Jawbone UP: Are the calories accurate?

brandon_moser
brandon_moser Posts: 22 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi Fitness Pals,

I'm beginning to seriously use my Jawbone (bought in October but fell off the wagon). I have it synched to MyFitnessPal, where it automatically adds "calorie deficits" into the Exercise portion, just like if I manually added my exercise.

My question is how accurate is it? For example, I'm a 250lb guy. I took a full 60 minute walk on the treadmill this morning at 3.3 MPH. At the end, UP reported that I burned 98 calories.

98? Really? For an hour? I thought I averaged about 100 calories every 15 minutes of exercise-walking.

Does anyone else have any experience with this?

Thanks in advance,
Brandon

Replies

  • cherylgilbert
    cherylgilbert Posts: 1
    Did you ever get an answer to this? I just switched from a fitbit to the jawbone up and the calories it says I've burned for the same number have steps have dropped depressingly low. Is this accurate?
  • omgitscharlie
    omgitscharlie Posts: 12 Member
    OP- did you adjust the intensity level? It's always defaults to 'easy'. I generally adjust mine to 'moderate' for most workouts I time.
  • jcb1179
    jcb1179 Posts: 16 Member
    omgitscharlie wrote: »
    OP- did you adjust the intensity level? It's always defaults to 'easy'. I generally adjust mine to 'moderate' for most workouts I time.

    I agree, take a look at the intensity and change it to what you feel you did. Also make sure you are putting in the correct activity type.
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    It's virtually impossible to know.

    Log your food as accurately and completely as you can every day for a month. Use your jawbone to estimate calories burned. At the end of a month, compare your actual results to your expected results.

    If they are close, then your estimates (both cals in and cals out) are reasonably accurate. If they aren't then tweak something and repeat the process for another month.
  • MikeInAZ
    MikeInAZ Posts: 483 Member
    No they are not even close.

    I use a Polar H7 HRM and I find it depends on what is actually calculating the calories varies a lot.

    With the H7, I connect it to my Polar FT7 watch, to the Polar Beats App, the DigiFit App, and the treadmill at the gym. All of them give me different readings for the same workout. The lowest to the highest is almost 30% difference.

    I'm a strong believer of using a HRM (vs a fitness band). I think that the HRM is going to give you a much more accurate reading. The fitness tracker is nice to track steps and your overall activity (time) in the day. It's going to be really difficult to get a REAL ACCURATE calorie reading. So just know that it's going to be close enough. But the HRM - IMHO - is a lot more accurate than the UP!

    Check out the Polar H7 - http://bit.ly/polarh7
    Check out http://www.digifit.com

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