Does anyone use an Apple Watch to count exercise calories?

Utahgirl12
Utahgirl12 Posts: 172 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I've just started (again) yesterday and thought it may be beneficial to use my Apple watch to sync my calorie burn directly to MFP. This works by taking my heart rate every few minutes and counting those over a certain heart rate as exercise. I tried it out today for the first time. I did 20 mins on the rower and then about 30 minutes of various activities, planks, squats, donkey kicks, etc etc. This was all recorded as just 160 calories burnt as exercise onto MFP. What do you think? I know if I had logged them as manual entries they would probably have come out a lot higher, but also know they tend to be over inflated. In this way I'm quite happy in them being on the low side. I intend eating about half of them back.

What do you guys think? Anyone else use an Apple watch for this?

Replies

  • RosieRose7673
    RosieRose7673 Posts: 438 Member
    I use the Apple Watch! It seems to work great (most of the time). It does take it a few days to get to "know" you- that's what I've heard. It'll get more accurate as time goes on.

    I've been using mine since Christmas and it seems to have gotten pretty consistent and accurate. When you see the active calories from an exercise, it does not include the calories burned from just existing. It does show the total calories burned in a smaller font on the right hand side. The calories do look a bit low from the exercise still but I'd rather have that than over exaggerating them!

    My Apple Watch did have a spazz attack a few days ago when I was running at a faster than normal pace. It had the exercise calories jump very high with an insane pace (it said I was running a 4.5 minute mile-no way). But it has gotten back to normal. Not sure if that was due to the new update or it just not being used to me running that fast.

    Overall, I love the Apple Watch! I only take it off to shower and sleep!
  • tdeaux
    tdeaux Posts: 36 Member
    The way to get a more accurate calorie expenditure is through a HRM that goes around your chest. However, I have found that my Apple Watch is pretty darn close to a chest one. When I was using my HRM, the calories burnt we way lower than MFP. The MFP numbers are definitely over inflated, imo. It's kind of a shock because you don't burn as many calories as you think you would.
  • ASKyle
    ASKyle Posts: 1,475 Member
    Utahgirl12 wrote: »
    I've just started (again) yesterday and thought it may be beneficial to use my Apple watch to sync my calorie burn directly to MFP. This works by taking my heart rate every few minutes and counting those over a certain heart rate as exercise. I tried it out today for the first time. I did 20 mins on the rower and then about 30 minutes of various activities, planks, squats, donkey kicks, etc etc. This was all recorded as just 160 calories burnt as exercise onto MFP. What do you think? I know if I had logged them as manual entries they would probably have come out a lot higher, but also know they tend to be over inflated. In this way I'm quite happy in them being on the low side. I intend eating about half of them back.

    What do you guys think? Anyone else use an Apple watch for this?

    This number sounds about right to me!
  • Utahgirl12
    Utahgirl12 Posts: 172 Member
    Thanks guys. Another thing I've noticed tonight is my activity wheel on my Iphone shows 414 active calories , yet MFP only shows 271 exercise cals? Any ideas as to the discrepancy? This all goes to show me as to how much I need to add my exercise level, as 3500 calories = a pound loss?? Also it emphasises to me how much it is all centred around diet! I appreciate your responses.
  • RosieRose7673
    RosieRose7673 Posts: 438 Member
    MFP sometimes takes a little bit of time to update exercise calories from the Apple Watch. I've noticed that it doesn't add all the move calories from my Apple Watch (usually 100-200 less than what the move app shows).

    I believe this is because the activity level on MFP accounts for some of those calories. I set my MFP at sedentary. So I figure that it already includes some minimal movement and then it adds on anything above that.

    I've also found that at the end of the day, the difference in calories burned from MFP and Applewatch is only a difference of 100ish (more calories showing burned from Apple Watch). I just look at the base calories and exercise calories from MFP and add 500 (I'm set to lose 1 lb a week) and voila... That is what MFP thinks I burned during the day!

    Hope that makes sense!
  • Utahgirl12
    Utahgirl12 Posts: 172 Member
    Thanks RosieRose, I was just looking at today's stats now.....my activity monitor on my i phone shows total cals of 1970, of which 384 are active. only 238 are synced across to MFP though. so that's much like you said.

Categories