How accurate is fitbit calories burned?
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Thanks for the answers everyone. My next question is how do you plan ahead food wise if you don't know how many calories you will burn? It seems like it's vastly different for me every day and fitbit doesn't seem to give me and avg calories i should eat (unless it does and I don't know where to find it)0
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DapperDassie wrote: »Thanks for the answers everyone. My next question is how do you plan ahead food wise if you don't know how many calories you will burn? It seems like it's vastly different for me every day and fitbit doesn't seem to give me and avg calories i should eat (unless it does and I don't know where to find it)
Look to the Fitbit app, under the Food tile. It tells you over/under on your calories based on what you've logged and what you've burned so far. It assumes BMR for the rest of the day. Such as right now I've logged 1615 and Fitbit says I am overbudget by 210. (I prelog, though I will end up around 1800 calories in - so in reality, I'm 395 over.) But its also almost 11am, I'm only at 3k steps, and I will walk at lunch and then either walk or run this evening at home. PRetty much, I keep moving until the over/under # on the Fitbit app is something I'm happy with.0 -
No device, even a fitbit, is going to be accurate for everyone. You will need to judge its accuracy for yourself over time by watching your weight gain/loss. Err on the side of caution though, my wife's fitbit was telling her she would be losing weight when she was in fact gaining. It was woefully inaccurate to say the least. We tossed it in the trash and just use our phones with apps now that we like.0
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RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »DapperDassie wrote: »RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »Time will tell really.
Mine was useless the first month and really over inflated the burns. Now it is right on the money for me and I eat back 100%.
I'm in maintenance though.
Try eating 50%. If you lose too quickly increase it.
I'm not worried about loosing too quickly, more just i like eating haha. I've been losing about a 1 lb to 0.5 a lb a week for quite a while now so an increase in weight loss speed would be quite welcomed
excess skin
I'd keep it at that rate.
This. I lost 40lbs in four months, which isn't totally ridiculous, but it was enough of "too much too fast" to give me a little excess skin under my belly. You can't really notice it unless you look, but I see it in the mirror and it annoys me. I've slowed way down since.
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As noted, no device HR is every truly accurate, but Garmin, Polar, TomTom and higher end FitBit devices will adjust and learn based on your activity level. So initially, they all kind of stink, but will get better over time. So get a device that your friends or motivating people in your life use, as that will aid you in staying motivated.
In regards to planning, it's kind of hit or miss unless you have a fairly consistent routine. I personally don't have a consistent routine, so I plan my meals around my calorie goal, and then will add in snacks / meals to help offset if I have any workouts planned. Some days I'll end up going over, other days I'll be way under...overall it works out in the end for me. If you want to be more precise than that, you will need to spend the time analyzing your daily routines and planning out your week for both workouts and meals ahead of time, which I used to do when I had more free time.0 -
I turned that feature off because I don't want to be tempted to eat back calories. I eat what MFP tells me I can have based on my goals and just leave it at that.0
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I turned that feature off because I don't want to be tempted to eat back calories. I eat what MFP tells me I can have based on my goals and just leave it at that.
I purposely have my base calories set very low so that I can eat more or less depending on what I've burned. I used to have my cal set to 1800 and just leave it at that since I'm active throughout the day. Now its set to sedentary and at 1280 so that i need to exercise if i want to eat more. Been working for me. Just weighed in and lost 1.5 lbs this week1 -
A quick and dirty analysis over two relatively short time spans shows fitbit overestimates my calorie burn by 30%.
This will be my starting point when I reach maintenance. For now I only eat exercise calories when I feel unusually tired or otherwise out of sorts.1 -
StaciMarie1974 wrote: »DapperDassie wrote: »Thanks for the answers everyone. My next question is how do you plan ahead food wise if you don't know how many calories you will burn? It seems like it's vastly different for me every day and fitbit doesn't seem to give me and avg calories i should eat (unless it does and I don't know where to find it)
Look to the Fitbit app, under the Food tile. It tells you over/under on your calories based on what you've logged and what you've burned so far. It assumes BMR for the rest of the day. Such as right now I've logged 1615 and Fitbit says I am overbudget by 210. (I prelog, though I will end up around 1800 calories in - so in reality, I'm 395 over.) But its also almost 11am, I'm only at 3k steps, and I will walk at lunch and then either walk or run this evening at home. PRetty much, I keep moving until the over/under # on the Fitbit app is something I'm happy with.
I've looked at that but it still doesn't really help me plan at all. I need a number for the day it telling me over/under isn't neccesarily very helpful esp since its often before I've exercised0 -
CaptainHandsome wrote: »RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »DapperDassie wrote: »RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »Time will tell really.
Mine was useless the first month and really over inflated the burns. Now it is right on the money for me and I eat back 100%.
I'm in maintenance though.
Try eating 50%. If you lose too quickly increase it.
I'm not worried about loosing too quickly, more just i like eating haha. I've been losing about a 1 lb to 0.5 a lb a week for quite a while now so an increase in weight loss speed would be quite welcomed
excess skin
I'd keep it at that rate.
This. I lost 40lbs in four months, which isn't totally ridiculous, but it was enough of "too much too fast" to give me a little excess skin under my belly. You can't really notice it unless you look, but I see it in the mirror and it annoys me. I've slowed way down since.
I unfortunately already have that from pregnancy0 -
DapperDassie wrote: »CaptainHandsome wrote: »RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »DapperDassie wrote: »RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »Time will tell really.
Mine was useless the first month and really over inflated the burns. Now it is right on the money for me and I eat back 100%.
I'm in maintenance though.
Try eating 50%. If you lose too quickly increase it.
I'm not worried about loosing too quickly, more just i like eating haha. I've been losing about a 1 lb to 0.5 a lb a week for quite a while now so an increase in weight loss speed would be quite welcomed
excess skin
I'd keep it at that rate.
This. I lost 40lbs in four months, which isn't totally ridiculous, but it was enough of "too much too fast" to give me a little excess skin under my belly. You can't really notice it unless you look, but I see it in the mirror and it annoys me. I've slowed way down since.
I unfortunately already have that from pregnancy
Nothing unfortunate about it. You made something awesome, I was just fat. What you did was beautiful, what I did was drink too much beer and eat too many tacos.7 -
DapperDassie wrote: »I've read people on here suggesting eating half the exercise calories mfp shows since it overestimates calories burned but what about an HR charge fitbit? How accurate are the calories burned and would i still lose weight if I eat all the exercise calories back?
Very accurate for me. It really varies person to person. I used it to decide on daily calorie intake based on what it said I burned and lost the amount expected.0 -
CaptainHandsome wrote: »DapperDassie wrote: »CaptainHandsome wrote: »RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »DapperDassie wrote: »RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »Time will tell really.
Mine was useless the first month and really over inflated the burns. Now it is right on the money for me and I eat back 100%.
I'm in maintenance though.
Try eating 50%. If you lose too quickly increase it.
I'm not worried about loosing too quickly, more just i like eating haha. I've been losing about a 1 lb to 0.5 a lb a week for quite a while now so an increase in weight loss speed would be quite welcomed
excess skin
I'd keep it at that rate.
This. I lost 40lbs in four months, which isn't totally ridiculous, but it was enough of "too much too fast" to give me a little excess skin under my belly. You can't really notice it unless you look, but I see it in the mirror and it annoys me. I've slowed way down since.
I unfortunately already have that from pregnancy
Nothing unfortunate about it. You made something awesome, I was just fat. What you did was beautiful, what I did was drink too much beer and eat too many tacos.
Haha aw you're sweet2 -
I stopped wearing my fitbit. I found that it was inaccurate during my workouts especially. I did the exact same elliptical workout every day and the burn would vary 200-300 calories sometimes. On days I went harder or longer, the calories weren't lining up. And on days I didn't go to the gym it was reccomending calories wayyyy too low for me. like, it would tell me I only should eat 1650-1700 some days, and I had it set to MAINTAIN weight.
Overall, I could only reccomend them for counting steps, personally. I'm sure others have had accurate #'s though.1 -
I absolutely love my charge HR! I don't think it is very accurate though.
Last week is said my weekly burn was 27,000cals and I only put in 20,000 in food over those 7 days. I weigh and measure everything. I am very meticulous with my food. I've been doing this for 5 years now. In theory I should have had a big loss. But I actually gained .4 pounds. Even if I was way off on a couple of meals when I dined out I should have dropped weight by its calculations. I'm down 100 pounds and have been in a plateau since November of 2016. I so miss those epic 2 pound weeks from the beginning of my journey.
I have a very active job on an ICU. I get 20k steps 3 times a week on my 12 hour shifts. Average 10-15k on off days. I am strength training 4 times a week though and I know over the past 6 months I have become much more toned. Even if my body composition is changing I think it would be hard to be gaining very much muscle on that steep of a deficit. So I'm thinking the daily burn is way off. I never eat back more than 50% of what it tells me I can eat and the scale isn't budging at all.
That being said I still love it. The data motivates me and I have at least been able to figure out what maintenance is by comparing it with MFP. I'm sort of a data junkie and have come to really enjoy the process.0 -
With the apps connected you will minimize your adjustment calories by setting the closest activity setting to reality on MFP.
<5 steps sedentary
<8.5k lightly active
<12k active
<15k very active
Note that the final adjustment is at midnight.
Fitbit assigns BMR * 1 calories per inactive minute whereas MFP assigns 1.x * BMR (1.25 sedentary, 1.4 lightly active, 1.6 active, 1.8 very active respectively1 -
mellowadam wrote: »I absolutely love my charge HR! I don't think it is very accurate though.
Last week is said my weekly burn was 27,000cals and I only put in 20,000 in food over those 7 days. I weigh and measure everything. I am very meticulous with my food. I've been doing this for 5 years now. In theory I should have had a big loss. But I actually gained .4 pounds. Even if I was way off on a couple of meals when I dined out I should have dropped weight by its calculations. I'm down 100 pounds and have been in a plateau since November of 2016. I so miss those epic 2 pound weeks from the beginning of my journey.
I have a very active job on an ICU. I get 20k steps 3 times a week on my 12 hour shifts. Average 10-15k on off days. I am strength training 4 times a week though and I know over the past 6 months I have become much more toned. Even if my body composition is changing I think it would be hard to be gaining very much muscle on that steep of a deficit. So I'm thinking the daily burn is way off. I never eat back more than 50% of what it tells me I can eat and the scale isn't budging at all.
That being said I still love it. The data motivates me and I have at least been able to figure out what maintenance is by comparing it with MFP. I'm sort of a data junkie and have come to really enjoy the process.
Plateaus aren't really a thing.
If your weight has been stuck since November then you are eating at maintenance. Did you set your stride length in fitbit?1 -
whatever number fitbit says I have earned or burned is always much lower than the calories MFP gives me each day. I do not really pay attention to the number, but I am always curious to see what the number is.0
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It's always been accurate for me...1
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My fitbit overestimates my calories by about 300 per day. I completely ignore it. I use it as a watch and to track my sleep.0
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