Calorie Burn According to FitBit

Charlene72385
Charlene72385 Posts: 8 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi There!

Female, 5'4", 30, 135lbs here, no medical conditions. I've had a Charge HR Fitbit. I have worn it consistently since January 20, 2015 except for a week in July while waiting on a replacement. I have looked back at the statistics, and on average, I have 15,415 steps per day which equates to a daily burn of 2414 calories. This includes steps from my very active job and my afternoon walks and 5 weekly runs which vary in distance based on my work schedule.

Does this seem accurate to you? It appears that my calorie burn is higher than what most online calculators say for a moderately active person of my size and age. I am looking to drop about 10-15lbs and have been eating around 1600/day for the past 9 days. I have seen a modest loss, but find myself starving. My macro %s have been roughly 50C/25F/25P.

Thx.

Replies

  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
    Without too much calculating/digging/researching, I would say that's maybe a bit high, but not like crazy far off.

    Your biggest issue seems to be impatience. You've only been at this for 9 days. Don't bother reading too much into your results until at least several weeks have passed.
  • Charlene72385
    Charlene72385 Posts: 8 Member
    I'm not at all disappointed in the weight loss- I've dropped 3lbs which is fantastic. I haven't really changed my eating habits except for weighing everything on my digital food scale and eating to 1600 instead of feelings of being full. I just want to make sure that I'm eating low enough to lose weight. I know 500 deficit per day for 1lb per week. I've been trying to do 700-800 to make up for any scale discrepancies, mislabeled food items (I've heard that labels are allowed to be off by 20% by the FDA), and any hiccups with the FitBit. But I am STARVING! Tummy rumbling, etc.
  • ASKyle
    ASKyle Posts: 1,475 Member
    Try playing with your macro ratios to see if a diet higher in fat or protein makes you feel more full and satisfied than carbs.

    Or, try eating more voluminous foods that physically fill you up without as many calories.

    For me it's fat. Some eggs and avocado is fantastic, but if I had two pieces of toast for comparable calories I would still be hungry.
  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
    Charlene72385 wrote: »
    I'm not at all disappointed in the weight loss- I've dropped 3lbs which is fantastic. I haven't really changed my eating habits except for weighing everything on my digital food scale and eating to 1600 instead of feelings of being full. I just want to make sure that I'm eating low enough to lose weight. I know 500 deficit per day for 1lb per week. I've been trying to do 700-800 to make up for any scale discrepancies, mislabeled food items (I've heard that labels are allowed to be off by 20% by the FDA), and any hiccups with the FitBit. But I am STARVING! Tummy rumbling, etc.

    Ahh...gotcha.

    I agree with the above - maybe play a bit with macro breakdown and see if that makes a difference. Otherwise, you can probably safely add a couple hundred more calories per day and still lose at a healthy rate.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    15,000 steps a day on average would work out to more than moderately active. In my mind, moderately active is about 2 stages above sedentary. For stats, I'm 5'5.5" and 40, and around 130 pounds and tend to burn 1800 or so calories a day with 10k-11k steps per day. I'm older, less active, and my activity is low intensity. So in a general sense: it seems reasonable that you would burn more per day than me. I've found that when I eat below what Fitbit says I've burned, I lose. (Officially I'm in maintenance but was fairly slack over the past few weeks so would like to re-lose a few pounds I picked back up.)

    If you're feeling hungry on 1600/day then increase. Try 1750 or so, and give it 4-6 weeks. 9 days is not enough to judge on weight loss trends, but if your tracker shows 2400/day average CO and you're hungry then nothing wrong with trying to adjust now.
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
    edited December 2015
    i I ate your macros I'd be gnawing my own arm off. 50% carbs, wow! I found 35-40% protein, 30-35% fat and the rest carbs worked way better for me. (with full disclaimer that I'm giving Ketogenic eating a good go as a test to see if it helps with my arthritis pain so currently my macros are 75% fat,18% protein and 7% carbs... and find I struggle with that "low" of a protein intake honestly)
  • pineygirl
    pineygirl Posts: 322 Member
    I think my fitbit Charge HR gives me crazy high calorie burns. I'm 5'1 and 121 lbs. Yesterday I supposedly burned 2544 calories. Lol...no.

    I took about 19,000 steps and did a little cardio and did a little strength training. Nothing crazy and workouts are about 45 minutes each.

    On a lazy day I'll take about 15,000 steps and only do cardio and I'll burn 2200-2300 calories....supposedly.

    I leave an extra 200 to 400 calories as a buffer on top of my 500 calorie deficit. So far I'm losing about 1lb/week. So I think my calculation is pretty accurate.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    edited December 2015
    I'm 5"8, 150lbs and fitbit gave me 3,189 calories the other day for 31,150 steps :open_mouth:

    And this is after I took off an inch from both my stride length and height to account for any overestimating
  • Charlene72385
    Charlene72385 Posts: 8 Member
    For example, today I ran 7.25 miles in 1:11:00 and it said I burned 674 calories. This was not a very hilly run, according to my running GPS, I climbed 278 ft. I ran at an even pace and only got stuck at one stop light for about 20 seconds. I've always estimated my runs which are paced anywhere from 8:00-10:00/mile at 80 calories per mile, or about 580 for today's exercise. I guess I should subtract about 10% from FitBit's total?
  • tiffkittyw
    tiffkittyw Posts: 366 Member
    I keep hearing people talk about stride length. I've seen the option to add stride length before but don't know how to figure it out. Can anyone tell me how to determine my stride length? Thanks!

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