Fitbit exercise calories
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Bshmerlie
Posts: 1,026 Member
Last night I walked at 2.5mph for 1 hour and 7 min. My Fitbit Charge HR says I burned 474 calories during that time. I'm 5'5" and 223 pounds. My average HR was about 110-115 and topped out at 120 at the very end. Doesn't that seem high on the amount of calories burned? Am I just that out of shape? My treadmill said I burned 380 although it had no way to monitor my heart rate to get an accurate reading. My step count on my fitbit is spot on. I just want to feel confident that the calories burned is as accurate. What do you guys think?
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For some people they are fairly accurate. You can check it's accuracy by doing the following:
• Go to your Fitbit profile
• Take the 30 Day Average Burn and subtract your 30 Day Average Intake (both show up on your fitbit profile page)
• Step 2 gave you a 30 Day Average Deficit. Multiply that number by 30
• Step 3 gave you a 30 Day Total Deficit. Divide that number by 3500
• Step 4 gave you an expected loss based on your Fitbit calorie burn and your logged intake. Compare this number to the actual scale loss over the same 30 day period.
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I just got it three days ago so I guess I'm gonna have to wait 30 days to accumulate more data.0
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Last night I walked at 2.5mph for 1 hour and 7 min. My Fitbit Charge HR says I burned 474 calories during that time. Doesn't that seem high on the amount of calories burned?
I just want to feel confident that the calories burned is as accurate. What do you guys think?
The only way to verify the accuracy of your Fitbit burn is to trust it for several weeks, then reevaluate your progress. I was shocked how many calories Fitbit said I could eat, but I lost the weight & have maintained for a year—so I know my burn is 100% accurate.
You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users0 -
editorgrrl wrote: »Last night I walked at 2.5mph for 1 hour and 7 min. My Fitbit Charge HR says I burned 474 calories during that time. Doesn't that seem high on the amount of calories burned?
I just want to feel confident that the calories burned is as accurate. What do you guys think?
The only way to verify the accuracy of your Fitbit burn is to trust it for several weeks, then reevaluate your progress. I was shocked how many calories Fitbit said I could eat, but I lost the weight & have maintained for a year—so I know my burn is 100% accurate.
You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users
ive had mine for a few weeks and sometimes im scared at how much it tells me i can eat (not complaining at all haha) so it will be interesting to see if it's accurate for me0 -
For walking, the formulas for calculating calories burned are actually pretty accurate because walking has been fairly extensively studied. In this case, I would be more likely to trust the MFP burned calories than the Fitbit HRM. Your heartrate can be an indicator of calories burned, however it's not completely accurate because heart rate can be affected by many things. What if it was hot while you were walking and your heart rate was 20 BPM higher - do you think you would actually be burning more calories? What if you get fitter but stay the same weight and your heart rate decreases by 20 BPM - do you think your body is really burning less calories exerting the same amount of energy to move the same mass?
In this case, I would log it on MFP and the good thing about logging the exercise in MFP and linking the Fitbit is that the Fitbit will then subtract your expected BMR/TDEE during that time and you'll probably get an even more accurate number. My guess is that you will probably net about 300 calories for the walk after you log it in to MFP and Fitbit adjusts accordingly. I used an online calculator and it came up with 381 burned, so it sounds like your treadmill was pretty accurate - I'm guessing you probably put in your stats on the treadmill?0 -
I would log it on MFP and the good thing about logging the exercise in MFP and linking the Fitbit is that the Fitbit will then subtract your expected BMR/TDEE during that time and you'll probably get an even more accurate number.
Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time.0 -
Last night I walked at 2.5mph for 1 hour and 7 min. My Fitbit Charge HR says I burned 474 calories during that time. I'm 5'5" and 223 pounds. My average HR was about 110-115 and topped out at 120 at the very end. Doesn't that seem high on the amount of calories burned? Am I just that out of shape? My treadmill said I burned 380 although it had no way to monitor my heart rate to get an accurate reading. My step count on my fitbit is spot on. I just want to feel confident that the calories burned is as accurate. What do you guys think?
Fitbit is giving you a "Gross" calorie burn*. So your activity + BMR calories for that time. It's essentially telling you all the calories you burned. Sounds like your treadmill might be giving you NET calories (or the calories just from the activity itself).
I did a quick calculation and you burn about 69 calories in an hour without activity.
So 1 hr 7 mins is about 77 calories for BMR.
474 - 77 = about 397 NET calories for the activity
So really it's not all that far off from your treadmill.
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shadow2soul wrote: »Last night I walked at 2.5mph for 1 hour and 7 min. My Fitbit Charge HR says I burned 474 calories during that time. I'm 5'5" and 223 pounds. My average HR was about 110-115 and topped out at 120 at the very end. Doesn't that seem high on the amount of calories burned? Am I just that out of shape? My treadmill said I burned 380 although it had no way to monitor my heart rate to get an accurate reading. My step count on my fitbit is spot on. I just want to feel confident that the calories burned is as accurate. What do you guys think?
Fitbit is giving you a "Gross" calorie burn*. So your activity + BMR calories for that time. It's essentially telling you all the calories you burned. Sounds like your treadmill might be giving you NET calories (or the calories just from the activity itself).
I did a quick calculation and you burn about 69 calories in an hour without activity.
So 1 hr 7 mins is about 77 calories for BMR.
474 - 77 = about 397 NET calories for the activity
So really it's not all that far off from your treadmill.
I was going to say the same.
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editorgrrl wrote: »I would log it on MFP and the good thing about logging the exercise in MFP and linking the Fitbit is that the Fitbit will then subtract your expected BMR/TDEE during that time and you'll probably get an even more accurate number.
Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time.
Yes, but you will also see a downward adjustment from Fitbit so that your MFP calorie burn for the day matches up with Fitbit, which does the TDEE calculation instead of NEAT. Any time I log exercise, my Fitbit adjustment for the day adjusts down from what it was prior to logging and not just in the amount equal to the exercise that was logged. In the case of OP, I think that if she logged her hour of walking on MFP, it looks like she would get about 340 calories from MFP, then obviously she wouldn't get the 474 from Fitbit, but she would possibly get a negative adjustment from Fitbit if she has it set to allow that, which would bring her net to 300 or less for the walk to account for BMR.0 -
@weird_me2editorgrrl wrote: »
@weird_me2I would log it on MFP and the good thing about logging the exercise in MFP and linking the Fitbit is that the Fitbit will then subtract your expected BMR/TDEE during that time and you'll probably get an even more accurate number.
Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time.
Yes, but you will also see a downward adjustment from Fitbit so that your MFP calorie burn for the day matches up with Fitbit, which does the TDEE calculation instead of NEAT. Any time I log exercise, my Fitbit adjustment for the day adjusts down from what it was prior to logging and not just in the amount equal to the exercise that was logged. In the case of OP, I think that if she logged her hour of walking on MFP, it looks like she would get about 340 calories from MFP, then obviously she wouldn't get the 474 from Fitbit, but she would possibly get a negative adjustment from Fitbit if she has it set to allow that, which would bring her net to 300 or less for the walk to account for BMR.
That's because your Fitbit adjustment is a comparison of calorie burns. When you log exercise on MFP, you increase MFP's expected burn.
Your adjustments are : Fitbit calorie burn - MFP calorie burn = adjustment
Example:
307 treadmill burn today
With it left as only my fitbit tracking it:
2541 expected Fitbit burn
1904 expected calorie burn based on lightly active on MFP
637 calorie adjustment
However, if I log the run on MFP things change:
2541 will still be the expected Fitbit Burn
2211 will be the new MFP expected calorie burn based on Lightly active + logged exercise
330 adjustment
I still get the same amount of calories either way.
1420 + 637 (adjustment) = 2057
1420 + 307 (exercise) + 330 (adjustment) = 2057
Your MFP burn includes BMR. So does your fitbit. IF you manually subtract your BMR from your exercise, then you are also subtracting your BMR on Fitbit's side. You can seriously log 1 calorie burn for 30 mins and your Fitbit will only give you 1 calorie for that time period. Not 1 plus BMR, just 1. You want your exercise calories to include BMR when using a Fitbit or similar tracking device. I mean if you want the extra deficit, that would be a reasonable reason to do it, but it's not necessary.0 -
For walking, the formulas for calculating calories burned are actually pretty accurate because walking has been fairly extensively studied. In this case, I would be more likely to trust the MFP burned calories than the Fitbit HRM. Your heartrate can be an indicator of calories burned, however it's not completely accurate because heart rate can be affected by many things. What if it was hot while you were walking and your heart rate was 20 BPM higher - do you think you would actually be burning more calories? What if you get fitter but stay the same weight and your heart rate decreases by 20 BPM - do you think your body is really burning less calories exerting the same amount of energy to move the same mass?
In this case, I would log it on MFP and the good thing about logging the exercise in MFP and linking the Fitbit is that the Fitbit will then subtract your expected BMR/TDEE during that time and you'll probably get an even more accurate number. My guess is that you will probably net about 300 calories for the walk after you log it in to MFP and Fitbit adjusts accordingly. I used an online calculator and it came up with 381 burned, so it sounds like your treadmill was pretty accurate - I'm guessing you probably put in your stats on the treadmill?
Ok less go into the heart rate vs calories thing---
I do think one would burn more calories on a hot day if their heart rate was 20 BPM higher. Isn't your body burning more calories simply because the heart rate is higher. Isn't the heart rate ultimately what is determining how many calories your body is buring? Example, 300 LB person walking a mile at the same speed as a 100 pound person is going to burn more calories becuase his heart rate is going to be considerably higher than the 100 pound person assuming everything else was equal. The more conditioned that 300 pound person gets through a regular cardio routine he would be able to walk that mile with less energy expensed, his heart rate would be lower and as a result would burn less calories doing the exact same mile that he did when he first started exercising. Am I way off base? I could be... I'm just asking. Any doctors out there who know the answer?0 -
editorgrrl wrote: »I would log it on MFP and the good thing about logging the exercise in MFP and linking the Fitbit is that the Fitbit will then subtract your expected BMR/TDEE during that time and you'll probably get an even more accurate number.
Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time.
Also what is the point of loggin exercise into MFP if the Fitbit is going to automatically do it for you via a calorie adjustment when it syncs?0 -
editorgrrl wrote: »I would log it on MFP and the good thing about logging the exercise in MFP and linking the Fitbit is that the Fitbit will then subtract your expected BMR/TDEE during that time and you'll probably get an even more accurate number.
Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time.
Also what is the point of loggin exercise into MFP if the Fitbit is going to automatically do it for you via a calorie adjustment when it syncs?
Some people do it so it will show in their news feed. Some people do it when logging things like swimming that a Fitbit can't accurately track. I've even seen a few people who have done it and changed the calorie burn to 1. I'm not sure why they want to wipe out their exercise calories, but whatever floats their boat.
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Agreed. Fitbit knows more about me. It knows how many steps, my height and it is quite literally what the Fit Bit is designed to do. MFP doesn't take into account any of that.0 -
thankyou4thevenom wrote: »
Agreed. Fitbit knows more about me. It knows how many steps, my height and it is quite literally what the Fit Bit is designed to do. MFP doesn't take into account any of that.
While I would agree with that, I think OP would benefit from logging her exercise on MFP because it would give her a much lower calorie burn than her Fitbit HRM gave her. If she didn't have the HRM, there probably wouldn't be such a big discrepency. I don't think anyone on here would agree that a 223 pound person would burn 474 calories walking 2.8 miles in 1 hour 7 minutes. MFP would only give about 340 calories given those stats and most people even say to only trust MFP for 50% of it's stated burn. I usually do trust Fitbit and it has been very accurate (weight loss matching up almost exactly with deficit vs. TDEE), but I think the Fitbit HRM can probably be less accurate than the non HRM types simply because adding the HRM adds another factor that is influenced by forces other than the energy required to perform the task.0 -
thankyou4thevenom wrote: »
Agreed. Fitbit knows more about me. It knows how many steps, my height and it is quite literally what the Fit Bit is designed to do. MFP doesn't take into account any of that.
While I would agree with that, I think OP would benefit from logging her exercise on MFP because it would give her a much lower calorie burn than her Fitbit HRM gave her. If she didn't have the HRM, there probably wouldn't be such a big discrepency. I don't think anyone on here would agree that a 223 pound person would burn 474 calories walking 2.8 miles in 1 hour 7 minutes. MFP would only give about 340 calories given those stats and most people even say to only trust MFP for 50% of it's stated burn. I usually do trust Fitbit and it has been very accurate (weight loss matching up almost exactly with deficit vs. TDEE), but I think the Fitbit HRM can probably be less accurate than the non HRM types simply because adding the HRM adds another factor that is influenced by forces other than the energy required to perform the task.
I actually found the versions of Fitbit without a HRM to underestimate my calorie burn by enough that I was averaging an extra half a pound loss per week.
I have the Surge now and it's so far (about 4.5 months now) it has proven to be spot on for me.
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editorgrrl wrote: »Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time.
Also what is the point of loggin exercise into MFP if the Fitbit is going to automatically do it for you via a calorie adjustment when it syncs?
MFP tells everyone to log exercise in MFP because they want page views. No need to log any step-based activity—Fitbit is tracking it for you. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit (that's what I do) or in MFP—never both.
Never, ever log your exercise in MFP as one calorie—exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time. If you want your Fitbit exercise to appear in your newsfeed, post a status update. That way you get the best of both worlds—an accurate burn + likes.0 -
thankyou4thevenom wrote: »
Agreed. Fitbit knows more about me. It knows how many steps, my height and it is quite literally what the Fit Bit is designed to do. MFP doesn't take into account any of that.
While I would agree with that, I think OP would benefit from logging her exercise on MFP because it would give her a much lower calorie burn than her Fitbit HRM gave her. If she didn't have the HRM, there probably wouldn't be such a big discrepency. I don't think anyone on here would agree that a 223 pound person would burn 474 calories walking 2.8 miles in 1 hour 7 minutes. MFP would only give about 340 calories given those stats and most people even say to only trust MFP for 50% of it's stated burn. I usually do trust Fitbit and it has been very accurate (weight loss matching up almost exactly with deficit vs. TDEE), but I think the Fitbit HRM can probably be less accurate than the non HRM types simply because adding the HRM adds another factor that is influenced by forces other than the energy required to perform the task.
???? So there was absolutely no point in getting the Fitbit? I mean...if I'm gonna go off what MFP gives me and then take 50%. That's exactly what I was doing before. You've also been talking about external factors....which there really isn't any as the exercise was done on a treadmill with a 3.5% incline going the same pace the entire time. I was in a temperature controlled room set at 73 degrees.
Again here are my physical stats:
age- 45
female
223 pounds
height - 5'5"
room temp 73 degrees
Also going back to your external factors. Wouldn't a person burn more calories if it was 100 degrees out and this caused the person's HR to go up by 20 BPM? Isn't the HR was of the most important aspects of calories burned?0 -
No math required. Trust your Fitbit! Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit
Enable negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings and set your goal to .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight. Ignore your Fitbit calorie goal and follow MFP's, eating back your adjustments.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.0
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