Jawbone UP3 - really high active calories?

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blues4miles
blues4miles Posts: 1,481 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Not sure if anyone can help or has experience.

I just got an UP3 a couple days ago. A big part of me getting it was to track my sleep. But I thought why not sync it with MFP. However, I noticed it was giving me really high exercise calories. At first I thought it was an issue with MFP, but then I looked at the UP app itself and it gives me just a really high 'active burn' for my steps.

On Monday it gave me 20,507 steps for a total active burn of 2,278 calories combined with a total resting burn of 1,421 calories. On Tuesday it gave me 20,911 steps for a total active burn of 2,007 calories and resting burn of 1,409 calories for a total burn of 3,416.

I feel like the steps are probably accurate. Google Fit has been tracking my steps just based on my phone being in my pocket and I typically get 17k on days where my activity is similar to the last two and I know there are plenty of times I get up and get water or something without the phone in my pocket so it makes sense it would be a little more. These two days are typical week days for me, I generally walk ~3 miles at lunch at a fairly slow pace that takes me more than an hour and these days both included jogging ~3 miles after work for again a really slow jogging pace (~4mph). Yesterday it recognized my walk as an activity and asked me to confirm what I did. It estimated the walk as about 3.2mi which I think is pretty close to the total distance and said it took me an hour and 19 minutes. So I feel like the distance and the steps are pretty accurate. But then it gave me 622 calories for that walk. That seems rather high, doesn't it?

When I set it up I gave it my gender (female), height 5'4", weight 190 lbs, and age 31. I think now that it's syncing with MFP it's grabbing my last MFP weight which is 191.4 if that makes any difference. I am tempted to turn the sync off since yesterday it gave my MFP an EXTRA 1,455 exercise calories for my 20k steps. If I had manually input my walk and run it probably would have been 600-800 calories for the whole day extra. But I'd still really like for the UP itself to have reasonable data that I can use. I've been losing weight slower than the math says I should, so I KNOW this inflated burn can NOT be accurate (or I would be losing like 1 lb every 2 days). I also tried changing my MFP settings from sedentary to active but that didn't have any effect on what the UP was doing. Anyone have any experience with the UP? Anyone able to get their numbers reasonable?

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  • Talan79
    Talan79 Posts: 782 Member
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    I have a Jawbone UP2. 20K+ steps is very high. That's like 10 miles a day. Even if I run 5 miles, don't get up to 20K. I've had mine for over a year. I have noticed that if I enter weightlifting for like 45 min, the burn calories are twice what MFP gives. I like to underestimate vs over estimate. I use mine bc of the silent alarm. I don't care about how many steps I take. I calculate my daily burn with other calculations and keep and excel sheet.

    As far as the activity level is MFP, your supposed to set that according to your daily activity before exercise. Like a desk job, vs a nurse or waiter, who is on their feet and walking around all day. I work out 6 days a week and have it at sedentary.
  • lps1dragonfly
    lps1dragonfly Posts: 111 Member
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    the more you input what you do on UP and even if you use the stop watch a few times it will adjust to your movements. There is (or was) a way to calibrate it to your steps but I forget how. I had an UP24 then the UP2 and for about 3 days now I haven't had anything. I love the UP app so much but considering I went through 2 in barely over a year I may go with a FitBit or Garmin. I just don't know yet as I have had such great success and enjoyment out of my UP.
  • blues4miles
    blues4miles Posts: 1,481 Member
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    Thanks guys for your responses.

    @Talan79 I typically walk 3.25 miles at lunch, run 3 miles after work, with about a 1 mile round trip daily from the parking lot to my office (I've used my Garmin to get all these distances not a step counter). So 7.25 miles plus miscellaneous trips to the bathroom or getting up to get water, would that make sense for 18-20k steps? I also use an excel spreadsheet (nerds unite!) Prior I would input in 2.5 mph for my walk (probably closer to 2.75 mph, but close enough) into MFP and use my Garmin for the calories from my run. But lately I've been manually changing the calories MFP gives me for ~3 miles to a much lower number, the .3x(weigh in lbs)x(miles walked) calculation instead. And using 90% of what my Garmin gives me. I was hoping I could sync the two and get decent numbers from my UP but it seems like probably not. I've un-synced the two for now.

    @lps1dragonfly I had trouble deciding between the FitBit, the Garmin and the UP. I use a Garmin to track my runs so that felt like the logical choice. But the sleep tracking and the app were what sold me on the UP.
  • Talan79
    Talan79 Posts: 782 Member
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    I think 2,000 steps is supposed to be one mile. I'm guessing height and stride length would make a slight difference. The treadmill I run on at the gym is pretty new, when I input weight, Im about 80 calories per mile. Which lines up with what MFP tells me.
    I keep an excel sheet as well lol. Keep tracking. Once you have two weeks or so in, you will know if the calories burned are overestimated or if they line up with your progress.
  • lps1dragonfly
    lps1dragonfly Posts: 111 Member
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    blues4miles wrote: »
    Thanks guys for your responses.


    @lps1dragonfly I had trouble deciding between the FitBit, the Garmin and the UP. I use a Garmin to track my runs so that felt like the logical choice. But the sleep tracking and the app were what sold me on the UP.

    I think when or if I leave UP that is what I will miss the most; the sleep tracking. I love the app!! I really think I'll be a FitBit user though. Most people in my physical daily life have one and I could do duels/challenges and we can support them better I think.
  • nresonbrown
    nresonbrown Posts: 3 Member
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    This might be relevant: I've noticed my UP3 calorie adjustments have gone WAY up recently, such that walking about 4k steps yielded a 2k calorie burn. That's not how it used to be for me. Perhaps there's some new bug related to this?

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