three feel like they are working hard.

    As above suggestion weight moved over distance is usually a better guide and if you pick a good calculator, you can get a net calorie estimate rather than the gross estimates that many calculators, MyFitnessPal and wearable devices give you.

    What net calories do you get when you plug your numbers into this calculator?
    https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
  • panda4153
    panda4153 Posts: 417 Member
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    It’s also important to point out that the Apple Watch algorithm is estimating your active calories during a workout, meaning the excess calories you are burning on top of the regular amount you would burn anyways just existing. Do you know if your HRM is calculating the same? It would explain the difference. My prior HRM before my watch was a total calorie burn and was always higher then my watch, but I have found my Apple Watch is more accurate when compared to my actual weight loss/gain expectation.

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