Can I really trust my Fitbit?

kkcruickshank

I'm a little wary of all the extra calories my fitbit is telling me I've burned. For example, I took my dog on a four mile walk today and also went to the gym for an hour and a half. According to my fitbit I walked a total of 6 miles throughout the day and burned 3048 calories, as of 9pm.

I have my fitbit account synced to MFP and it has given me an additional 555 calories burned for the day. I don't know if I should trust these additional calories burned....thoughts?

Fitfully_me

Are you asking is it possible that you burned 555 calories walking your dog + doing whatever you did at the gym for an hour and half?

Of course it's possible to burn 500+ calories in that time frame, but, we don't know your stats, how fast you walked, what you did at the gym,etc so we can't say yes or no you burned 555 extra calories today.

How did you calculate your burns before you had fitbit? How do these estimates compare?

kkcruickshank

Sorry, I guess I didn't explain it well enough.

I burned 721 calories today between my time at the gym & walking my dog. On top of that, fitbit has given me an additional 555 calories for a grand total of 1269 calories burned today.

I'm just thinking that it sounds excessive, even for all the work I've been putting in and wanted to know if anyone else has had a similar experience.

dbm037

Are you double logging or just letting the fitbit adjustment log for you? I see people on here logging exercise as well as having the fitbit adjustment.

kkcruickshank

I'm logging in all my cardio activity and letting fitbit make the adjustment. On lighter days I don't get the additional fitbit calories and on heavier days I do.

dbm037

I don't log anything, my fitbit adjustment does the logging for me, unless it a swim. I think you are doubling up on what you burned. I just let the fitbit do it's thing.

sugarkane1234

I don't log anything, my fitbit adjustment does the logging for me, unless it a swim. I think you are doubling up on what you burned. I just let the fitbit do it's thing.

I disagree that's it's doubling up on the activity. MFP and Fitbit work together remarkably well (minus the few times a year they have sync issues). The Fitbit adjustment is just the difference between what MFP estimates you've burned and what Fitbit estimates you've burned. If you click on the little blue and white "i" next to your Fitbit adjustment under exercise, it will show you the numbers. If, for example, you have your MFP daily activity set to sedentary, but then you walk a lot during the day, you will probably have a positive Fitbit adjustment because it's picking up your non-exercise activity. I wouldn't recommend that you eat all of your extra calories back because it is all just estimation, but you've certainly earned most of them.

kkcruickshank

I've had my fitbit for almost three weeks now and really just wanted to make sure I wasn't accidentally double-logging my activities. Thanks for the clarification!