Apple Watch

What kind of activity are you doing to get that kind of supposed burn?

If you're doing strength training, then the numbers are WILDLY inflated:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30768553/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34977570/

A couple other tidbits perhaps worth considering:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4974868/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34957939/

I'm not being snarky when I say this: You know the watch is accurate for you on average, in context of your personal food logging practices, when you follow it the watch's estimates for 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual periods, for women) and observe that your body weight behaves as expected given your logged calories.

Keep in mind that your base MFP calorie goal includes some movement calories in its estimate (how much depends on your activity level setting). Depending on what Apple includes in the move calories, you may not be able to add all of the move calories from the watch as your exercise activity.

Banx is right, if a fitness tracker uses heart rate to estimate strength training calories, it can be quite far
wrong. (Not all trackers use heart rate to do that these days, I'm not sure about Apple.)

Does that mean it's accurate for cardio? No, not necessarily. Estimates based on heart rate can be somewhat close for moderate steady state cardio, are more likely to be wrong for intervals (especially high intensity intervals), high intensity steady state or quite low intensity steady state cardio. Again, some trackers don't exclusively use heart rate alone to estimate all types of cardio these days, but I don't know about Apple.

On top of that, most trackers use age estimates of your maximum heart rate, and those HRmax estimates are inaccurate enough for a large minority of the population that that can throw off the calorie estimates, too. Fitness level differences between people can also cause distortion of heart-rate-based calorie estimates. Some trackers "learn" some things about your fitness level, but it's not perfect. Again, I don't know what Apple does.

Just for fun, if you do a variety of things of different types and intensities, it's possible (not guaranteed) that your tracker will be over on some estimates, under on others, end up pretty close on the overall total. It's a cr*pshoot, exercise estimating, in a lot of ways. It can be done accurately enough to be useful, but mainly in a context where you compare your weight management and eating numbers with your watch's estimate to know how well it estimates you.

For me to burn 1000 calories, doing things for which I have decent-ish estimates, I'd have to be (say) machine rowing fairly intensely for over two hours, at a pace I could actually just manage to sustain for an hour, not sure about 2 solid hours straight. Rowing tends to be a good calorie burner.

For strength training, 178 calories could maybe be reasonable if you did it for something in the vicinity of an hour or a bit more, if rep/set type strength training, as a wild ballpark guess. Fast-paced circuit training type stuff, maybe a shorter time for those calories.

retta87 wrote: »

So do you think the move calories on the Apple Watch are correct? Lately I’ve been hitting over 1,000 everyday or at least 900. I feel burning like that I should be seeing results faster? Or maybe not. I just feel like I should be getting thinner at a faster rate. My diet is fair. I cut some things out like pop and adding more veggies and fruits to my diet. Not a crash diet or anything strict just more of my focus is on being healthier. So would you say the move ring is close to accurate?

Here's the thing: What you cut out or added may be good and useful nutritionally, but how fast you "should" be losing is a matter of how many calories you're eating, compared to how many calories you're burning, in total. Whether your eating is healthy or junky may affect your energy level so affect your exercise intensity, and poor nutrition could also limit performance in the longer run, but for weight loss, calories are what matter. MFP's or a watch's or TDEE calculator's calorie estimates, are just that, estimates: They'll be reasonably close, for people who are close to average. People can vary. Our weight loss experience tells us if we're average or not. Our food logging accuracy plays into that, too.

To lose weight by using the calorie counting method, count the calories as accurately as you can, observe your results over at least one or more full menstrual periods (comparing body weight at the same relative point in each), and adjust your calorie goal based on the results. It's fine to be more approximate and casual about counting, but results will be more unpredictable, less clear how to adjust.

retta87 wrote: »

I seem to have to eat less calories that is given to me in order to lose weight. Unless I was to eat vegetables all the time lol and I just don’t have the stamina for that

pkeye wrote: »

I currently use an Apple Watch SE integrated with MFP and my weight is finally coming off again. Another popular program that I used previously grossly overestimated calories burned using a Fitbit, but the Apple Watch/MFP is right on and I am eating within my daily calorie allotment.

Basically, the estimates from MFP are for "an average person" as defined in research studies about calorie expenditure. The same is true of TDEE calculators on the web and elsewhere (TDEE = total daily energy expenditure, what a person burns in a day from all aspects of calorie burn, from just being alive, through daily life, and some other small stuff).

The trackers (like your Apple, or my Garmin) use the same type of research, but can give us more personalized, tailored estimates. Instead of a single activity level setting (like MFP and most TDEE calculators), the trackers can use other details (heart rate, arm movement, speed/distance from GPS, etc.) and research about that, too. That can potentially make them more accurate, but it's still based on assumptions about an average person, in that context.

We're not all exactly average. The research studies suggest that most people are close to average. (For the statistics geeks reading, the standard deviation is small, or the bell curve is tall and narrow.)

But some people are noticeably off from the average, can be high or low. You may be one, since you're finding that your weight loss requires you to eat a little less than predicted. A very, very rare few people may be quite far from average, still (theoretically at least), higher or lower. It's quite unusual to be far off from average.

Now, clearly, there are other sources of errors in the tracking and estimating processes, besides "non-averageness" - all the heart rate stuff we discussed earlier in the thread. But "non-averageness" is a real factor, and many people don't understand that.

Why are people "non-average"? It may not be obvious. Maybe they fidget more or less than average. Maybe their body composition (fat vs. lean tissue percents) is different from average, and most estimating methods don't take that into account. Maybe there are genetic factors. It could be lots of things. It can even be their personal logging practices have some systematic error that they're not aware of, and they really are average if a lab measured their calorie expenditure.

So, sure, even if you (or anyone) is logging perfectly, they can discover that their estimate (tracker or otherwise) tends to be high (they need to eat less to reach a given loss goal), low (they need to eat more than predicted for the same loss goal), or pretty darned close.

Results are the best personal guide.

For me, the same Garmin brand/model that works for others (as reported here on MFP) underestimates my calorie needs by several hundred calories daily (25% or so), when I compare it to my almost 7 years of calorie and body weight tracking. MFP underestimates for me by around the same amount. That's unusual, but it can happen.

It doesn't surprise me at all when someone finds that their tracker is consistently high or low vs. their experience. But for a lot of people, the overall estimates they produce will be darned close. Only tracking carefully for a while can figure that out for a person.

retta87 wrote: »

It’s probably the coffee creamer LOL that stuff is addictive. Ever so often I measure to see how much I’m drinking. But I’m pretty active. I workout on my own and I have three kids who are all in sports so we’re constantly practicing something.
Do you like your garmin?

AnnPT77 wrote: »

retta87 wrote: »

I seem to have to eat less calories that is given to me in order to lose weight. Unless I was to eat vegetables all the time lol and I just don’t have the stamina for that

pkeye wrote: »

I currently use an Apple Watch SE integrated with MFP and my weight is finally coming off again. Another popular program that I used previously grossly overestimated calories burned using a Fitbit, but the Apple Watch/MFP is right on and I am eating within my daily calorie allotment.

Basically, the estimates from MFP are for "an average person" as defined in research studies about calorie expenditure. The same is true of TDEE calculators on the web and elsewhere (TDEE = total daily energy expenditure, what a person burns in a day from all aspects of calorie burn, from just being alive, through daily life, and some other small stuff).

The trackers (like your Apple, or my Garmin) use the same type of research, but can give us more personalized, tailored estimates. Instead of a single activity level setting (like MFP and most TDEE calculators), the trackers can use other details (heart rate, arm movement, speed/distance from GPS, etc.) and research about that, too. That can potentially make them more accurate, but it's still based on assumptions about an average person, in that context.

We're not all exactly average. The research studies suggest that most people are close to average. (For the statistics geeks reading, the standard deviation is small, or the bell curve is tall and narrow.)

But some people are noticeably off from the average, can be high or low. You may be one, since you're finding that your weight loss requires you to eat a little less than predicted. A very, very rare few people may be quite far from average, still (theoretically at least), higher or lower. It's quite unusual to be far off from average.

Now, clearly, there are other sources of errors in the tracking and estimating processes, besides "non-averageness" - all the heart rate stuff we discussed earlier in the thread. But "non-averageness" is a real factor, and many people don't understand that.

Why are people "non-average"? It may not be obvious. Maybe they fidget more or less than average. Maybe their body composition (fat vs. lean tissue percents) is different from average, and most estimating methods don't take that into account. Maybe there are genetic factors. It could be lots of things. It can even be their personal logging practices have some systematic error that they're not aware of, and they really are average if a lab measured their calorie expenditure.

So, sure, even if you (or anyone) is logging perfectly, they can discover that their estimate (tracker or otherwise) tends to be high (they need to eat less to reach a given loss goal), low (they need to eat more than predicted for the same loss goal), or pretty darned close.

Results are the best personal guide.

For me, the same Garmin brand/model that works for others (as reported here on MFP) underestimates my calorie needs by several hundred calories daily (25% or so), when I compare it to my almost 7 years of calorie and body weight tracking. MFP underestimates for me by around the same amount. That's unusual, but it can happen.

It doesn't surprise me at all when someone finds that their tracker is consistently high or low vs. their experience. But for a lot of people, the overall estimates they produce will be darned close. Only tracking carefully for a while can figure that out for a person.

Yes, I like my Garmin, for a lot of reasons. GPS time/distance is useful for on-water rowing, and it has a setting that accumulates that data in the ways rowers like. It's fun to know distance for my outdoor walks and bike rides. Sometimes the mapping is handy for those, too. Resting heart rate gives me feedback on some aspects of eating and exercise. I get reasonable feedback on other exercise types, since it knows my actual (tested) maximum heart rate - that helps me plan and manage exercise load. It estimates flattering things about my "fitness age" and VO2max: Everyone likes compliments, right? 😉 The watch face is big enough for my aging eyes to read the time, and I've always worn a wrist-watch. It's good-sized, but fairly sleek, so I don't feel as if it makes me look like I'm trying to be a Navy Seal/Commando. And so forth.

I use its exercise calorie estimates if I don't have anything better (I often do).

Its sleep tracking is laughable. (I've had the opportunity to compare it to an in-hospital sleep study - but even before that I knew it was ridiculous. I think trackers generally aren't great at this, but most people don't have good comparatives.) It's way off for me on all-day calorie burn, like I said. It doesn't track stairs well at all. 🤷‍♀️ Nothing's perfect.

retta87 wrote: »

You don’t sound snarky to me. It is a heart rate based Watch. I know I’m order to lose weight with both the app and the Watch I have to eat a bit less calories then what the app says. The app gives me a lot to eat. But I can also look at it that I need a higher calorie burn.
The watch doesn’t add my entire burned calories to my MFP. Only activities that I specifically mark as work out.

I found that MFP takes out for my log exercise but takes my steps away from my exercise. I know that sounded confusing!

Many of the trackers are HR-based, but they are smart enough to know you can't base daily activity burn on HR - that's really inflated.

But some people's daily HR does bounce up into what a device would start counting as exercise, and therefore using HR-based calorie burn, and at the bottom of the exercise range that's still inflated.
Now many devices might turn on a workout automatically and guess what it was - so at least you know it's happening - not sure on Apple, probably a setting.

I commend your desire to not go all extreme on the diet, and starting at the high end rather than seeing how low you can go from the start.

Keep that up and apply Ann's advice and you'll find your numbers that while perhaps not reality based (logging of food could be way off too, right), the difference needed can be found to cause a reasonable weight loss effect.

If curious on what is going on with that Negative adjustment, I just got into it here.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/46708979#Comment_46708979