Apple Watch Active Calories

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tabi26
tabi26 Posts: 535 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Has anyone found their watch to be accurate? Mine is definitely not. I did about 90 days where I exercised and watched what I ate and kept my calories within my Apple Watch numbers and I didn’t lose even one pound lol. I did however manage to go from not a runner to being able to run for 25 minutes straight which I thought was incredible!

What I’m thinking about trying now is subtracting the average active calories my watch has recorded for me over the last year (380/day) and then only using anything above that number as actual calories burned for that day.

For example, it my watch says I’ve burned 470 active calories that day, I would only count 90 of those.

Has anyone had success using the calories in any way from their watch or the device just completely out to lunch with its estimates?

Replies

  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,389 Member
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    Any device doesn't measure. They guess based on population averages. This works for some people and not for others. The same is true for exercise calories. If your maxHR deviates too much from the old 220-age then you get rubbish data and calorie estimates. And that on top of using a foodscale and logging everything thoroughly with calories.

    But you have many days of data. Use this data. How many calories did you eat on average per week or month? Here you have your maintenance calories if you're really not lose any weight. Simple solution: eat less than that.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,112 Member
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    tabi26 wrote: »
    Has anyone found their watch to be accurate? Mine is definitely not. I did about 90 days where I exercised and watched what I ate and kept my calories within my Apple Watch numbers and I didn’t lose even one pound lol. I did however manage to go from not a runner to being able to run for 25 minutes straight which I thought was incredible!

    What I’m thinking about trying now is subtracting the average active calories my watch has recorded for me over the last year (380/day) and then only using anything above that number as actual calories burned for that day.

    For example, it my watch says I’ve burned 470 active calories that day, I would only count 90 of those.

    Has anyone had success using the calories in any way from their watch or the device just completely out to lunch with its estimates?

    With what margin did you 'keep within'? Because entirely following those numbers and if they were accurate, you would/should maintain your weight. To lose 1 lb per week, you need to eat about 500 calories less than maintenance, to lose 0.5lb per week it's around 250kcal, etc.

    So if you maintained your weight during those 90 days, eat 250 calories less per day than you were doing before, to lose 0.5lbs per week, etc.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,389 Member
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    Lietchi wrote: »
    tabi26 wrote: »
    Has anyone found their watch to be accurate? Mine is definitely not. I did about 90 days where I exercised and watched what I ate and kept my calories within my Apple Watch numbers and I didn’t lose even one pound lol. I did however manage to go from not a runner to being able to run for 25 minutes straight which I thought was incredible!

    What I’m thinking about trying now is subtracting the average active calories my watch has recorded for me over the last year (380/day) and then only using anything above that number as actual calories burned for that day.

    For example, it my watch says I’ve burned 470 active calories that day, I would only count 90 of those.

    Has anyone had success using the calories in any way from their watch or the device just completely out to lunch with its estimates?

    With what margin did you 'keep within'? Because entirely following those numbers and if they were accurate, you would/should maintain your weight. To lose 1 lb per week, you need to eat about 500 calories less than maintenance, to lose 0.5lb per week it's around 250kcal, etc.

    So if you maintained your weight during those 90 days, eat 250 calories less per day than you were doing before, to lose 0.5lbs per week, etc.

    Oh, well spotted Lietchi
  • tabi26
    tabi26 Posts: 535 Member
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    With what margin did you 'keep within'? Because entirely following those numbers and if they were accurate, you would/should maintain your weight. To lose 1 lb per week, you need to eat about 500 calories less than maintenance, to lose 0.5lb per week it's around 250kcal, etc.

    So if you maintained your weight during those 90 days, eat 250 calories less per day than you were doing before, to lose 0.5lbs per week, etc


    My watch says I'm averaging 1448 resting and then the 380 active on top of that, so 1828/day (currently). I really don't feel as though this is accurate at all. The amount of exercise I was doing during those 90 ish days it no longer feasible as it was going to the gym for 2-3 hours 6 days a week but I no longer am able to have even close to that time commitment right now.

    At that time, my average resting calories were about 1800/day and active calories were around 750/day. I did 2-3 hours of gym 6 days a week then also did cycling or hiking with my dog a few days a week on top of that. So my total expenditure was 2550/day and I was eating around 1900-2000/day. I didn't lose even one pound during that time lol.

    Today, I'd like to lose about 35 pounds but I'm kind of struggling to figure out what my calorie intake should be when considering I have ZERO time for any kind of workout 5-6 days a week. I'm a full time student right now. I have a 1.5 hour drive one way to classes mon-fri. I work from friday at 4pm until Sunday at 4pm and I also have kids I have to fit in there lol.

    Anyway, the only success I've had in the past has been severe calorie restriction, which is something I'm trying to avoid (hence the 90 ish days of crazy exercise but no weight loss, I was trying to make sure I wasn't starving myself by following my watches calorie counts and eating according to those and really just trying to give it the best attempt I could). About a month ago I restricted to 1200/day and lost about 7 pounds in 10 ish days, but that's not really sustainable but also seems to be the only way I'm able to drop any weight.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,101 Member
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    There are a lot of parts to this, but the bottom line is that if you ate at an average of X calories over 90 days, and lost zero pounds, you've found your maintenance calories. Use your personal data to make a new calorie needs estimate, and ignore the watch, mostly: That would be my advice.

    If you change exercise load, use the watch to figure out the approximate change, then monitor and adjust from there.

    The others are right: Fitness trackers are just estimating. It's a more nuanced, personalized estimate than an online calculator will give us, but it's still an estimate. My good brand/model tracker is off by 25-30% for me, around 500 calories daily . . . despite the fact that the same brand/model is reasonably close for others who've written about that tracker here.

    No, it's not that my individual watch is "broken", because I bought a new one to get some workout tracking features after a couple of years (same brand, different model) and it gives about the same estimates.

    I used my personal experience data to estimate my base calorie needs (as described above), and use the exercise calories from my device as a close-enough approximation for most exercise types. (I use other methods for slow walking, power-metered cycling, and weight training.) It worked through about a year of loss, and 7+ years of maintenance since.


    As an aside to all of that, it's very common to under-count calories eaten. According to some decent research, even registered dietitians under-count their own intake, in practice. It's a surprisingly subtle skill. The thing is that if there's some issue with logging, our logging habits are going to tend to average out as being about the same percent off, looked at over a period as long as 90 days.

    Best wishes!
  • minizebu
    minizebu Posts: 2,716 Member
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    There are several things that you should double-check to ensure that your Apple Watch is giving the most accurate estimates possible for you. See this article for details: Get the most accurate measurements using your Apple Watch.

    If your current activity level is low (because of long hours of driving, sitting in class, little activity during work on the weekends, etc.), then my suggestion would be to use your weekly average Apple Watch Resting calories as your calorie intake limit. So if, (after updating your current weight and checking the other items in the article referenced above), your weekly average Resting calories are around 1450 right now, don't eat more than 1450 calories. Don't try to eat back any portion of your Active calories. Try this for a couple of weeks and then reassess. Any Active calories that you are able to achieve through your daily life activities (parking farther away from class or work, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, playing with your kids, taking brief walks, etc.) will be the "gravy" that creates your calorie deficit.

    If, after a couple of weeks, you are losing a small amount of weight that seems to correspond to your Active calories, then you can assume that your average weekly Resting calories are mostly accurate. Or, if you are not losing, then you may need to increase your activity or lower your calorie intake to achieve the deficit required to achieve a modest weekly weight loss.

    I agree that it is very possible to under count calories eaten, so it may be necessary to measure and record more carefully in order to more accurately capture how many calories you are actually eating.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
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    As others have said, you were eating maintenance calories...you just need to cut from that amount by 250 calories or 500 calories for 1/2 Lb to 1 Lb rate of loss. I don't know anything about Apple Watch, but my Garmin gives me total calories for the day...at rest and active...it gives me my maintenance, not a weight loss target. If I eat the calories my Garmin gives me, I'll maintain. I would think your Apple Watch is doing the same thing...your at rest calories plus active calories are your TDEE (maintenance calories)

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