Apple watch Series 3 accuracy

BlaqueDiamond1989
BlaqueDiamond1989 Posts: 57 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hey guys. I just invested in one of the new apple watches to help me track my daily fitness goals. I love my new watch! This is my first time using a wearable fitness tracker, so it is an interesting experience. This is my third day with my watch, and so far so good. I'm loving the goal achievement rings you can earn by doing certain specified items such as standing, moving, and exercising. It is definitely helping to get me moving more. I find myself constantly checking my watch to see how I am progressing through my work outs and reaching my fitness goals. My question is:

How accurate is the numbers reported from the watch?

When it says I burned 308 calaries on a treadmill, can I believe that number is accurate, or very close to being accurate? I did do research on the watch before purchasing it and the reviews were good. Many times I have heard that the heart rate monitor is pretty accurate. I am always excited to get a notification letting me know that I have achieved another goal, but can I trust what I am seeing? I want to make sure that I am getting the best out of my workouts and that the numbers are as accurate as can be. I want to hear your thoughts on this topic. How has it worked for you? Thanks so much for your feedback.

Replies

  • toxikon
    toxikon Posts: 2,383 Member
    Here's a good read for you: https://9to5mac.com/2017/05/24/apple-watch-fitness-tracking-accuracy/
  • smartin114
    smartin114 Posts: 10 Member
    My Apple Watch seems to be fairly close to accurate. Most days it shows my total calories between 2100-2400 depending on what I did. MFP has me at 1440 calories a day and I’ve lost several pounds over the last few weeks, probably a little too quickly. Sometimes I eat back my exercise calories and sometimes I don’t, just depends on how hungry I am. I’m 5’10”, F, 40 and have to lose 20lbs fwiw. I plan on using my watch to gage my maintenance calories when I get to my goal.
  • tinkerbellang83
    tinkerbellang83 Posts: 9,128 Member
    BlaqueDiamond1989 wrote: »
    Hey guys. I just invested in one of the new apple watches to help me track my daily fitness goals. I love my new watch! This is my first time using a wearable fitness tracker, so it is an interesting experience. This is my third day with my watch, and so far so good. I'm loving the goal achievement rings you can earn by doing certain specified items such as standing, moving, and exercising. It is definitely helping to get me moving more. I find myself constantly checking my watch to see how I am progressing through my work outs and reaching my fitness goals. My question is:

    How accurate is the numbers reported from the watch?

    When it says I burned 308 calaries on a treadmill, can I believe that number is accurate, or very close to being accurate? I did do research on the watch before purchasing it and the reviews were good. Many times I have heard that the heart rate monitor is pretty accurate. I am always excited to get a notification letting me know that I have achieved another goal, but can I trust what I am seeing? I want to make sure that I am getting the best out of my workouts and that the numbers are as accurate as can be. I want to hear your thoughts on this topic. How has it worked for you? Thanks so much for your feedback.

    Accuracy differs from device-to-device and person-to-person.

    The easiest way to find our how accurate it is for you is to pick a percentage to eat back and log your food accurately for a month to 6 weeks, use a trend weight app like Happy Scale or Libra to determine how your weight loss is trending and then adjust the amount of calories you eat back accordingly.
  • MelanieCN77
    MelanieCN77 Posts: 4,047 Member
    I've been using a S2 during my whole weight loss and have used the exercise cals it gives me and successfully lost.
  • BlaqueDiamond1989
    BlaqueDiamond1989 Posts: 57 Member
    I appreciate the fedeback that you all have given. I just have some questions. What does it mean to eat back the calories you have lost? Doesn't that mean I will gain weight if I eat what I have already burned off? What if I'm not hungry? Should I still eat back the calories I have burned? Thanks so much for your clarification.
  • MelanieCN77
    MelanieCN77 Posts: 4,047 Member
    If you set up MFP correctly, the number of calories it gives you to eat to lose weight doesn't factor in any exercise. If you do any deliberate exercise you will be burning extra and can and should eat some or all of those as well.
  • ITUSGirl51
    ITUSGirl51 Posts: 191 Member
    I’ve been using the Apple 3 for about a month. It seems to be correct with Active Calories. I only eat back the calories I burn during the workouts. Only workouts sync correctly with MFP. Any other extra activity really doesn’t sync. Some days I can can burn 750 active calories because I’m shopping, cleaning, cooking and exercising and other days I will have 450 active calories (not much shopping and cleaning). Both days will sync only the exercise calories (about 280-400 calories).

    I’ve noticed it’s taken a few weeks to get used to me. In the beginning it would log 1775 inactive calories and the past week it’s only 1650. The lower number is more realistic for me.

    Be sure the health data on your iPhone is updated with your age, weight and height and take some outdoor walks so it can calibrate your steps properly with the GPS.

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