Apple Watch Workout Issues

Klitt86
Klitt86 Posts: 24 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I just got an Apple Watch and I'm not sure if it's accurately counting my calories burned. I currently am doing the BeachBody CIZE DVDs and when I wore my FitBit Blaze and did one of my workouts for 45 minutes, my calories burned was always around 650-800 calories. Tonight I did the same workout and my Apple Watch logged it as only burning 321 calories, 245 of them being ACTIVE calories.

What is with the big calories burned difference?

Replies

  • MissusMoon
    MissusMoon Posts: 1,900 Member
    Your Apple watch is likely more accurate. An 800 calorie workout for a video of any kind is ridiculously inflated.
  • Anvil_Head
    Anvil_Head Posts: 251 Member
    Trust the watch. Ain't no way you're burning 650-800 calories in a 45 minute video workout. Even 245 could be a bit high, but much closer to the truth at least.
  • Klitt86
    Klitt86 Posts: 24 Member
    Thank you for the honesty. I just wanted to make sure my Apple Watch was being accurate
  • brileylmt
    brileylmt Posts: 199 Member
    Thanks for asking, I was wondering if the Apple Watch was accurate. My calories burned seemed to be so much less than others posting what they were able to burn.
  • Anvil_Head
    Anvil_Head Posts: 251 Member
    beverlyriley900 wrote: »
    Thanks for asking, I was wondering if the Apple Watch was accurate. My calories burned seemed to be so much less than others posting what they were able to burn.

    A lot of people highly overestimate their calorie burns. That's part of the reason why people are often advised to only eat back a portion of their exercise calories.
  • Morgaen73
    Morgaen73 Posts: 2,817 Member
    My wife has an apple watch and she has massive issues with it misreading her heart rate. Apparently her dressing table has a heart rate of 60bpm lol
  • Anvil_Head
    Anvil_Head Posts: 251 Member
    edited October 2016
    Morgaen73 wrote: »
    My wife has an apple watch and she has massive issues with it misreading her heart rate. Apparently her dressing table has a heart rate of 60bpm lol

    I've worn the Apple Watch for just over a year. It does a pretty good job of reading the heart rate during everyday activities and/or steady state cardio, although it will freak out once in a great while. During strength training or any other sporadic activity, the pulse is highly unreliable and jumps all over the place (but HRMs in general are virtually useless for calculating calorie burns from those types of activities, and the Apple Watch is no exception).

    Even though it doesn't do too badly for cardio, I recently bought a Scosche Rhythm+ HRM, which pairs flawlessly with the watch via Bluetooth and is much more reliable/consistent during exercise.
  • louannparker
    louannparker Posts: 3 Member
    I also find my Apple Watch to be unreliable for HR. During a brisk walk mine will read 160 which I know is inaccurate. If it is reading that hi doesn't it follow that the active calorie burn will be too high?
  • rainbowbow
    rainbowbow Posts: 7,490 Member
    Yep, it sounds like it's much more accurate.

    For reference, when i'm running (as hard as i can) and my heart rate is 170-180 CONSISTENTLY I can expect to burn 250-ish calories in 30 minutes. I imagine that cize is less intense than this and that your heart rate was much lower.


    In my opinion (just basing off of what i've seen) it sounds like the number the apple watch is giving you is the correct one.

    best of luck!

    oh yeah, p.s. I cringe everytime i see people with the "I burned 800 calories in 1 hour" logs. Unless you weigh 300 pounds, it's incredibly unlikely.
  • Fitgirllife72
    Fitgirllife72 Posts: 500 Member
    rainbowbow wrote: »

    oh yeah, p.s. I cringe everytime i see people with the "I burned 800 calories in 1 hour" logs. Unless you weigh 300 pounds, it's incredibly unlikely.

    I totally cringe when I see this too.

  • gojaqs
    gojaqs Posts: 471 Member
    Fitbit is notoriously inaccurate (I'm waiting to get my Apple Watch, which is finally waterproof).

    However, very few of my rigorous, I'm-pouring-sweat workouts, are ever more than about 400 calories in an hour (if that), according to my Polar F4 HRM.
  • fattothinmum
    fattothinmum Posts: 218 Member
    The Apple watch calories for workout tend to be realistic, whereas most apps are very inflated.
  • ICameToGetDown
    ICameToGetDown Posts: 958 Member
    I think your Apple Watch is more accurate than the Fitbit or whatever MFP or other apps will give you.
    For me, 56 min of P90, Apple Watch gives me ~350 active calories, Map my Fitness allows 800.

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