Calorie burn accuracy from Fitbit sync

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kates232
kates232 Posts: 8 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I recently synced up my fitbit with my fitness pal account. This seems great because it will hopefully give a more accurate representation of how many calories I am burning through daily activities, but, how accurate is it? For instance, without syncing I would normally enter a workout session that would burn, say, 350cal and that would be it for exercise calories for the day. But since syncing, the fitbit takes into account all other activity calories burned and adds those additional calories back to my "remaining" calories for the day. So what was 350cal burned, soon becomes more like 500. I know for a fact if I consistently ate back those 500cal I would gain weight, but according to MFP, staying anywhere below the calories remaining I will lose weight (false!). Thoughts?

Seems like an easy way to overeat.

Replies

  • ZombieMom79
    ZombieMom79 Posts: 70 Member
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    I have had a fit bit since January. It syncs with MFP and my exercise calories are put in. I commonly some or all those calories depending on how active of a day I have. I have succesfully lost weight since then. You can only get a true accurate calories burn from a heart rate monitor I do believe.
  • Marilyn0924
    Marilyn0924 Posts: 797 Member
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    I tend to ignore my fitbit calories and enter in my cardio sessions (i.e. elliptical/treadmill etc) separately in MFP manually. Fitbit will adjust accordingly.
  • skylark94
    skylark94 Posts: 2,036 Member
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    I haven't encountered this problem.

    When I enter my workout numbers from my HRM under cardio on MFP, (example 450 calorie burned in an hour) the workout gets logged and the calories are added to my allowance, but then my "Fitbit calorie adjustment" will drop to accommodate for what I entered, often negating about half of what I entered.

    At the end of the day, my Fitbit calories burned vs. calories eaten will be exactly what they should be.
  • kates232
    kates232 Posts: 8 Member
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    I agree that the numbers add up correctly, I guess what I'm saying is that even though MFP can say, for example, that I can now eat 2500 cal based on my activity level for the day, if I consistently ate 2500cal per day I would gain weight (in my opinion, based on my metabolism).
  • Marilyn0924
    Marilyn0924 Posts: 797 Member
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    Maybe you need to adjust your activity level in MFP?
  • nilbogger
    nilbogger Posts: 870 Member
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    For me it seems accurate to the extent that if I stayed within those calories I would lose weight.
  • CMcD1445
    CMcD1445 Posts: 48 Member
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    I believe you have to put good data in.... Although noting that, I would say it's important to give your body nutrition after stressing it out at the gym. I've had my fitbit for a while and feel it's very accurate as I've tested it against a heart rate monitor and a RMR test... They were within 5% of each other. That being said, I also believe it's important to understand your macronutrient breakdown of what you're eating... If you're under calories, but had 400 carbs that day, I don't see how anyone could lose weight. Conversely, if you're over calories, but it's mostly veggies and lean proteins, then I don't think you're doing too much damage.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited October 2014
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    For me it actually underestimates a bit. Fitbit adjustments aren't just exercise, but also are the extra calories you burned during your daily activity (as compared to MFP's estimate).
    So for example:
    MFP thinks you burn 2000 calories before exercise
    log 500 exercise calorie burn
    MFP thinks you burned 2500 calories total for the day

    Fitbit estimated you burned 2100 calories before exercise
    the 500 calories logged on MFP is transfered over
    Fitbit estimates you burned 2600 calories total for the day

    in this case you would see a positive 100 calorie adjustment on MFP

    alternatively, you can also end up losing calories if fitbit doesnt think you burned the 2000 calories that MFP estimated
    ZombieMom79 wrote: »
    You can only get a true accurate calories burn from a heart rate monitor I do believe.
    HRM's are only accurate for steady state cardio. Anything else and the calories burned report won't be very accurate.

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