An Apple watch / Fitbit query

I do not know anything about Apple watch, how it calculates, etc.

BUT some things about calorie adjustments & MFP...

MFP predicts what calories you burn daily based on stats (height, weight, gender, age) and stated activity level.
Fitbit estimates what calories you burn daily based on the same stats and your actual movement.

The difference is the Fitbit adjustment.

So the starting point in your query: does your wife & yourself each have the same activity level selected in MFP? If not, even if you did the same activities all day long then your adjustments would be different.

And your stats are also different. Forgive me for making assumptions, but I am assuming that your wife is female and you are male. And I'm assuming you are each of different heights and weights. These details will also impact your calories burned all day.

There was a big difference when I switched over to Apple too. At first, I didn't care for Apple because I was always such a Fitbit fan. In the end, I thought Apple was a little more realistic for me-- but I removed it from syncing with Myfitnesspal. I just wanted to eat at a certain amount and not have it fluctuate based on how much I exercised.

Make sure she has the function that counts heart rate on during exercises. I turned this off by accident and my numbers were really low.

For me, Apple is super fun because it encourages me to close all my rings-- which I find more satisfying than hitting step goals.

bobbyjg69 wrote: »

I have a Fitbit Ionic and been using this with MFP for a few months now quite successfully. In MFP Exercise, it gives me a calorie adjustment for my Fitbit steps as well as giving me calorie adjustment for an activity other than just normal steps eg running / cycling or walking where I have used the exercise tracker on the Ionic.
My wife (who is heavier than me) has an Apple Watch and I have set her up with MFP last week. In her exercise diary it seems to do similar ie giving entries for exercise and steps but the values are hugely different to my fitbit.
Now I know no two people are the same and different factors come into the calorie burn but today we have spent all day with each other purely to try and get to the bottom of this.
We walked together for 60 mins with the dog - her MFP is giving her 321 calories burned for this but I have got 583.
In total I have walked 15000 steps and I have a further adjustment of 530 calories - she has done 15581 steps and has an adjustment showing of 56 calories.
So in total, I have 1021 calories Exercise on MFP app, and she has 377.

How can that be and which is the accurate figure?

That adjustment is not only exercise, or may not be any. Merely a difference as others pointed out.

So you are comparing adjustment for the whole day, not just the walk.

Fitbit doesn't send workouts over - it's in the total calorie figure it does send.

Apple does send workouts over - and the math between those is different.

Does she have the Apple Watch MFP app installed - or merely telling your phone MFP app to use as step source as Apple watch?
Your synced Fitbit account method is very different from either of those options anyway.

If only looking at MFP figures, the Fitbit connection has better figures.
As far as what did the tracker say the walk burned - many say they think the Apple is better.
But you get that Fitbit tweaked for your stride length so distance is correct, and don't get HR up so much it uses HR-based calorie burn but sticks with distance-based - your Fitbit will be just as accurate for the walk.

Oh I did have another thing to add: Make sure she has her watch on properly. I like mine loose during the day, but I have to tighten it up for my workouts so that it counts my heart rate.

I am very skeptical of my fitbit, it says my daily calorie intake should be 1800 and after I did a 9km walk it said 3840 ;-) If i am to trust it i can have a pig out according to the calorie allowance.

I have a Garmin watch which I deliberately don't sync with MFP. Insteda, when I go for a walk I start the watch and then when I get home use the time and distance to work out what speed I have walked - it can vary from 3.5mph to as low as 2mph, depending how much shopping I am carrying, whether I'm with my (tall, young) son or (older, less fit) husband etc. I then log the time and speed on MFP (e.g. 25 mins at 3mph) to get my exercise calories. You get a lot of people saying MFP "overestimates calorie burn", but I have lot weight and maintained for over 7 years using their estimates, and used the Garmin to verify my walking speed for over 3 years now so they can't be that far off, when in contrast I have seen many Which? (UK consumer assoc) reviews saying fitbit is not accurate and can overestimate by up to 40%.

mazdauk wrote: »

I have a Garmin watch which I deliberately don't sync with MFP. Insteda, when I go for a walk I start the watch and then when I get home use the time and distance to work out what speed I have walked - it can vary from 3.5mph to as low as 2mph, depending how much shopping I am carrying, whether I'm with my (tall, young) son or (older, less fit) husband etc. I then log the time and speed on MFP (e.g. 25 mins at 3mph) to get my exercise calories. You get a lot of people saying MFP "overestimates calorie burn", but I have lot weight and maintained for over 7 years using their estimates, and used the Garmin to verify my walking speed for over 3 years now so they can't be that far off, when in contrast I have seen many Which? (UK consumer assoc) reviews saying fitbit is not accurate and can overestimate by up to 40%.

In contrast to Fitbit (currently, maybe they are updating their firmware which would be smart), Garmin for walking or running uses both distance-based and HR-based calorie burn formula - haven't seen which is given precedence or weighted more in the formula, but from my calcs is heavily the better distance-based. (same method the database uses for chunks of pace)

That prevents the issue that any HRM-based calorie burn would have when your HR is just barely above daily activity level like exercise walking, barely into the aerobic exercise level - where inflated calorie estimate will occur.

The reason many like to sync is to get corrections to their daily activity level that can vary greatly, that way no guess from 4 rough levels, but a 1000 levels or more.
In that case while the adjustment may show up under Exercise, it's not a database exercise being added to your already accounted for day, it's more daily activity being added which is totally valid. So the claims of taking 50% off don't apply.

You have probably had success because like many, the overage of the exercise being added to the day, makes up for the daily estimate being low due to wrong activity level. Average usage can balance out like that nicely.

Ya, those Fitbit studies were for the exercise portion, and they slapped the device on someone for a workout, without it getting the 1-2 required weeks to adjust to the person first.