Fitbit calorie burn

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MissSusieQ
MissSusieQ Posts: 533 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Can anyone tell me how accurate the calorie burn my Fitbit charge HR reports is?

I have all my stats in my Fitbit account up to date, I wear the device as directed and wear it consistently, and I find the heart rate it reports to be very accurate when I check manually.

so on a scale from 'made-up-number-plucked-from-fairyland' to 'stake-your-granny's-life-on-it', how accurate would it be?

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  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    Anywhere in between those two. Some people find their Fitbit burns to be spot on for their weight loss/maintenance, others say that it's way off. I think my Charge HR does overestimate a little bit.
  • jodilynnsanders5104
    jodilynnsanders5104 Posts: 89 Member
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    I find it pretty close.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    MissSusieQ wrote: »
    Can anyone tell me how accurate the calorie burn my Fitbit charge HR reports is?

    Depends what activities you're doing.

    From my understanding of the FitBit algorithm, I'd trust it a little more than rolling a pair of dice...
  • JeanLaw131
    JeanLaw131 Posts: 78 Member
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    I find mine to be pretty accurate.
  • cathysyng
    cathysyng Posts: 21 Member
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    My coworker has begun MFP last month. His goal is to lose 150 lbs. His doctor has strongly advised him to lose the weight for the sake of his health. Everyday he walks an hour and burns 1670 calories. Is that possible? I think he has connected his fit bit to MFP .wondering if fit bit is recording accurately. Could it be that heavier people burn calories faster. I am 135 lbs. Takes me a week to lose 1.5 lbs. An hour of elliptical only burns 560 calories for me
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    cathysyng wrote: »
    Everyday he walks an hour and burns 1670 calories. Is that possible? I think he has connected his fit bit to MFP

    Unlikely.

    Broadly for walking cals per mile is 0.3*bodyweight in lbs.

    So at 160lbs I burn about 50 cals per mile, giving me about 250 per hour given a 5mph walking pace.

    5mph is moderately fast, with most people getting between 3 and 4mph.

    It may be that FitBit is extrapolating from the hour of walking to give an "all day" forecast.
  • cmurph1969
    cmurph1969 Posts: 2 Member
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    cathysyng wrote: »
    Could it be that heavier people burn calories faster.

    Yes heavier people burn more calories for the same exercise you do. His heart will also be beating quite a bit faster so if his fitbit has an HR monitor it will use this in the calculation. I'm 5'11" and 285 lbs, my last walk was for 66 minutes covering 6.5km. Fitbit says I burned 1238 calories, while Mapmywalk had it 835. Mapmywalk doesn't link to the HR monitor in the fitbit so it is only using size/distance for it's calculation. If your coworker is larger than me and walked the same pace he fitbit will report back a bigger burn.

    What is accurate? I really don't know :smile:

  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    cmurph1969 wrote: »
    What is accurate?


    Neither...

    Call it 400 calories, unless you had a significant amount of vertical elevation in that walk.
  • MissSusieQ
    MissSusieQ Posts: 533 Member
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    cathysyng wrote: »
    Everyday he walks an hour and burns 1670 calories.

    he's probably misunderstanding the information his fitbit is giving him - that 1670 is more likely his burn for the whole day.
  • Alarae21
    Alarae21 Posts: 171 Member
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    My Fitbit seems to be quite accurate. Unfortunately I've got to the point in my spin classes that the number Fitbit gives me as a burn is significantly less than that on the bike (which is based on wattage, distance, resistance etc).

    It's probably out a little, but overall it seems pretty good. My TDEE is at about 1600-1700 if I don't do anything for the day, which seems about right for me at 5'3 and 135 pounds.

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