When you set up your Fitbit, it has to guesstimate your burn since midnight. So your first day's burn is always a mess. And I get 2,000 steps just doing laundry.

The only way to gauge the accuracy is to trust your Fitbit for several weeks then reevaluate your progress. I eat back my adjustments, lost the weight, and have maintained for seven months. So my Fitbit burn is my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), aka my maintenance calories.

First day for me as well, thanks for the info regarding the midday mixup. I also use MFP and am curious to see how the tracker affects my caloric balance, can't wait til the weather is nice enough to go for a proper bike ride!

When I first got mine I was curious about the step tracking. So I went for a walk around the block and counted the number of steps in my head. When I got home I synced the fitbit and found it was surprisingly accurate. Experiment with it. Take it for a test ride and see if the steps match what shows on your screen.

Another thing to consider is what your set up your daily activity level to be. This will determine how many calories it adds back in to your day. I do an exercise class before work which front loads about 5,500 steps in my day. Then I sit all day at the office with no chance to get up so mine is marked sedentary (even though I work out in the morning). If you are walking around all day you may actually be getting 11,000 steps in.

As others have said, let it do it's thing for a week or two and then go back and look at the results.

faust2112 wrote: »

I'm not just questioning the step accuracy, but the calories burned also.
Last time I rode my bicycle and logged that route using mapmyride I traveled just under 14 miles in about an hour registering 1113 kCal burned. Flex is telling me I'm burning more than that sitting around in my recliner doing schoolwork, laundry, and going for one walk around the block. I know there is a positive burn happening while I'm awake and the time cycle makes a little bit here and there add up, but 1725 midday through a low impact day vs one hour of rigorous cycling? When I was peaking for activity and weight loss, even 2000+ burned added to roughly 1400 eaten netted me about 1-2 lbs per week lost. I'm still only in my second flex day, but I can't figure how or at what point my physical activity level will have any impact on my calorie allowance.

The Flex is not designed for bike riding. You will get some weird results there. Flex works by detecting your body motion for walking. I can see how a bike would confuse it.

Yes, your basic metabolism burns more than you are aware.

It's the biggest burner of the day, you'd be hard pressed to match it unless you start doing endurance cardio. And likely take 2 hrs to hit it then.

And unless you are very heavy, that calorie burn from MMR for 14 mph for 1 hr is way off too. Now, from your Fitbit burn at midday, it must be higher, but still.
14 mph you don't even start hitting the point that wind resistance becomes the major factor for increased energy use.
Unless you had tons of hills that MMR actually incorporated in the math, which I've rarely found a site that does.

Might compare MMR with this.
http://www.bikecalculator.com/

Here is an explanation from the Fitbit website. If that doesn't help, or you are still concerned with the results, I would suggest picking up the phone and talking to someone at their customer service line. They may be able to help you answer some of your questions better than we can. (877) 623-4997 M-F 4am-8pm // Sa,Su 6am-5pm (PT)


How does Fitbit know how many calories I've burned?
Your tracker and dashboard show an estimated number of calories burned based on your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), which we calculate using the height, weight, age, and gender information that you provided when you set up your Fitbit account. If your tracker measures heart rate, the calorie burn estimate also takes heart rate into account. Note that calorie tracking for the following day begins at midnight and incorporates the calories you burn while sleeping.

When you sync your tracker, Fitbit replaces your estimated calorie burn with your tracker's data. If you manually log activities, the calories burned by during those activities are taken into account as well.

When you haven't synced your device or logged any activities, Fitbit tries to guess how many calories you have burned if you got out of bed, got dressed, went to your day job, came home, and did nothing much more than walk to your car.

Once you start logging activities, Fitbit stops estimating and uses the data you've provided instead. The more you wear your tracker, the more accurate your calorie burn data will be.