Fitbit Charge 2 Accuracy?

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akionabr
akionabr Posts: 21 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Aloha,

I just got a fitbit charge 2 and I absolutely love it! However, I have a question regarding the calorie adjustment it does with MFP. My fitbit claims that I burned about 1394 calories today, and I did move a lot while rearranging and cleaning house as well as shopping, but is this really that accurate? It seems like it claims I burned more calories than I feel it should have or am I just not used to seeing that I burned that much? Usually when I do cardio workouts I top out at about 450 ish calories a session, granted my treadmill doesn't take into account my weight etc.

I'm just afraid that eating back some of these "lost calories" will cause me to gain weight when I am aiming to lose. This is my first time tracking my average daily amount of activity via a tracker like this so I'm not sure whats right or not.

Replies

  • fruoshea
    fruoshea Posts: 46 Member
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    What's your activity level set to in your profile?

    I had a Fitbit Flex for a few years and I found that it overestimated my calories burned, especially when walking. But the main problem, I found, with having it connected to MFP was that things I wouldn't have counted as exercise started adding calories to my daily allowance. So the step-adjustment for walking to the train from my house, walking from the train to work, walking around the office, etc. etc. would add to my daily calories when that's already accounted for in your MFP set-up.

    So what I did was that I set my activity level to Sedentary (which it is anyway since I work in an office) and basically ignored the calories gained from anything I wouldn't log as exercise. So in your example, would you normally log cleaning and shopping? If not I would try not to eat back those calories.
  • fruoshea
    fruoshea Posts: 46 Member
    edited December 2017
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    P.S. Yes, cleaning can burn a lot of calories - depending on what type of cleaning you're doing, what intensity you're doing it at, and how long for. Like most other physical activities :smile:

    I once read an article that said washing all the windows of the Empire State building would burn 4200 calories :wink:
  • akionabr
    akionabr Posts: 21 Member
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    fruoshea wrote: »
    P.S. Yes, cleaning can burn a lot of calories - depending on what type of cleaning you're doing, what intensity you're doing it at, and how long for. Like most other physical activities :smile:

    I once read an article that said washing all the windows of the Empire State building would burn 4200 calories :wink:

    Thanks for the response! I have my activity level set to sedentary as well. I wouldn't normally log my daily activity in MFP. Good to know! We did some intense household cleaning and rearranging all day so it must be close to accurate lol!
  • fruoshea
    fruoshea Posts: 46 Member
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    akionabr wrote: »
    fruoshea wrote: »
    P.S. Yes, cleaning can burn a lot of calories - depending on what type of cleaning you're doing, what intensity you're doing it at, and how long for. Like most other physical activities :smile:

    I once read an article that said washing all the windows of the Empire State building would burn 4200 calories :wink:

    Thanks for the response! I have my activity level set to sedentary as well. I wouldn't normally log my daily activity in MFP. Good to know! We did some intense household cleaning and rearranging all day so it must be close to accurate lol!

    If you go in the 'big' exercise log here on MFP you can find things like cleaning and moving furniture. According to that, if I did 60 min of vigorous, heavy cleaning I would burn 227 kcal and if I moved furniture for 60 min it says I would burn 455 kcal. But that's then if you do it constantly for 60 min, and I know that if I clean at home, some of the effort will be more vigorous and some less. But it's an interesting tool to use to compare your Fitbit result. And I think in general the MFP tool is rather good at estimating calories burned - it's just us users overestimating our efforts. (For example, if I put in that I have done 75 min of boxing, I usually haven't actually boxed for 75 min since the classes are done in pairs and I thus pretty much rest half of the class.)

  • maybe1pe
    maybe1pe Posts: 529 Member
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    Just to add. the longer you wear it the more accurate it gets....
  • Kadoober
    Kadoober Posts: 289 Member
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    Is your Fitbit app telling you that is how many calories you have burned, or is it giving you that many additional calories when it syncs to MFP?

    Example - right now my sync is giving me an additional 373 calories from exercise, which includes my workouts + steps taken over the course of the day.

    But the Fitbit APP is showing my calories burned as 1,499, because once it rolls past midnight it starts estimating how many calories I am burning just by existing, and then adding the exercise calories to that.

    Also what maybe1pe said above... I have only had mine for one week and it seems to be kind of dialing itself in. the first few days I had it I was amazed and appalled at the # of extra calories it was throwing at me. Because of that I am VERY cautious about eating them back right now.
  • Go_Deskercise
    Go_Deskercise Posts: 1,630 Member
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    Make sure you have the negative adjustment box checked in your settings:


    From MFP website:

    If you have linked your MyFitnessPal account to a device or app that measures your total calorie burn (Fitbit, Bodymedia, etc.), check this box to allow negative calorie adjustments from that partner to appear on your exercise diary. Otherwise, only positive adjustments will be allowed.
    Changes to this setting will be in effect only for adjustments received from that point on (past adjustments will not be restated).

    A negative adjustment means that your projected calorie burn for the day from the partner is below MyFitnessPal's initial estimate. If you are unable to sync your tracking device until late in the day, or if you don't consistently use your tracking device, you may prefer not to enable negative adjustments.
  • maggibailey
    maggibailey Posts: 289 Member
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    I am wondering the same thing. I. Set to sedentary and making sure I get 10000 steps a day. Mfp is giving me around 700 extra calories. I’m not sure I trust it enough to actually eat them yet.
  • 0CapeandCowl0
    0CapeandCowl0 Posts: 1 Member
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    I set my max hr to 220 so anything more than a slow walk is fat burn for me. A brisk walk will get me to 110 but 95bpm was too low and scewing my calories. With my new benchmarks its more accurate. You can also turn off hr until you excercise.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
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    Probably more accurate than dice.

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