Fit bit vs Apple Watch
AmberGebell
Posts: 113 Member
Please help! I have used a Fitbit charge Hr for 2 years religiously, It kept breaking so just purchased an Apple Watch 3. The difference in the exercise calorie I get back is crazy. For instance yesterday I worked out at gym for an hour, Did HITT for 20 minutes and steady state cardio for 45 minutes at the end of the day I had 15,000 steps and it only gave me 200 extra calories, When Fitbit would of given me about 500. I am set to Sedetary and to lose a pound a week and when I set up my Apple Watch I put my goal to move 540 calories which I am not even really sure what that equates too. I know everyone always says to eat only 75% of exercise calories back but what if you are only getting 180-200? Please help
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Ahhh I wrote this whole thing and lost it. Anyways, is it MFP giving the 200 calories?
I find that MFP reads less calories from my watch than what the watch says- I attached screenshots, they are from the same day. When I weigh and log and use the Apple Watch calorie estimates I do lose weight.1 -
I was talking to my brother about the Apple Watch the other day because I'm thinking about getting one. He explained to me that it's better then all the other fitness watches out there and is almost 100% accurate. He said it monitors your heart rate as long as you're wearing it and it takes a couple days to adjust to you. Since it's monitoring your activity/heart rate 24/7 it gives you the best calculation of calories burned. Again this is what my brother told me lol I'm new to the fitness watches lol the one I have is $2 on wish ha ha3
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daisyfields79 wrote: »I was talking to my brother about the Apple Watch the other day because I'm thinking about getting one. He explained to me that it's better then all the other fitness watches out there and is almost 100% accurate. He said it monitors your heart rate as long as you're wearing it and it takes a couple days to adjust to you. Since it's monitoring your activity/heart rate 24/7 it gives you the best calculation of calories burned. Again this is what my brother told me lol I'm new to the fitness watches lol the one I have is $2 on wish ha ha
That is also what my Fitbit does tho. It monitors my heart rate for as long as I'm wearing it and I have also been wondering why there's such a big difference in what MFP will adjust to. I like my fitbit and didn't love having an apple watch so I don't wear it anymore but why if they are both monitoring my heart rate constantly are they so much different when it comes to calorie adjustments?0 -
Ahhh I wrote this whole thing and lost it. Anyways, is it MFP giving the 200 calories?
I find that MFP reads less calories from my watch than what the watch says- I attached screenshots, they are from the same day. When I weigh and log and use the Apple Watch calorie estimates I do lose weight.
Yes MyFitnessPal gives me the extra 180 from the Apple Watch, I have added screenshots of the difference in adjustments per Fitbit and Apple to MyFitness Pal, And I am sure you can see my confusion
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I've found my Watch to be generally accurate -- it tends to be on par with what I see from Runkeeper for activity, so I figure that's good enough. But, with that said, I go by TDEE instead of NEAT for determining calories, since my activity is fairly predictable, so I don't necessarily care.
For total burn, I'm actually one of the outliers -- the Watch *under*estimates what I burn from non-workout activity, as shown by the results of lab BMR testing. It tends to be about 20 percent off.0 -
I think the Apple Watch will show the total calories burned over the time frame but then when it syncs to MFP, it will only give you the calories earned above your stated activity level. So if your normal cal burn at sedentary would be 100 and the watch shows you burned 200 during that time, you only get an extra 100 towards your daily goal.3
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It looks like you are logging your exercise too???? unless apple is sending over individual exercises.
Mind you the 795 for 6700 steps from your fitbit seems a bit much unless there was something else in there for exercise such as a bike ride?
The steps <>calorie burn as there can be extra calories in the exercise it logs. So I guess you need to compare apples to apples (no pun intended) and give it a couple days to see what's up.
and as for HRM making it accurate for calorie burn yah no...that doesn't matter...
besides there are no wrist worn hrm that are even close to accurate apple watch included.2 -
I am not familiar with FitBit but have had friends who used them and gained weight using their calorie outputs. I have also had friends say their FitBit said they burned 1100 calories in a hour workout class and personally I get the feeling they may overestimate calories. But that isn't based on any facts1
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I used a Fitbit for years and this past February my husband and I got Apple Watches. There's definitely a learning curve and it takes a bit to not focus on steps but on the rings... now I get pissed when I don't get my 3 rings on weekdays (less so on weekends). I feel like I've been losing better with the Apple Watch and I don't know if its because I'm focused more on activity and not steps or because it counts the calories better or what the deal is, but I definitely like my Apple Watch better.2
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Hurricane_C wrote: »I used a Fitbit for years and this past February my husband and I got Apple Watches. There's definitely a learning curve and it takes a bit to not focus on steps but on the rings... now I get pissed when I don't get my 3 rings on weekdays (less so on weekends). I feel like I've been losing better with the Apple Watch and I don't know if its because I'm focused more on activity and not steps or because it counts the calories better or what the deal is, but I definitely like my Apple Watch better.
fitbit has rings....not sure if it always did..I am into it less than a year now.
My sister has an apple watch...it's a harsh master for standing and activity etc....her rings are very important.0 -
You have to start a workout for it to monitor your heartrate more frequently and pick up your workouts, or yes it is quite sparse with what it gives you. I love the AW, once you get the hang of it you will too. If you set MFP to lightly active AND track exercise I think you will end up with something like what you were used to with Fitbit. I ran both alongside each other for a while, and Fitbit was always about 200 cals more generous a day than AW.2
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daisyfields79 wrote: »I was talking to my brother about the Apple Watch the other day because I'm thinking about getting one. He explained to me that it's better then all the other fitness watches out there and is almost 100% accurate. He said it monitors your heart rate as long as you're wearing it and it takes a couple days to adjust to you. Since it's monitoring your activity/heart rate 24/7 it gives you the best calculation of calories burned. Again this is what my brother told me lol I'm new to the fitness watches lol the one I have is $2 on wish ha ha
That is also what my Fitbit does tho. It monitors my heart rate for as long as I'm wearing it and I have also been wondering why there's such a big difference in what MFP will adjust to. I like my fitbit and didn't love having an apple watch so I don't wear it anymore but why if they are both monitoring my heart rate constantly are they so much different when it comes to calorie adjustments?
Because there is no direct correlation between your HR and your calorie expenditure. Personally, I think all of these daily wear trackers are pretty gimmicky...cool if you're into gadgets I guess, but they're really only going to give you some best guestimate based on whatever algorithm they're using.4 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »daisyfields79 wrote: »I was talking to my brother about the Apple Watch the other day because I'm thinking about getting one. He explained to me that it's better then all the other fitness watches out there and is almost 100% accurate. He said it monitors your heart rate as long as you're wearing it and it takes a couple days to adjust to you. Since it's monitoring your activity/heart rate 24/7 it gives you the best calculation of calories burned. Again this is what my brother told me lol I'm new to the fitness watches lol the one I have is $2 on wish ha ha
That is also what my Fitbit does tho. It monitors my heart rate for as long as I'm wearing it and I have also been wondering why there's such a big difference in what MFP will adjust to. I like my fitbit and didn't love having an apple watch so I don't wear it anymore but why if they are both monitoring my heart rate constantly are they so much different when it comes to calorie adjustments?
Because there is no direct correlation between your HR and your calorie expenditure. Personally, I think all of these daily wear trackers are pretty gimmicky...cool if you're into gadgets I guess, but they're really only going to give you some best guestimate based on whatever algorithm they're using.
exactly...
I like my gadgets...it's motivational but I will never totally trust it's accuracy on my personal calorie burn because it wasn't built specifically for me.2 -
The AW does NOT monitor your HR constantly. It checks in every ten minutes or so unless you are in a workout that you told it you had started.0
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Were you losing according to expectation based on the Fitbit's calories?
Then it was accurate for you and the Apple watch isn't.
Every manufacturer comes up with an algorithm that they believe in & makes sense to them. In order to be mean... possibly even tweaked by marketing considerations.
And assumptions are made based on an average.
Now I may be spreading a rumor that is unfounded but I do believe that there were some integration issues between Apple watch and mfp. Maybe you're the victim of that.
Having said that your own data tells you what is right not what some watch decides.
According to Google Fit I should be gaining ~1.6 lbs a week.
According to Fitbit I should be losing 0.4 lbs a week.
Between the two there's more than a thousand calories discrepancy on average every day. On a tdee of about 2950.
My weight has going down about two trending weight pounds the past year... I would call that pretty close to maintenance.
Make sure that your fitness band or watch is consistent. And adjust based on your own observations.1 -
Look at the discrepancy
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Sometimes I find I have to restart an app or two to get everything to synch right.
If you turn off negative calorie adjustments your exercise burns will start to make more sense and be carried through whole to your top line.
There is a bug between AW and MFP wherein your steps adjustment gets wiped out if you synch a workout. I find that those calories can be the difference between what Fitbit will total for you and what your TDEE plus exercise from AW is. I considered them negligible and chose to let it slide.0 -
MelanieCN77 wrote: »Sometimes I find I have to restart an app or two to get everything to synch right.
If you turn off negative calorie adjustments your exercise burns will start to make more sense and be carried through whole to your top line.
There is a bug between AW and MFP wherein your steps adjustment gets wiped out if you synch a workout. I find that those calories can be the difference between what Fitbit will total for you and what your TDEE plus exercise from AW is. I considered them negligible and chose to let it slide.
So you would disable negative adjustment?2 -
If I am reading @MelanieCN77 's post correctly, it sounds like there is, indeed, a bug in the integration of Apple Watch and MFP.
If Fitbit was working for you correctly, Is there a reason why you HAVE to immediately switch to apple watch if integration is important to you and not working properly as of yet?
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AmberGebell wrote: »MelanieCN77 wrote: »Sometimes I find I have to restart an app or two to get everything to synch right.
If you turn off negative calorie adjustments your exercise burns will start to make more sense and be carried through whole to your top line.
There is a bug between AW and MFP wherein your steps adjustment gets wiped out if you synch a workout. I find that those calories can be the difference between what Fitbit will total for you and what your TDEE plus exercise from AW is. I considered them negligible and chose to let it slide.
So you would disable negative adjustment?
Yes. It really seems like is is not functioning properly if it's deducting so much when you clearly did workouts.1 -
If I am reading @MelanieCN77 's post correctly, it sounds like there is, indeed, a bug in the integration of Apple Watch and MFP.
If Fitbit was working for you correctly, Is there a reason why you HAVE to immediately switch to apple watch if integration is important to you and not working properly as of yet?
Because my fitbit broke 2 times in one year and I really wanted an Apple Watch so I decided to switch0 -
I disabled "allow negative adjustment" ... it ended the confusion. MFP has a fitness calculator and I found that it is within 5 percent of what my fitbit calculates. I tend to push for a much larger than recommended calorie deficit just to eliminate the "margin of error" thing
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AmberGebell wrote: »If I am reading @MelanieCN77 's post correctly, it sounds like there is, indeed, a bug in the integration of Apple Watch and MFP.
If Fitbit was working for you correctly, Is there a reason why you HAVE to immediately switch to apple watch if integration is important to you and not working properly as of yet?
Because my fitbit broke 2 times in one year and I really wanted an Apple Watch so I decided to switch
you are logging exercise on MFP....that is causing issues.0 -
No I am not logging exercise manually on MyFitnessPal, I log in my workout app on my Apple Watch and it syncs to MyFitnessPalAmberGebell wrote: »If I am reading @MelanieCN77 's post correctly, it sounds like there is, indeed, a bug in the integration of Apple Watch and MFP.
If Fitbit was working for you correctly, Is there a reason why you HAVE to immediately switch to apple watch if integration is important to you and not working properly as of yet?
Because my fitbit broke 2 times in one year and I really wanted an Apple Watch so I decided to switch
you are logging exercise on MFP....that is causing issues.
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jeffblunck wrote: »I disabled "allow negative adjustment" ... it ended the confusion. MFP has a fitness calculator and I found that it is within 5 percent of what my fitbit calculates. I tend to push for a much larger than recommended calorie deficit just to eliminate the "margin of error" thing
Thank you! I just disabled “ negative adjustment “ last night, Hopefully that helps. I am still super confused at the step discrepancies. At the end of the evening last night my watch said I totaled 16,000 steps and my health app and MyFitnessPal only said I did 8000 that is half of what I actually did. I am set to sedentary on MyFitnessPal with a goal to lose .5 lb a week and MyFitnessPal gives me 1500 to eat which is still hard to achieve( I am hungry) what do you mean you push for a much larger deficit? I know with other trackers like Fitbit people say to eat no more than 75% of your exercise calories back is it the same with the Apple Watch?
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AmberGebell wrote: »
No I am not logging exercise manually on MyFitnessPal, I log in my workout app on my Apple Watch and it syncs to MyFitnessPalAmberGebell wrote: »If I am reading @MelanieCN77 's post correctly, it sounds like there is, indeed, a bug in the integration of Apple Watch and MFP.
If Fitbit was working for you correctly, Is there a reason why you HAVE to immediately switch to apple watch if integration is important to you and not working properly as of yet?
Because my fitbit broke 2 times in one year and I really wanted an Apple Watch so I decided to switch
you are logging exercise on MFP....that is causing issues.
interesting that apple sends over the individual workouts then...interesting.
and then there is this
"hanks for posting and sorry for any trouble. Please confirm that your steps are syncing between the Activity Watch app and the Activity app on your iPhone. You will also see the Activity app’s data in Health. Check to make sure tat your steps are matching in all three areas. While in Health, please open the Sources tab, and tap on MyFitnessPal to confirm that MyFitnessPal has permission to read your Workouts, Steps, and Walking + Running Distance."0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »daisyfields79 wrote: »I was talking to my brother about the Apple Watch the other day because I'm thinking about getting one. He explained to me that it's better then all the other fitness watches out there and is almost 100% accurate. He said it monitors your heart rate as long as you're wearing it and it takes a couple days to adjust to you. Since it's monitoring your activity/heart rate 24/7 it gives you the best calculation of calories burned. Again this is what my brother told me lol I'm new to the fitness watches lol the one I have is $2 on wish ha ha
That is also what my Fitbit does tho. It monitors my heart rate for as long as I'm wearing it and I have also been wondering why there's such a big difference in what MFP will adjust to. I like my fitbit and didn't love having an apple watch so I don't wear it anymore but why if they are both monitoring my heart rate constantly are they so much different when it comes to calorie adjustments?
Because there is no direct correlation between your HR and your calorie expenditure. Personally, I think all of these daily wear trackers are pretty gimmicky...cool if you're into gadgets I guess, but they're really only going to give you some best guestimate based on whatever algorithm they're using.
I wasn't necessarily saying there was a direct correlation. I was mostly pointing out that the logic applied in the previous comment was faulty, because if that was the reason for AW to be more accurate than my Fitbit would be just as accurate.
They are gimicky but motivational for me. And unlike some my FitBit is quite accurate in regards to my calorie burn... I eat that amount I maintain my weight. By contrast eating what AW told me to had me losing more weight.0 -
AmberGebell wrote: »
No I am not logging exercise manually on MyFitnessPal, I log in my workout app on my Apple Watch and it syncs to MyFitnessPalAmberGebell wrote: »If I am reading @MelanieCN77 's post correctly, it sounds like there is, indeed, a bug in the integration of Apple Watch and MFP.
If Fitbit was working for you correctly, Is there a reason why you HAVE to immediately switch to apple watch if integration is important to you and not working properly as of yet?
Because my fitbit broke 2 times in one year and I really wanted an Apple Watch so I decided to switch
you are logging exercise on MFP....that is causing issues.
interesting that apple sends over the individual workouts then...interesting.
and then there is this
"hanks for posting and sorry for any trouble. Please confirm that your steps are syncing between the Activity Watch app and the Activity app on your iPhone. You will also see the Activity app’s data in Health. Check to make sure tat your steps are matching in all three areas. While in Health, please open the Sources tab, and tap on MyFitnessPal to confirm that MyFitnessPal has permission to read your Workouts, Steps, and Walking + Running Distance."
Yes that is what is so crazy! They are not all accurate, My Apple Watch said I logged 16,000 steps at end of day yesterday and my health app and MyFitnessPal said I only did 8000. So that is half of what I actually did0
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